Therm-a-Rest DreamTime XL

Because I was car camping so much, I went ahead and splurged and bought two of these mattresses about 6 years ago. They were heavenly! The best outdoor camping comfort you could buy. The mattresses also… tether together to make a full-size bed, although after a few years of use the straps tore off the side and also the compression straps ripped. I bought them at REI and perhaps they will replace them. Also, I can only imagine Thermarest has improved the model in the past few years. Fast forward to a few years ago when I was expecting our first child and I was on bedrest for 6 weeks and could not go up and down any stairs. I used this mattress on top of a sturdy foam 3-fold mattress and it was more comfortable than the super expensive king-sized mattress we had just purchased. We've used these mattresses for long term guests we've had for 4-6 months of sleeping - usually paired with an Aerobed to create some firm comfort on top of the bouncy air mattress. Everyone who uses this mattress says it is the most comfortable sleep they have had. I love the combination of the three layers and if it wasn't for the straps ripping off the sides I would happily have given this product five stars. Six years later these are still in almost daily use as we have guests in and out of our home on a regular basis. Our daughter, now 2 also loves to play on these extremely durable and soft mattresses.

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My wife & I used to be pretty intrepid campers, dragging food, water & shelter down to a secluded beach in Mexico for the first 10 years of our marriage. Then she discovered the joy's of a vacation condo on… the beach and hot showers. Last year while working out of town, I started doing some camping in the woods by myself. This year she decided to join me. First we upgraded to cold weather sleeping bags. Then we bought a new tent. This past weekend (Oct 4), we replaced the 15yo Thermarest (Trail) pad we'd been sleeping on with the Dreamtime. What a difference! You really can't tell you're sleeping on the ground, it feels exactly like a firm mattress. And I think we slept warmer too, the extra 10" of width helped keep us on the pad instead of on the tent floor. The only downside for some might be their bulk...but they really are designed for car camping, base camp or a cabin. My wife came up to me after the second night and said she loved the new pad, and if I hadn't bought it...she didn't think she would have been interested in much more camping. The ground was just getting toooo hard. I love it too, and think it's added another 10 years to our enjoyment of the great outdoors.

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Extraordinary comfort, just amazing. I bought the X-large, which ends up matching the width of my sleeping bags. The mattress comes in a heavy duty clear vinyl bag, but it's difficult to get in in and out… of the bag and the bag has no handles, so it's really only good for storage. If you're going to hike around with this, you probably want the accessory bag. This doesn't feel at all like an air mattress; it has a plushy feel to it and is just the right thickness when placed on a firm surface. I hesitated to make the original purchase, seemed a bit pricey, but in the end it's so comfortable, well made and therefore a terrific value.

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Everyone else reviewed this mattress pretty well but here's a slightly different spin on it. We recently got a new puppy that for the first couple days would cry at night. I slept next to his crate on the… floor on this mattress in our bedroom. In the middle of the night I would get up off this mattress and back onto our $900 pillowtop mattress. Surprisingly, the difference in comfort bewteen the two was not shockingly different. It certainly didn't effect my sleeping. One night my wife took over the puppy duties and slept on the floor on this mattress all night till morning. She commented how comfortable it was and that the floor sleeping duty wasn't bad at all.

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