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After a new round of testing, we’ve added the Nemo Quasar 3D Lightweight Insulated Sleeping Pad as a pick for backpackers. Car Seat Cushion
A good sleeping pad can transform hours of tossing and turning in the wild into a decent night’s sleep.
After sleeping on more than 35 sleeping pads—carrying them on a total of eight car-camping and backpacking trips—we concluded that the Therm-a-Rest LuxuryMap Sleeping Pad is the best choice for car campers. And we found that the Nemo Quasar 3D Lightweight Insulated Sleeping Pad is the most supportive pad for backpackers.
If you’re looking for a budget option or a sleeping pad for two people, we’ve got recommendations for those, too.
This 3-inch-thick, notably warm pad is the most comfortable one we tested. And it’s easier to inflate, deflate, roll, and store than any other car-camping pad.
With enough thickness to support your back and hips, this durable sleeping pad is the most comfortable option we tried that was still light enough to carry long distances. But it’s not warm enough for the winter.
Basic but reliable, this pad is lightweight, durable, and inexpensive. But it’s not our most comfortable or our warmest pad.
This sleeping pad isn’t small, and it isn’t light. But it’s the most comfortable pad in the game. If you’re driving up to your campsite, this one is a wilderness luxury.
This air pump works much faster than using a pump bag or your own breath to blow up a sleeping pad.
After a long day, the last thing you want to deal with is a complicated valve or a sleeping pad that takes forever to fill.
In the morning, it helps if your sleeping pad deflates quickly and isn’t a pain to stuff back in its bag.
Design features like baffles and reinforced foam can help prevent potential sore spots around your hips or back.
When a slick nylon sleeping bag meets a slippery nylon pad, watch out—you might just slide off your pad in the middle of the night.
This 3-inch-thick, notably warm pad is the most comfortable one we tested. And it’s easier to inflate, deflate, roll, and store than any other car-camping pad.
The self-inflating Therm-a-Rest LuxuryMap Sleeping Pad has long been a favorite with our testers, and it has stood the test of time—six years of car-camping trips, to be specific. This 3-inch-thick pad has extra foam, with an air pocket on top, placed exactly where the body exerts more pressure; this increases comfort and helps prevent the pad from bottoming out overnight. Side-sleepers, back-sleepers, and stomach-sleepers all found this pad to be comfortable and supportive.
With an R-value of 6 (R-value is a measure of how well a pad insulates), the LuxuryMap pad is more than twice as warm as our backpacking pick. In our tests, the LuxuryMap’s face fabric seemed to reject lint and dirt better than fabric on rival pads. And its carry bag was refreshingly easy to stuff and to tote around (this is not often the case with larger sleeping pads). The only downside: This pad is heavy. But as long as we parked close to our campsites, that didn’t bother us.
With enough thickness to support your back and hips, this durable sleeping pad is the most comfortable option we tried that was still light enough to carry long distances. But it’s not warm enough for the winter.
If you’re looking for a sleeping pad that’s supportive yet still light enough to carry—for backpacking trips in the spring, summer, and fall—the 3½-inch-thick Nemo Quasar 3D Lightweight Insulated Sleeping Pad is a solid choice. It has an R-value of 3.3 (comparable to that of its competitors), and it comes with customized baffles that contour to your body. Compared with most of the other backpacking pads we tried, this one felt more like a supportive mattress.
It’s also very durable. During testing, we blew up the pads and let them sit. After three weeks (during which they were jumped on by little kids), the pad showed no wear and tear or deflation. The Quasar pad comes in regular, regular wide, long wide, and double sizes. At 1 pound 12 ounces for the regular size, this pad is heavier than some of the other backpacking pads we tried, but it packs down small.
Basic but reliable, this pad is lightweight, durable, and inexpensive. But it’s not our most comfortable or our warmest pad.
