How to buy the perfect caravan mattress

It’s vital to have quality sleep when you’re camping or caravanning and the key to that is selecting the right mattress. We’ve checked out all types over the years to help with your purchase decision...

Sleeping away from home is often demanding enough, but most people have found that motel beds or even guest beds at friend's or relative's houses don’t match what they’re used to at home. Experiences I’ve had with different camping mattresses are the same: some good, some not so good.

With the advent of grey hairs comes experience and over many years of camping I’ve slept in some weird and wonderful places, on some weird and wonderful beds. After trying various types of mattresses over the years, I can tell you that some types work better than others.

In the early days of Australian outback adventures we slept in just a swag or tent, but the early swags had pretty rudimentary fibre-padding mattresses and quality sleep wasn’t guaranteed. Later came foam mattresses that were a bit thicker, but also pretty basic.

These days the most common camper and RV mattresses are steel-innerspring and foam types, but within that broad definition there are many variations. For example, a hybrid mattress combines foam and innerspring construction.

Innerspring mattresses use steel coil springs that are connected together to steel upper and lower frames, or are located in separate fabric ‘pockets’.

With a few exceptions, the premium mattress that's provided in most new caravans, campervans and camper trailers is an innerspring one. However, an innerspring mattress is more expensive than a simple foam one and can weigh up to 70kg.

Base-model foam mattresses are lighter and cheaper, but our experience shows that they soon compress and lose their original ‘springiness’. ‘Foam’ is a generic description, and there are two major types: plastic foam and latex foam. The latter is rubber-based, heavier and much more expensive.

Our testing of plain polyurethane foam and latex mattresses has shown that the latex type is much more comfortable over a long period than single-density foam that compresses in higher pressure areas - under shoulders and hips -  and can become unsupportive in a very short time.

We’ve heard of latex mattresses lasting several decades without deforming much.

Another type of foam is ‘memory foam’ that consists mainly of polyurethane with additional chemicals that increase its viscosity and density. It’s also known as viscoelastic polyurethane foam, or low-resilience polyurethane foam.

Memory foam cells are open, allowing air to be displaced and that’s why this type of foam conforms to your body shape. Memory foam is commonly used these days as a ‘mattress topper’ - a layer that sits on top of a foam or innerspring mattress. It can be incorporated in the mattress layers, or supplied as a separate comfort layer.

One that we've been enjoying lately in our slide-on camper is the Flexima hybrid foam/spring mattress that was originally designed for marine use. It's different again; using polyurethane foam in conjunction with plastic, elliptic springs in pockets throughout the foam structure.

We’ve bought and used five different brands of the foam-filled self-inflating mattresses over the past 25 years.

The principle of self-inflaters is simple: the polyurethane foam structure has air channels that fill naturally when the end valves are opened. When the mattress has filled with ambient pressure air, or slightly pressurised air for a firmer feel, the valves are screwed tight.

The combination of air and foam provides relatively normal mattress support.

Unfortunately, my experience with all self-inflating mattresses is that they eventually develop slow leaks that are almost impossible to detect and repair.

Yes, I’ve taped up the valves and used the soapy water, tyre-leak detection method, as well as dunking them in a swimming pool and looking for air bubbles. I also applied sealing adhesive around the seams - to no avail.

When the air pressure drops, you’re relying on only the relatively thin layer of foam to support your weight and waking up with a sore hip or shoulder is often the result.

My self-inflaters now work just fine as kids’ beds for overnight stays at my home, because even when ‘flat’ the foam is adequate to support kids’ weights.

There’s no substitute for the ‘try before you buy’ process when it comes to mattress selection and the alternative to a full-size mattress is a zip-together pair that become a queen size.

Blokes normally go for a firmer mattress, so having a zip-together pair - one firm, one softer - can make it easier to achieve camping comfort for both parties. A zipped pair also eliminates most of the ‘roll together’ action of a one-piece mattress.

If possible, buy the best mattress you can find and don’t buy solely on price. Our testing has shown that the best quality mattress is a more important consideration than the type of mattress.

For a double or queen size the haggling should start around at least a grand and may be up to three times that figure.

Related: Flexima RV mattress tested