NeoAir Camper Duo

Personally I am UL-allied and accommodate my cranky needs despite that ruining my BW. So will not react in horror. I haven't tried this but my wife and I use a Duo and love it; personally I'd try the shorter one; and if it doesn't work out swap up. (I still use the crinkly Thermarest UL thing and you could carry that in addition to the short Ultra and still be a few grams shy of the long one lol.)

The suggestion of a rental is a good idea if you currently aren’t interested in making this a hobby! If you are looking to buy, however, the foam Therm-o-Rest pads are the classic camping pad that everyone owns one of. They z-fold up into a rectangular stack and are relatively light and cheap. I’m 40 and need a little extra cushion on the trail these days, so I use an air mattress. Therm-o-rest has some decent priced air mattresses, but they are a little spartan compared to some of the more expensive air mattresses.

Insulated inflatable sleeping pad. Yes, an air mattress. But the ones with high R value will insulate you. Exped, Nemo, Thermarest, Sea to Summit, others. There are lightweight ones for backpacking and imaginably so they're going to tend to be more expensive. There are other ones that may be more comfort focused that aren't as light if you're just doing car camping. Get one from a company that does ASTM rating. This does kind of sound like "big sleeping pad" or a cartel. And it kind of is. But prior to them using that standard, it was the wild west. Sleeping pad manufacturers would just put any number on there that didn't mean anything. So a bunch of companies got together and decided to use this standard. It just gives you that relative comparison across brands. If you're not going below 32 f, then consider a pad that is R value 4 to 5. If you're going to be going below freezing but not necessarily below zero f, consider R value 6 or better. If you're going to be going below zero f then, you want to get up into the ones that are rated at R value 7.5+. You can stack an inflatable on top of ccf pads to increase your insulation. You can put an insulated sleeping pad on top of a cot if that's what you want to do. If you're using an inflatable, obviously you want to make sure it won't pop on the cot. About using a cot. Just getting you off the ground isn't going to make your warm. You'll still need insulation. The cot is irrelevant to heat transfer to the ground. You'd just end up with cold air under you instead of cold ground. One to look out for is the upcoming Nemo Eclipse which is supposed to be due out in march. It's going to be 4 in thick so probably comfortable. With an R value of 6.2 it should be pretty comfortable down to about zero f. No one really has information on this yet. So if you're looking to buy right now, you're going to look at other stuff. Check out the websites. If you see ones you're interested in, watch YouTube reviews. They're usually pretty good videos on most every product that's out there. I wanted to add, R value on sleeping pads and ground insulation is equally important to understanding top insulation. If using a sleeping bag or backpacking quilt, it's important to understand the EN or ISO rating. And really to look at the comfort rating. Understand also that those standards are assuming you're sleeping on a sleeping pad with an R value about 5 plus wearing base layer or thermal underwear, wool socks, and a warm hat.

I am 6 foot and slept in my WRX wagon all the time. I just used a basic Thermarest inflatable sleeping pad and laid in there diagonally. The air mattress does a decent job of leveling it as it isn’t that bad in the first place. Just experiment and you’ll figure it out.

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.

I went kayak camping pretty recently. I doubled up and packed my thermarest neo-air in my kayak since it packs down so small, then I tucked a foldable foam pad to the top of the boat.l under the bungee lines. It got wet but the material doesn't hold water so it worked out. I'm a bit of a princess when it comes to my sleep set up and this worked pretty well. To sleep I put the foam pad down then the thermarest over it.

Therm-a-Rest neo-air. Bought it on a whim ten years ago before a three week long trip and probably done around 180 nights on it since then. Hasn’t missed a beat, no problems and it’s so much warmer and comfier than my previous self inflating mat. Might be a wee bit crinkly but I’m normally spark out. 😉