If your top concerns involve cost or durability, the Therm-a-Rest Z Lite Sol Sleeping Pad is a standout choice. This lightweight (14 ounces) pad is durable and inexpensive. It’s no surprise that this pick is not nearly as comfortable as any of our other choices, since it’s made with basic foam and is the thinnest of our picks (less than an inch). Still, the pad has an R-value of 2.6, which is impressive considering how thin it is (though all of our other picks are still warmer). If you ever decide to upgrade, the Z Lite Sol becomes a go-to backup or loaner pad that you can expect to use for decades to come.
This sleeping pad isn’t small, and it isn’t light. But it’s the most comfortable pad in the game. If you’re driving up to your campsite, this one is a wilderness luxury.
Here’s the thing: The Exped MegaMat Duo 10 is not easy to pack. It’s not easy to inflate. And it’s not easy to carry around. But it is absolutely the most comfortable double sleeping pad you can buy—it’s so comfortable, in fact, that many of our testers found themselves using this pad for guests in their home, instead of a typical air mattress. The MegaMat Duo is 3.9 inches thick and weighs about 7½ pounds (the Duo LW+ model is almost 10 pounds), and it has an R-value of 8.1, making it both the largest and warmest option we tested.
Over the course of two years and dozens of camping trips with small children, our testers never observed damage to the MegaMat Duo. There’s enough padding to support side-sleepers’ hips and shoulders. And stomach- and back-sleepers appreciated the bed’s lower-back support. The MegaMat Duo also stays firmly inflated for several days, but we do recommend giving it a pre-sleep top-off of air. If you’re headed out on a car-camping trip where weight isn’t an issue, this is the couple’s pad to choose.
This air pump works much faster than using a pump bag or your own breath to blow up a sleeping pad.
Many sleeping pads have to be inflated with your breath (as you’d inflate a balloon) or with a sack (called a pump bag). But there’s another option: a lightweight air pump. The Exped Widget Pump isn’t directly compatible with non-Exped beds—its seal works best with Exped pads. Yet the airflow is so powerful we found it still works on other picks, even without a direct seal, and it sped up the inflation process tenfold. We were able to inflate a single pad in about 30 seconds, and this pump added just 7 ounces to our pack weight. You do need to use a USB charger to charge the pump before a backpacking trip.
Jenni Gritters has been reviewing outdoor, travel, and children’s gear for more than five years, and she has worked in journalism for nearly a decade. She’s also a life-long hiker and camper who’s logged hundreds of miles on Pacific Northwest trails. Jenni spends much of her time in the Central Oregon mountains with her two young children, husband, and dog. These days, her camping trips are mostly of the car-oriented variety (kids change things!). This guide builds on the work and research done by Liz Thomas, who once held the women’s unassisted speed record on the Appalachian Trail, and Kalee Thompson, a senior editor at Wirecutter who is a longtime hiker and camper.
If you’re planning to sleep outside, your best bet for a restful night is to buy or borrow a camping-specific pad that rises just a couple of inches off the ground. Counterintuitively, these types of pads are often warmer, more comfortable, and likely more durable than full-size air mattresses. They’re also far more compact and easy to transport than a futon or cot, and they’re more cushy and comfortable than most exercise mats.
Keep in mind that your sleeping system is about more than just cushiness. Without the insulation of a sleeping pad, your body tries to create temperature equilibrium with the earth. This is known as conductive heat loss—and you’re the one who loses.
A good sleeping pad has the following qualities:
In 2016, we tested 15 car-camping and backpacking pads on a total of six trips with 23 overnight testers. These trips took us everywhere from Southern California to the Grand Canyon to New Mexico.
During later rounds of testing, we carried nearly 20 additional pads around Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and we tried them out in the mountains of Central Oregon, too. We even inflated the pads in our living rooms, allowing kids and dogs to trample them in service of durability testing.
This 3-inch-thick, notably warm pad is the most comfortable one we tested. And it’s easier to inflate, deflate, roll, and store than any other car-camping pad.
