Therm-a-Rest - Military Self-Inflating Sleep Pad

The Thermarest self inflating is rubbish. Just some thin foam that helps to expand and suck air into the pad. But you still need to inflate it further. My exped mat is filled in a minute with the pump sack.

We use fold up carton type mats as our base. Then in our tent we have Sea to Summit self-inflating bed rolls. Our kids have the same base and use Therm-o-rest self-inflating ground mats. We find as long as we stay on the self-inflating mats, we’re pretty comfortable. The ther-o-rests are almost 20 years old and still in great shape. We upgraded to Sea to Summit because they fold up so small for backpacking

The classic self inflating thermarest pads are very comfortable and durable, particularly if paired with a cot

I just switched from expensive Thermarests over to these crazy cheap Night Cat hand pump pads and I am never going back to thermarest/self inflation. My arm goes dead without fail sleeping on the Thermarests and they take up nearly twice the room in my gear. The only benefit of the Thermarests I can see is that they are really tough, which could be great for some hardy adventures maybe. But nothing a couple patches can't fix IMO... So Choo choo I'm on the air pad train. These newer cheap designs are legitimately very good, they roll out crazy long and then shrink up. I probably can't share amazon links but "Night Cat Inflatable Sleeping Pads". There's a bunch of brands making this style now too, I'm not trying to spruik any particular brand, this was just the one that was affordable where I live.

I use Thermarest pads, have for years, I store them deflated and rolled up, the self inflating feature works fine for me but it takes a little time, just unroll them as soon as you get to the campsite and leave the valve open until you’re ready to sleep, it may need a little topping up by blowing but not much

I have had to sleep on some pretty rocky spots before. Firstly, I would gather any fallen twigs leaves and foliage to try and even out the floor and take the edge off the sharp bits. Then ideally I’d put a CCF pad down before getting on a thermarest inflatable. But I have bivied directly on some hard rock platform with just a bivi bag and an uberlite between me and the ground. It was piles of dead leaves and thin branches that made the difference. Turned out okay. I was doing an ultralight fast packing trip and was in the middle of some nasty forestry tree plantation on a steep slope by the time the sun was going down. Decent spots were very rare so I ended up sleeping on top of an out cropped boulder.

Both times I’ve hiked the PCT my thermarests have popped in the desert . The first time it was an older thermarest that had already seen a bit of action . The second time it was early on in my hike and it was the one I’d replaced the previous one with! After that I went CCF pad and was absolutely fine with it. In many ways, I prefer it.

For me the thermarest warranty has been worth its weight in gold, it’s an inflatable product that’s exposed to the elements, they’ll all get damaged eventually but every interaction I’ve had with them has been amazing, no questions asked replacement or repair

Me and my husband sleep on an air mattress with seperate blankets and sleeping bags, before that we had two thermarest that aired up

Have you considered a camping cot? There are a lot of ultralight options now which are about the same price as a good sleeping pad for side sleepers. The only difference being is the weight, you’re looking at around 1.5kg for a cot bed which would be double the weight of a sleeping pad. For me, the extra weight is worth it for the comfort. For context I’ve tried Therm-a-Rest, Big Agnes and Nemo mats. If I’m going for comfort, the cot bed wins every time.