A good night’s sleep is priceless and the Therm-a-Rest LuxuryMAP sleeping pad will deliver a great night’s sleep — even on uneven or rocky terrain.
Therm-a-Rest LuxuryMAP Mattress Features:
- Created for campers whose greatest interest is sleeping comfort; perfect for car campers, family campers and base campers
- Thick and warm 3 in. pad has a 6.8 R-Value
- Uses die-cut foam in high-pressure areas and full-density foam in low-pressure areas for great cushioning
- Self-inflating design
- Includes stuff sack (7″ x 25″)
- MSRP: $99.95 – $159.95 (depending on size)
LuxuryMAP Makes Rocks Disappear
A downright magical camping mattress eh? Well, let me tell you — the Therm-a-Rest LuxuryMAP mattress makes rocks, roots and other sleeping hazards disappear. The magic of this mattress is in the construction and thickness. No, you won’t want to haul this on your backpack, but for car camping, this pad has been fantastic.
It’s taken me several years of use to finally publish a review of the LuxuryMAP pad — primarily because I wanted to get enough night’s sleep in varying terrain to understand just how well it performed.
I’ll say that most people go camping with an inadequate mattress. Sometimes it’s a huge, inflatable monstrosity and other times it’s a thin foam pad. Big, inflatable pads inevitably get popped (I have several useless air mattresses) and thin foam pads offer a miserable sleeping experience — neither are ideal.
With the LuxuryMAP pad, Therm-a-Rest has developed a memory foam structure within a 2-inch self-inflating pad. This foam is body-mapped to both support your body in a variety of sleeping positions and isolate you from uneven terrain. I can attest that it does both of those things really well. This is one of the few pads that I can side-sleep on. Granted, I can’t sleep all night on my side, but I can for several hours at a time.
I have two of these mattresses and they are typically used with the Therm-a-Rest Auriga Down Blanket in a full sleep system, but I’ve also used them solo — particularly this year.
I don’t do a very good job about leaving the mattress inflated and expanded while not in use and the self-inflation ability has suffered. Even if I leave the pad untouched and valve open for several hours, it never inflates beyond about half the amount needed. So, I blow it up every time. Once at the right pressure, this thing holds air perfectly and gives me a great night’s sleep.
While this mattress should certainly provide ample insulation for cold weather, I’ve not had a chance to test it in extreme cold. On cool, late-summer nights it has muted the cold of the ground just fine and the 6.9 R-value is certainly solid.
The Good
- Makes rocks disappear
- Nice and thick
- Body-mapped comfort
- Side and back sleeping are both great
- Tough material has endured lots of abuse
The Bad
- Due to size, this is for supported trips or car camping
- No longer self-inflates
The Bottom Line: Therm-a-Rest LuxuryMAP
Only kids sleep like a baby while sleeping on the ground, but this mattress certainly delivers the best night’s sleep I’ve been able to find. It is big and bulky, so it’s decidedly a car camping pad, so keep that in mind.
Buy Now: Available at Backcountry.com