The Therm-a-Rest LuxuryMap Sleeping Pad has been our car-camping pick for the past six years because it offers the best balance of comfort, features, and cost for campers who don’t need to carry their pads long distances.
It’s comfortable for all sleeping positions. Side-sleepers, back-sleepers, and stomach-sleepers all found this foam pad to be supportive and warm through the night. Despite only being 3 inches thick, the LuxuryMap pad provides enough support to avoid bottoming out—even for side-sleepers—due to a “pressure mapping” interior (foam that’s more dense in the areas where a body is likely to exert more pressure). We found that topping it off with an air pump provided the ultimate firmness.
It’s among the warmest pads we tested. The pad has an ultra-toasty R-value of 6 (only our doubles pick was higher). It features a soft but sturdy 50-denier fabric on the top and an even hardier 75-denier fabric on the bottom; that helps protect it against punctures or damage from sharp surfaces. (We noticed that the LuxuryMap pad didn’t pick up lint and dirt the way some competitor mattresses did, and that was likely due to those material choices.)
It’s easy to set up and take down. This pad has a single valve that’s simple and intuitive to use. And though the LuxuryMap pad wasn’t the fastest pad to inflate or deflate in our tests, it was easy enough to use in a dark tent—even after a long drive or an exhausting all-day hike. After six years of testing sleeping pads, we’re fed up with stuff sacks that are a struggle to stuff. To fit a couple of other pads back into their bags, we had to straddle the pads in an effort to push out every last puff of air. By contrast, using the LuxuryMap’s roomy carry bag—smartly equipped with a large shoulder strap—was hassle-free. These are simple, low-tech design decisions that create a drastically improved overall user experience.
It comes in three sizes. We tested the 20-by-72-inch regular pad, and none of our testers found it to be too small. Still, for those who are not concerned about bulk, we recommend paying a little more for the large, 25-by-77-inch pad. (The company also sells an extra-large version: 30 by 77 inches.) Side-sleepers may especially appreciate the extra width for stretching out.
It has a strong warranty. Therm-a-Rest has been making self-inflating pads since the early 1970s, and it has an excellent track record of manufacturing durable products that last for years, if not decades. If you do discover a defect in your pad, however, know that it also comes with a limited lifetime warranty.
With enough thickness to support your back and hips, this durable sleeping pad is the most comfortable option we tried that was still light enough to carry long distances. But it’s not warm enough for the winter.
The air-filled Nemo Quasar 3D Lightweight Insulated Sleeping Pad is the backpacking sleeping pad we recommend for carrying into the wild.
It’s the most comfortable backpacking pad we tested. Compared with many backpacking pads we’ve used, the Quasar pad was highly supportive. Side-sleepers will appreciate that their hips don’t hit the ground, and the pad’s firmness should keep your back from feeling overly flexed. At 3½ inches thick, with an average 3.3 R-value, the Quasar pad is ideal for three-season camping. The body-mapped baffles are also contoured to the user’s core. That provides a cradling effect, and it meant we actually got a decent night’s sleep outside.
It’s easy to inflate and deflate. We’ve typically hated bag-style inflation systems, but we used Nemo’s Vortex pump sack to fully blow up the pad, topping it off with a few breaths at the end, and it stayed full (and firm!) for three weeks. The Quasar pad was easy to deflate, and it packed well into its tiny stuff sack.
It’s very durable. In addition to sleeping outdoors on this pad, Jenni left it in her living room and let her children and dog climb on it. After three weeks, there was no sign of wear and tear; that 30-denier ripstop polyester does its job. The pad also comes with a repair kit, just in case, and a lifetime warranty.
It’s light enough to carry—though it’s not the lightest pad we tested. At 1 pound 12 ounces for the regular size, the Quasar pad is about 8 ounces heavier than many competitors; while the pad does pack down small, this extra weight could be a dealbreaker for ultralight hikers. (For lighter pads, check our other good sleeping pad recommendations.)
