That cheap sleeping pad I bought on Amazon finally failed me in the middle of the night

Last month I was camping up near Lake Almanor and woke up at 3am flat on the ground. My $30 foam pad just gave up after maybe 8 trips. I kept telling myself it was fine but honestly you get what you pay for. I'm not saying spend top dollar but people overlook how much a decent pad matters for actually getting sleep. Anybody else had a budget piece of gear let them down at a bad time?

3 comments

3 Comments

jakel3614d ago

I read somewhere that sleeping pads actually have an R-value rating that matters way more than people realize for cold nights and I never even checked mine. That $30 pad probably had like a 0.5 R-value which is basically nothing. I had a similar thing happen with a cheap headlamp that died on a night hike and I was stuck stumbling around using my phone light. It's frustrating because you don't want to drop $150 on something you use a few times a year but when it fails at 3am with your tailbone on frozen dirt you start rethinking that math real quick. I ended up grabbing a used Therm-a-Rest off Craigslist last summer for 40 bucks and it's still holding up way better than any of my Amazon specials ever did. Just sharing what worked for me after a few too many cold hard nights myself.

rileyp4914d ago

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's that serious for most people though. I've slept on a cheap foam pad in 40 degree weather and was fine, maybe it just depends on how cold you're dealing with. @jakel36, that Craigslist find sounds like a steal though, can't argue with that.

sage_ramirez4214d ago

Tried that same "I'll be fine on anything" logic once on a camping trip and ended up using a folded up car floor mat as a pillow after my cheap inflatable pad flattened out by 2am lol. That foam pad luck is real but man when it goes bad it goes real bad real fast.