Best Air Mattress: The Ultimate Guide to Buying an Airbed

Whether hiking, camping, roughing it in your SUV or hosting overnight guests, air mattresses have been coming to the rescue for years. The options available to consumers today are simply staggering and we’ll try to help you make sense of it all.

Your first objective in picking an air mattress is to decide on your need. Hikers will obviously want to find a reasonable compromise between the comfort that the best air mattress beds provide, how easy they are to inflate and how compact it can be when deflated. Waterproofing and durability are additional concerns for outdoors men.

Compact size when deflated is less of a concern when the air mattress bed is designed with house guests in mind. In this case your concerns should focus mainly on comfort, size and ease of inflation.

If your air mattress is meant for children, again, the comparative availability of storage space at home means you aren’t too concerned with how compact the bed will be when deflated and stored but kids come with their own set of concerns. Durability is definitely something to keep in mind. Kids will find air mattress beds to be an irresistible trampoline. If the children are particularly young, you should also consider waterproof vinyl designs.

Finally, the royalty of all air mattress beds are the full time beds we spend every night sleeping on. These models come in standard twin, full, queen and king sizes and portability is definitely not an option.

As with a standard spring model mattress, standard use air mattress beds come in varying levels of quality, cost and comfort. They are even offered in dual-chamber designs allowing your partner to customize the firmness of their side without changing yours. A full time air mattress bed meant for everyday use might include features common to a standard mattress such as the upholstery layer or “comfort” layer.

From roughing it in the great outdoors to years of healthful sleep in your home, there’s an air mattress bed solution out there for you. Just know your needs in advance before you set off on a shopping trip.