It comes in four sizes. The Quasar pad comes in regular, regular wide, long wide, and double configurations, all made with recycled plastic.
But not everyone likes the built-in pillow. Though most testers really liked this sleeping pad, the ones who hated it couldn’t stand the built-in pillow. Jenni and her husband (a side-sleeper and back-sleeper, respectively) didn’t mind the pillow at all. But others found it to have a bit too much padding, especially if you bring your own pillow from home. If you want a completely flat surface, or you’re worried that a bit of bulk will make you slide down, you may want to choose another pad.
Basic but reliable, this pad is lightweight, durable, and inexpensive. But it’s not our most comfortable or our warmest pad.
The Therm-a-Rest Z Lite Sol is an inexpensive—yet dependable—foam pad.
It’s basic but effective. Lined up against much more expensive self-inflating pads and air-construction pads, the Z Lite Sol, at just ¾ inch thick, is clearly less comfortable. But if you’re exhausted after a long day on the trail, you’re an adult who isn’t picky about sleeping surfaces, or you’re a kid who doesn’t know any better, the Z Lite Sol pad could very well be the one for you.
It’s warm enough for three-season trips. Even though the Z Lite Sol pad is relatively thin, its solid foam is an effective insulator for its size; it has an R-value of 2.6. It isn’t as warm as any of our other picks, but it is warmer than most AeroBed-style air mattresses as well as many competitor pads.
It’s lightweight and comfortable enough. At just 14 ounces, the Z Lite Sol pad is light enough for most backpackers; it’s nearly a pound lighter than the Quasar pad. And though this pad isn’t particularly compact, you don’t have to worry about damaging it simply by bungeeing it to the outside of a pack. The surface is extremely firm, but the sophisticated pattern of heat-trapping dimples felt cushier than its thickness led us to expect. We compared this pad side by side with another inexpensive closed-cell foam mat, the Stansport Pack-Lite (aka a “blue pad”), which we got at Walmart. And there was no contest: The Z Lite Sol pad was far more comfortable.
Many testers have used this pad for years, with no wear and tear. Like most pads, the Z Lite Sol pad will wear down with heavy use, and that can decrease its insulating properties. But our testers have found that this pad can last for decades, especially if it’s not used very often. A closed-cell foam pad is also a smart choice for kids because a tear or puncture is no big deal (unlike with inflatable pads). You can strap this kind of pad to the outside of a backpack, use it as a seat near the campfire, try to float on it in a river or lake, and otherwise treat it poorly without fear of retribution.
It comes in just two sizes. The Z Lite Sol pad comes in a 20-by-51-inch small size and a 20-by-72-inch medium size.
This sleeping pad isn’t small, and it isn’t light. But it’s the most comfortable pad in the game. If you’re driving up to your campsite, this one is a wilderness luxury.
The Exped MegaMat Duo 10, which fits two people, is the most comfortable pad we tried—and one of the warmest.
This is the warmest, most-insulated double sleeping pad we’ve tried. It has an R-value of 8.1, so you can use it through all four seasons. This model is more like a double bed than a sleeping pad, with most of its 3.9-inch depth made up of foam and a layer of air cores throughout. Unlike the typical popcorn effect that two people of different weights can experience on a classic air mattress, the MegaMat Duo mat kept us from bouncing up and down. It also provided stability for side-sleepers who need padded hips and shoulders. One of our testers used this bed while pregnant and felt completely comfortable, even after a day of hiking.
The materials are soft and durable. The MegaMat Duo pad’s outer fabric is a sleek, soft polyester that repels dirt and moisture, and it has stood the test of time over four years and dozens of camping trips with small humans. If you’re willing to be slightly inconvenienced by the size of this bed and its deflation process, we think you’ll reap some serious benefits from sleeping cozily under the stars. Exped products carry a five-year warranty on defects, and for a fee, the company will repair rips and leaks in its shop.
