A good tent will protect your sleep from the rain, snow, or dew. But trying to get a good night’s rest while sleeping in a tent has been a challenge for a good many years. Bundling up inside a sleeping bag will give you a nice warm sleep, but those pesky pebbles and stones under the tent floor seem to always find a way to locate themselves either right under the small of your back or between your shoulder blades poking at you all night long. The solution to this problem that has been plaguing mankind since caveman days has arrived in the form of the camping bed.

Now the term ‘camping bed’ has been applied to a new style of bedroom furniture. That is not what this article is describing. The focus of this article is how to make your outing in the woods more enjoyable through a means of sleeping off the ground.

The definition of a camping bed or cot according to the vernacular is a lightweight wooden or metal frame that suspends a mesh of material to elevate the camper from the floor of his tent or ground. It is often used in conjunction with some sort of light, thin mattress material upon which the sleeper may use either traditional bed linens or an insulated sleeping bag.

One of the best, yet basic, forms of the camp bed is the metal frame and foam mattress. World War I surplus brought the canvas and wooden frame cot into the fledgling camping world. Those items have been surpassed today with a powder coated steel frame and metal spring sub frame. A 1.5-inch to 2-inch thick mattress pad provides a decent platform to elevate the sleeper approximately fifteen inches from the floor of his tent.

A slight improvement to the all-familiar camp cot mentioned above is the space-frame design of what is known as the Ozark Trail framed inflatable cot. The criss-cross expanding metal frame is attached to an inflatable sleeping pad that creates a sleeping platform approximately twenty inches above the tent floor.

For those still young enough to sleep closer to the ground, the self-inflating pad offers a better sleep than outright sleeping on the ground. The pad inflates and deflates quickly through high-volume airflow valves. The bottom of the pad is covered with a 150-denier polyester material to provide durability and wear resistance. The pad also has a foam core to add just a little bit more comfort along with substantial insulation against the cold of hard ground. Once inflated this type of camping bed provides three-and-a-half inches of soft, warm comfort for your sleeping enjoyment.

There are many purveyors of different types of what one would call a camping bed. It is wise to do your shopping online or at your local big box retail store before actually investing in your next piece of furniture for your tent boudoir.