Reviewed: Luno Car Camping Air Mattress

Specs:

Height when inflated: 4"

Weight: 15 lbs.

Materials: 300D Oxford Fabric

Fits people up to 6'2"

Package includes: 2 person inflatable mattress, 2 base extenders, air pump with car adapter, repair kit, carry bag

Where To Get It:

Price: $279.99 - Luno Gear

Our Experience:

As avid campers who look forward to the feeling of getting on the road, whether just for the weekend or for some extended holiday-break road trip, I can't think of the number of times the thought of trying to find a more comfortable way to sleep in the car has come up. Campgrounds at capacity that force us to find a stealth spot to set up for the night, nap breaks during marathon road trips, cold nights where the tent doesn't do much to keep the wind out, or camping throughout my home state where the desert terrain offers some amazingly distant and quiet landscapes but isn't too friendly for setting up a hammock or tent; I've experienced all of these.

So when I came across a company that sold air mattresses formed to fit into the back of your car or SUV, it seemed a great way to make these occasions a lot more comfortable.

Luno's air mattresses are made to fit into a variety of vehicle makes and models. Their website lets the buyer enter their vehicle type so that they receive an air mattress that is constructed to fit flush in the car with the backseats folded forward, and formed around objects like door frames, wheel wells and rear gates.

After a couple uses, our air mattress has become a game changer for hitting some of our favorite destinations.

Our Luno air mattress inflates to about 4" thick, and unlike every home air mattress I've ever owned, it has held its inflation throughout the night. The mattress is actually made of two compartments with a seam down the center. This has been great for allowing my girlfriend and I to each fill our compartments to our desired firmness, and not end up in a puddle in the center of the air mattress. The all-around construction feels pretty solid, with the seam and valves seeming well put together. The included air pump is powered by a car adapter, and only takes about a minute to fill each mattress compartment. Additionally, the mattress set includes inflatable base extenders, which fit in the gap on the floor behind the driver and front passenger seats, allowing the air mattress to rest on top which basically creates sleeping room from the entire space between the front seats and the rear gate (over 6' in length for my Subaru Forester).

To set it up, front seats need to be leaned up and then pushed forward. Since the air mattress and base extenders use all of the available space on the floor and rear area, that means that all your gear must be put onto the front seats. While this was a challenge at first, we've since bought a plastic tub that we keep our mattress in inside our garage (the mattress comes with a carry case, however it takes some maneuvering to also fit the pump and base extenders into the carry bag, so the tub helps us keep everything together and know that it will all be there when we put it in our car). When we camp, we pull out the mattress and put everything we're carrying in our car into the tub to leave outside the car overnight. This has helped tremendously since our first attempts at stacking all of the contents of our car Tetris-style into the front seats.

It only takes a couple uses to get it down to where it takes only about 5 minutes to lay out and inflate the mattress. The insulation helps keep us warmer throughout the night, and we've definitely been thankful for keeping our Luno mattress as an option when we've arrived to a windy night where our tent promised a pretty uncomfortable sleep.

Overall, I've been excited to find out that this air mattress is out there, and have been able to take advantage of some of the possibilities that turning your car itself into a camp site has created. It's sizable enough to comfortably sleep two people side by side, and long enough that I'm able to stretch out. We now keep our Luno Air Mattress at the ready for anytime we want to head out for a weekend, and it has definitely upped the possibilities as far as camping locations and conditions is concerned.

The Luno Air Mattress 2.0 is excellent at making your car the camp site when the terrain might be inhospitable for normal tent camping.

Each compartment of the air mattress, as well as the base extenders, have separate inflate and deflate valves, which have sturdy material construction.

The air mattress set comes with base extenders that fit the make and model of your car which fit on the floor to support the extra length of the air mattress pads.

The air mattress turns your SUV's backseat area into a surface for sleeping or hanging out.

The air mattress fits into an included carry bag, weighing about 15 pounds and fitting easily into your car's trunk or backseat.

Sleeping through a frosty morning (16˚F in this picture!) on the Luno Air Mattress 2.0