We love camping! In fact, we REALLY like getting away, whether its for 1 day or 10, doesn’t matter…we just love being out adventuring!

But the one thing that can ruin things fast is a horrible night sleeping. Years of military life and hastily planned backcountry trips has taught us this one crucial piece of wisdom.

If you’re like us,you can still remember the rolled up closed cell Thermarest pads that were all the rage a few years back. And for for those military minded out there, let me stir in some PTSD with a simple mention of the infamous ISOMAT. Those things were like sleeping on a flattened loaf of bread. Old dry bread at that.

Thankfully, technology has triumphed in this area of outdoor life! There are many, many brands and even types within brands to give a little needed comfort to the end of a strenuous day.

For us, we are currently loving the “Insulated V ultralight SL” pad from KLYMIT. This thing has saved my beat up back and allowed us to truly enjoy the start of a new day on multiple occasions.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, we are hybrid campers. We travel in one of a couple different types of outdoorsy vehicles, sometimes Overlanding, sometimes sleeping in the back, sometimes car camping and quite often. Leaving the vehicle and backpacking into the unknown. These pads are great for all those scenarios!

Coming in just under a pound, it packs up small enough to easily go inside a backpack. As a side note, we have never had an issue getting it back inside the stuff sack. Nice job, KLYMIT.

The pad has a micro layer of insulation inside which makes a world of difference when it comes to using it in, well, the real world. The V-shaped air chambers provide support that to us are much better than lateral or longitudinal tubes.

It is possible to pick up a small air pump but so far, we have always opted for just blowing it up by mounts (don’t listen to the ultralighter’s myth of the air containing moisture of weighing down the pads. While it does take quite a bit of blowing up that way, how often do you really need to blow it up compared to adding another item to the pack?

While they are narrow, at 20 inches wide (51cm) we find them perfect for inside our backpacking tent. And as we are both mostly side sleepers, they have actually been quite adequate on space. If you’re the type that tosses everywhere…you might need something larger…and a bigger tent too.

What we liked: super lightweight, compact, so far dependable (it comes with patches but so far we’ve not needed one), Just enough insulation for typical backpacking, v-shaped chamber comfort.

What we didn’t like as much: a little crinkle sound. This has been mentioned many times but we didn’t find in annoying as some others do. The noise is quite subtle in our opinion. The FEAR of puncturing the pad because it is so light (20D construction). Not an ACTUALITY yet but the thought is always on our mind. Maybe that will eventually fade away. It does tend to slide around a little, perhaps a little rougher material in spots to hold it in place better.

These pads really have been great so far and well worth trying out!