But it’s a bear to deflate. The MegaMat Duo pad inflates with a self-inflate valve. But over the years, we’ve given up on the valve and the included hand pump, and instead we’ve opted for an air pump (try the Exped Widget), for optimal firmness and efficiency. The inflation process is fairly straightforward, and the bed stays firmly inflated for several days. However, deflating this bed is a pain. We’ve rarely been able to get it down to the size it was when it came out of the box for the first time; typically the job requires two people sitting on the mattress, plus a lot of time. And even when the pad is packed down as small as possible, it still barely fits back into its carry sack.
This air pump works much faster than using a pump bag or your own breath to blow up a sleeping pad.
If you’re looking for a faster alternative than your own breath or a pump bag to inflate your sleeping pad, the Exped Widget Pump is the best option we’ve found.
It speeds up inflation greatly. In our tests, the pump was strong enough to speed up the inflation process tenfold compared with blowing up a pad using our breath. Most single beds inflated within 30 seconds, even if the pad’s valve wasn’t 100% compatible with the pump. This pump charges with a USB-C cable, and it comes with two sizes of adapter (though we found we didn’t need to use them, given the strong stream of air).
This pump fits in a backpack. It weighs 7 ounces, so this add-on may be too heavy for weight-conscious backpackers. But it’s barely noticeable for car campers.
It’s not compatible with every pad, however. Several sleeping-pad companies have introduced their own air pumps. None of them are compatible with every model of sleeping pad available. The Exped seals most tightly to Exped pads, but we found it was able to inflate our other picks too (albeit not as quickly).
Nothing ruins an outdoor adventure like a hole, rip, or tear in a sleeping pad. These tips will help prolong your pad’s lifespan.
If you suspect a puncture and are near a bathtub, fill the tub with soapy water, inflate the pad, and then submerge it in the tub (the soap bubbles make any air leakage more obvious). If the pad does have a leak, bubbles will form. Take a Sharpie marker or an oil crayon and circle the area, and then dry the pad thoroughly.
Should a small, hard-to-find hole develop, most companies suggest that you repair it using just the glue in the factory repair kit. If you don’t have a kit on hand, a urethane-based glue, such as Gear Aid Aquaseal FD, should do the trick. Give the glue plenty of time to dry out, without touching other surfaces; this can take three to 24 hours, depending on the material.
For larger holes, use the self-adhesive fabric patch that comes in your kit (for most pads), and apply a little glue beforehand, just to make sure it sticks. You can also buy after-market patches and repair kits from companies like Sea to Summit and Therm-a-Rest.
For backpackers looking for a lighter-weight, mummy-style pad: A solid choice would be our previous backpacking pick, the 4-inch-thick, 1-pound (in the regular size) Sea to Summit Ether Light XT Insulated Air Sleeping Mat. We found that it had one of the best weight-for-comfort ratios of the pads we tested. Its mummy shape is wider in the hip area than most of its competitors, and this was preferable for the side-sleepers in our testing lineup. The quilted air-pocket design also keeps the pad from slipping on the ground, and it provides added support for side-sleepers’ hips and shoulders. The pad’s 3.2 R-value is similar to that of the Quasar pad, and it’s also just as durable. However, it’s slightly less comfortable for most people than the Quasar pad, and it’s not easy to pack down.
If you’re looking for a warmer, thicker car-camping pad for one person: Consider the Alps Mountaineering Outback Mat. It’s heavier than the LuxuryMap pad by more than 2 pounds, but it has an R-value of 8.5, making it the warmest single pad we tested. It takes several minutes longer to inflate than the LuxuryMap pad; the self-inflate function brings it to almost full, but it requires a few top-off breaths to be truly firm. And, compared with the LuxuryMap pad, the Outback pad is more annoying to compress back into its carrying sack (though the process is easier with two people).
