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One thing you’re going to have to consider when you are starting #vanlife is pretty dang important: where are you going to sleep? While the options for creating a bed frame are varied, one thing that they all have in common is needing a mattress of some kind.
Coil, Hybrid or Memory Foam?
But what kind of mattress? While coil springs used to be the norm in sticks-and-bricks homes, memory foam has replaced the old coil spring type mattress for many, as it is much more comfortable (and doesn’t sag as much when it ages). The same goes true for #vanlife. The spring mattress (or hybrid) is just too rigid if you’re dealing with a bed that transforms to a seating area (as many do).
Also, you have to consider if you’re going to be cutting your mattress. If your bed is going to transform to a seating area (like the example above), you are definitely going to need to cut your mattress into sections, as it will be much easier than trying to bend a memory foam mattress to such a degree easily (and forget about bending a coil spring or hybrid mattress at all). Cutting a coil mattress (or hybrid) will completely ruin the mattress beyond repair. Memory foam, on the other hand, can be cut with an electric knife (just make sure you’re not cutting through a gel layer that could ooze out) and will still be super functional (under a store-bought or DIY fitted cover).
Why opt for only a 6″ thickness on the mattress?
Now that you’ve figured out you want a memory foam mattress, what kind do you go with? While 12″ seems like an obvious choice (so much more comfortable), for those of traveling around without a high roof, you have to consider your space limitations. With only 5′ or so in total height, you want a mattress that will allow you to have space under your bed, as well as enough room to sit up on the bed.
Since I am 6 feet tall, we knew we wanted to get the thinnest mattress possible. We have a fixed bed in Bessie the Van, and so we wanted to be able to store things under the bed (like the toolbox), and still have room for me to sit up without my head hitting the ceiling (since Carmella is shorter than I am, anything that worked for me would work for her).
We also wanted to save money on the mattress. With thick memory foam mattresses going into the thousands, we knew we weren’t going to be able to afford those anyway. We had actually decided on a generic 8 inch mattress from Wal-Mart that was priced at around $300. Then, while we were looking through Amazon, we saw this 6″ mattress that was roughly half that.
For that price, we weren’t really expecting anything great. But, after reading the reviews, we discovered other buyers had used this memory foam mattress for #vanlife, and they were highly pleased with it. We also heard this was easy to cut, since we were toying with the idea of cutting a section out to create a seating area during the day (we may still do this, but have decided to hold off for the moment).
We ordered our memory foam mattress – and then tested it.
With a bit of trepidation (with our disabilities, we didn’t know if 6″ would be thick enough for us to be comfortable), we went ahead and ordered this memory foam mattress. When it arrived (in a smaller box than we expected), we laid it out in a bedroom for a few days to let it air out and puff out (there were a few remarks about an initial smell, but that didn’t happen with ours). Finally, we placed it into our van and tested it out.
Thankfully, in our situation, this memory foam mattress has performed high above our expectations. While we thought the 6″ might be too little of a cushion, it has done remarkably well at supporting us. Even now, a year later (and even another build), it is still doing well, and we wake up every morning without any (new) aches and pains.
Something you don’t think about, but it will help improve your sleep.
There is one side note that we need to point out, however we aren’t sure if this will prove true for all memory foam mattress our just this brand. When you are building your bed frame, you might want to make sure you have a border on the ends of your bed that will keep your mattress contained (like on normal bed frames in stick-and-bricks homes). We didn’t even notice this at first, as our first build had our bed sideways in the van, so the walls themselves were keeping the mattress contained. When we did our second build, however, we turned the bed lengthwise in the van, and without that frame, the mattress did thin out a bit.
This did make it a bit more uncomfortable, and we ended up purchasing a 1.5″ memory foam topper from Wal-Mart that seems to have made up the difference. Don’t let this put you off from purchasing this memory foam mattress, however, as the topper only costs us $10 (they were having some special at the time). So, even with having to purchase the memory topper (which, even when full price, is only about $50), our whole mattress setup is still a lot cheaper than what we would have paid for the next cheapest mattress (which was at Wal-Mart, remember?) – and who knows if that would have been any better?
We are very happy with this mattress.
With the easy fix mentioned above (make the end frame borders a few inches shorter than the length of the mattress to insure optimum comfort), this mattress is easily your best option for a decent memory foam mattress – and definitely won’t break the bank like a name brand memory foam mattress (Purple, Nectar, DreamCloud, etc. are all much more expensive, even on sale).
Why Full, and not a Queen?
Oh, and as an aside, we went with a Full rather than a Queen because we didn’t need the extra space to sleep on (or even sit comfortably), and we were able to use the extra room in our van to build more storage areas. If you’re looking for a Queen, you’re going to have to compromise elsewhere, since space is very limited – and it will cost you more. We are very comfortable on our Full, and we appreciate the extra storage space that having the smaller bed allows us.
