A campervan bed is narrower than the one at home, it often folds away or doubles as a seat, and the whole space warms up overnight. That changes what works. Find yourself below — and if you would rather talk it through, the number is at the bottom.
The most common way to sleep
All your weight goes through one shoulder and one hip. On a narrow bed you cannot spread out to relieve it, so the mattress has to give where you press into it. Too firm and you wake with a dead arm.
Best firmness: Medium
Memory foam holds warmth, which tells in a small van. If you sleep hot as well, take the Coolplus™ in medium-firm instead.
The easiest position to support
Support that runs evenly the whole length of you, so your lower back keeps its curve. Watch the depth here — on a slatted or rock-and-roll base, too thin a mattress lets you feel the slats through it.
Best firmness: Medium-firm or Firm
The Comfisan™ is where most back sleepers land. If the van will take the depth, the Imperial Elite™ 2000 holds you more evenly again.
Needs a firmer bed than most
Something firm enough that your hips do not drop and arch your back. Soft is the wrong answer here, and it is usually why front sleepers wake up with a sore lower back.
Best firmness: Firm or Hard
Avoid: soft memory foam — you sink too far into it.
If you sleep on your front and the bed you have is soft, that is very likely the cause of the ache.
You wake up warm and clammy
Something that lets heat out rather than holding it under you. A campervan is a small space with the doors shut, so warmth and damp build up faster than they do in a house — and you cannot always leave a window open.
Best firmness: any — choose on how you sleep
Avoid: ordinary memory foam (Bodyshape™) — it holds your body heat.
Air moves through the Coolplus™ gel layer around thirty times more freely than through ordinary memory foam, so the heat you give off has somewhere to go. That also helps with the condensation you get in a small van.
Support and cushioning together
Both at once. Too soft and your back is not held. Too firm and it presses back where you already ache. Depth matters as well — a thin mattress on a hard base gives you neither.
Best firmness: Medium-firm or Firm
Where is the pain? A lower back wants firmer support, so the Comfisan™. Hips and shoulders want cushioning — a Bodyshape™ Topper over a firmer mattress gives you both without going deeper than the van allows.
More support, and it has to last
Denser foam or springs underneath, so you are not resting on the base through the mattress. Go as deep as the bed will take, since depth does as much of the work here as firmness.
Best firmness: Firm or Hard
Two thousand springs share the load rather than one slab of foam carrying all of it, so the Imperial Elite™ 2000 lasts best. If the budget is tighter, the Essential™ in a deeper build and Hard firmness does the job.
Firm is not always the answer
A softer surface that gives enough to cushion you. If you are light, a firm mattress may never compress under you, so you get the hardness without any of the support you were after.
Best firmness: Medium
People often ask for firm thinking it means supportive. A medium will hold you just as well and actually cushion your hip on a narrow bed.
One narrow bed, two people
A bed that keeps movement on the side it started. In a van you are closer together than at home, so every turn carries. If one of you likes soft and the other firm, ask us about two mattresses zipped together.
Best firmness: Medium or Firm — the usual middle ground
Every spring in the Imperial Elite™ 2000 moves on its own, so when one of you climbs out the other is not lifted with it.
Where we have marked something to avoid, that is us being straight with you rather than steering you elsewhere.
| You | Essential™ | Comfisan™ | Bodyshape™ | Novolatex™ | Coolplus™ | Imperial Elite™ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Side sleeper | OK | OK | Best | Good | Good | Good |
| Back sleeper | OK | Best | OK | Good | Good | Best |
| Front sleeper | Good | Best | Avoid | Good | OK | Good |
| Sleeps hot | OK | OK | Avoid | OK | Best | Good |
| Bad back | OK | Best | OK | Good | Good | Best |
| 16 stone and over | Good | Best | OK | Good | OK | Best |
| Under 10 stone | OK | OK | Best | Good | Good | Good |
| Two of you | OK | OK | Good | OK | Good | Best |
Most people ring before they order, and we would rather you did — particularly with a van bed, where the shape and the depth matter as much as the mattress. Tell us what you are sleeping on now and what aches in the morning.
Ring 0121 663 6114 — Mon–Fri 10–5, Sat 10–2. We will talk you through the measurements before you order.
See the mattress range
