Bestway Camping Pad Review
We got the chance to compare two, new to market, camping pads made by Bestway USA with 2 pads made by some of the most well known brands in backpacking. And ya know what? We were very pleasantly surprised!
We absolutely love camping and backpacking! I know most of you think “of course you do, don’t you camp all day every day?” But the truth is RV living is not camping. It’s living in a home that has wheels on it and relocates often.
But in the last 2 years we have grown to love "real" camping. Like in a tent! Sometimes many miles from the nearest road, far into the wilderness, where you have to carry all of your necessary gear on your back.
So when Bestway contacted us and asked us to review their camping pads, we were really stoked!
After taking several backpacking trips we have learned that having good, lightweight gear is super important. Space is limited and every item you choose to bring needs to be one that you feel is up to the task.
Bestway sent us their Wanderlite Regular Rectangular pad made for warmer weather camping, and their Alpinelite Insulated Wide Mummy Sleeping Pad, made for extreme weather camping. They also provided us with two of their well-known competitors’ pads, the Klymit Static V2 and the Sea to Summit Etherlight XT Xtreme.
We decided to break our review down into several different categories that we feel like are the foundation of a good camping pad.
These 7 things are:
- Ease to pack in backpack and Repack after use
- Amount of space taken up in a pack
- Quality and feel of the material
- How noisy they are when moving around at night (This might be one of the most important to me!)
- Overall Comfort
- Coolness (for lightweight pad) and Warmth (for the extreme weather pad).
- Weight and Size
For each of the products we asked ourselves about these 7 areas and were very surprised that the Bestway products really performed well when compared to their competitors. Here’s the break down:
BESTWAY ALPINELITE VS. SEA TO SUMMIT ETHERLITE
When comparing these two pads, the BestWay Alpinelite pad was much more compact, easier to pack and repack, less noisy when laying on it with a sleeping bag and had much less bounce when fully inflated than the EtherLight pad did. The Etherlight pad did have more insulation and a thicker top layer material that would probably be considered higher quality than the Alpinelite. However, this did make the pad much thicker which to us, might be a downside.
We weren’t able to compare its ability to provide warmth because it is summer here and actual cold weather camping isn’t an option. But I would say that the Sea to Summit might outperform the Bestway Alpinelite here because the material used seemed to have an extra layer of insulation when compared to the Bestway product.
| BESTWAY ALPINELITE INSULATED WIDE MUMMY SLEEPING PAD | SEA to SUMMIT ETHERLIGHT XT EXTREME INSULATED SLEEPING PAD | |
| BEST USE | Extreme Weather Camping | Extreme Weather Camping |
| WEIGHT | 1lb 11oz (764g) | 1lb 9 oz. (720 g) |
| R-VALUE | 7.3, ideal for cold weather | 6.2, ideal for cold weather |
| PACKED SIZE | 4.5 in. x 10.5 in. / 11.5 cm x 27 cm | 6.9 in. x 9.4 in. / 17.5 cm x 24 cm |
| CONTENTS | 1 air pad, 1 pump sack, 1 repair patch, 1 storage bag | 1 air pad, 1 integrated pump sack, 1 repair kit, pillow lock, 1 storage bag |
| MATERIAL | 70 D Ripstop Nylon/Toughlite | Durable 30D/40D Nylon |
| THICKNESS | 7.5 cm/ 3 IN | 10 CM / 4 IN |
| WARMTH | (Couldn’t Test) When tested according to the same product standards, Bestway's rating is higher | (Couldn’t Test) When tested according to the same product standards, rating was lower. |
| OVERALL COMFORT | Very Comfortable, not too thick or bouncy, not too noisy. | Comfortable, a little more “bouncy” and thick than we prefer, more noisy than the Bestway. |
| QUALITY | Good Quality/less insulated and padded than the other product | Very padded and insulated |
| NOISE LEVEL | Slightly less noisy than competitor | More noisy than competitor |
| EASE TO PACK AND REPACK | Much easier to pack. Easy to repack. | Was significantly larger and harder to fit in pack with other items. Easy to repack |
BESTWAY WANDERLITE vs KLYMIT STATIC V2
When comparing these two products the Bestway Wanderlite surprisingly outperformed the Klymit Static V2 again. In the area of packing and repacking both pads performed very similarly. They also performed similarly when it came to keeping you cool. However, when it came to bounce and noise level the Wanderlite was much less noisy and less bouncy than the Static V2.
Both Products provided similar materials with their pads but the Wanderlite pad had a larger storage bag which made it easier to repack, though only slightly.
| BESTWAY WANDERLITE REGULAR RECTANGULAR SLEEPING PAD | KLYMIT STATIC V2 LIGHTWEIGHT EASY TO INFLATE SLEEPING PAD | |
| BEST USE | Warm Weather Camping/Backpacking | Warm Weather - 3 season Camping/Backpacking |
| WEIGHT | 18oz (549 g) | 16.6 oz (454 g) |
| R-VALUE | 1.3, ideal for warm weather camping | 1.3, ideal for warm weather camping |
| PACKED SIZE | 4 in x 7.5in/ 10.5 cm x 19.5 cm | 3 in x 8in/ 8vcm x 20 cm |
| CONTENTS | 1 air pad, 1 repair patch, 1 storage bag | 1 air pad, 1 repair patch, 1 storage bag |
| MATERIAL | 70 D Ripstop Nylon Toughlite(top)/ 75 D Polyester (bottom) | 30D Polyester (top) | 75D Polyester (bottom) |
| THICKNESS | 2.5 in (6.5cm) | 2.5 in (6.4cm) |
| COOLNESS | Performed similarly to Competitor | Performed similarly to Competitor |
| OVERALL COMFORT | We preferred this pad to the competitor. This pad bounced less and made less noise than. Packing and repacking were were the same. | We didn’t like this pad as much as the competitor. It bounced more and made more noise. |
| QUALITY | Good Quality, only notable difference to competitor was more simplistic inflator value (which we preferred) | Good Quality, only difference would be special inflator and deflator value (we didn’t prefer this because of possibility or breaking) |
| NOISE LEVEL | Less than Competitor | More than Competitor |
| EASE TO PACK AND REPACK | Performed similarly to Competitor | Performed similarly to Competitor |
THINGS WE COULDN’T TEST
We were not able to test the durability after multiple uses of these products, nor the company's response to issues with the products because we have not had them long enough.
We also were not able to test the warmth provided by the pads because we haven’t used them in a cold weather scenario yet. We will update this post later, after we have had them for longer and had the chance to take them out in colder weather.
OVERALL THOUGHTS and CONCLUSION
Overall, we were very surprised at how well the Bestway Product performed when compared to their competitors and would definitely choose their product for our backpacking needs.