If you want a pad that packs down extremely small: Look at the newly redesigned Nemo Tensor Alpine Air. The new Tensor pad is 3 inches thick and weighs 1 pound 4 ounces, in the regular mummy option (it also comes in a long wide). Despite being ultralight, this pad is comfortable; as a side-sleeper, Jenni was delighted to find enough support in her hips. It packs down smaller than any other pad we tried, and it has a 4.8 R-value. That said, the Sea to Summit Ether Light XT is lighter than the Tensor pad, it’s nearly as warm, and it’s slightly more comfortable due to its air-cell (versus baffle) construction.
If you need the most insulation and have lots of space:Comparable to the LuxuryMap pad, the Therm-a-Rest MondoKing 3D has an extra inch of thickness, so it’s heavier (in the XXL size, the Mondoking pad is over 2 pounds heavier than the LuxuryMap pad). If you prefer a softer bed, you might want to try this one before you opt for the LuxuryMap pad. That said, most of our testers have found that the extra foam doesn’t add any extra comfort—but it does add extra insulation. (The MondoKing 3D pad has an R-value of 7.) This pad is harder to pack down than the LuxuryMap pad, and it takes more time to inflate. Yet if you’re making a choice based on insulation, and you have the budget to pay slightly more, the MondoKing pad is worth considering.
The Sea to Summit Comfort Plus Insulated Air Sleeping Mat’s lack of thickness (2½ inches) is noticeable, for side-sleepers especially. Jenni found that her hips hit the ground, and she avoided sleeping on this pad at all costs. It is also heavier than the Quasar pad.
The Klymit Insulated Static V Lite Sleeping Pad’s V-shaped baffle design (which supposedly contours to the body) was polarizing. Our tall, thin testers found the baffles to be comfortable; one broader-bodied tester described the experience as “like sleeping on a cord of wood.”
When we tested the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT (the updated model of our former top pick) and the XTherm (its warmer sibling) in 2023, they were the least durable in our lineup; the XLite busted a tear almost immediately, and a patch didn’t do much to help. Both deflated quickly and felt paper-thin.
The Big Agnes Q-Core SLX backpacking pad is bulkier and heavier than the NeoAir XLite, and it’s comparable to the LuxuryMap pad in many ways. In fact, we found it to be more comfortable than the LuxuryMap pad because it has 3½ inches of cushioning and a vertical-baffle design. But it goes in and out of stock too often for us to recommend it.
The Therm-a-Rest BaseCamp Sleeping Pad—a popular, moderately priced option in the Therm-a-Rest line—is comfortable. But it’s not as comfortable as the LuxuryMap pad. The BaseCamp pad is 2 inches thick, versus the LuxuryMap pad’s 3 inches, and it lacks the higher-end pad’s pressure-mapped foam.
The budget-priced Teton Sports ComfortLite Self Inflating Pad is another big, cushy self-inflating pad that clearly trailed the LuxuryMap pad—our favorite—in overall comfort.
Although most testers found the Klymit Insulated Static V Sleeping Pad to be comfortable, it was not as comfy as cushier self-inflating pads, like our LuxuryMap pick.
Sleeping on the Stansport Pack-Lite Camping and Backpacking Sleeping Pad’s thin, firm strip of foam is better than sleeping directly on the ground. Yet aside from its price, this pad is far inferior to any of the other ones we tested.
The REI Co-op Campwell Sleeping Pad is being redesigned; we’ll test the new one next season. The Exped MegaMat pad also now comes in a larger, 15-centimeter version; we’ll test that one as well.
This article was edited by Ria Misra and Christine Ryan.
by Sam Schild, Kit Dillon, and Kalee Thompson
After using 41 sleeping bags in the Western wild, we have a range of recommendations for car-camping and backpacking.
When the Wirecutter outdoor team goes car camping—as opposed to backpacking and carrying gear into the wilderness—this is the gear they bring.
The right sleeping bag will keep a kid warm and comfy, and it will be a longtime companion on camping trips and at sleepovers.
Investing in some high-quality basics can get kids excited about camping out—and help you avoid a mid-trip detour to the nearest big-box store.
Heating Pad For Car Seat Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).