April 21, 2021/Riley Draper Table of Contents
Sleeping bags are one of the lynchpins of a good camping trip. Without a good sleeping bag, your trip to the mountains can quickly become a one-way ticket to misery.
Getting a good sleeping bag is the key to getting good rest, and once you’ve figured out the secret sleeping bag formula, you’ll have a much better time getting your trips underway, and you’ll vastly improve your camping trip game. If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry, we’re here to do all the heavy lifting!
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Here are the top 5 picks:
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This mummy-style sleeping bag is almost too good to be true. From its construction to its fillings to its ability to keep a vice grip on your body heat. Everything about this sleeping bag is what you’re most likely looking for when it comes to a good sleeping bag that’s dependable, comfortable, and reasonable to carry around. This sleeping bag works wonders on the trail, you’ll never want to climb back out once you’ve settled in.
More than anything else, this sleeping bag is just plain comfortable. Its warmth-to-weight ratio is incredible. You’ll find that taking this sleeping bag along with your backpacking essentials is a breeze. It’s so lightweight and compact that it almost doesn’t take up any room at all. It’s long enough to easily accommodate someone well over six feet tall but compresses down into essentially nothing.
The foot area is designed to be pretty spacious so you’re not being constricted down below the ankles, leaving you feeling comfortable and free to toss and turn however you normally do when you’re asleep. The bag made with what they call “an innovative dual fill system.”
Which is just a fancy way of saying they filled this sleeping bag with down and synthetic material in a clever fashion. There’s a 650 power fill down on the tops and sides of this bag. This does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to storing heat inside of your sleeping bag. The down and the density at which they’ve filled the bag are going to keep you from getting cold in the first place.
When we look at how the bottom of the bag is filled we see the synthetic batting. This synthetic batting isn’t as luxurious as the down filling up top, but it performs a number of functions when you take a minute to consider why. First, this keeps you from shelling out cash for a sleeping bag filled entirely with down from tip to toe, second, the synthetic batting being on the bottom of the sleeping bag helps circumvent a massive issue with a lot of sleeping bags.
This batting is made to keep the ground from stealing all of your body heat. If you pair this bag with a good sleeping pad, you’re going to be essentially impregnable. This two-pronged approach is what gives this bag its impressive 20-degree rating, but that’s not all.
The mummy-style of this bag gives you a snug fit around your head with an easily accessible drawcord. If you’re concerned with the length of this bag, but everything else about it sounds amazing, don’t fret. The bottom end of the bag is made with flexible stretch baffles and includes length locks so you don’t have to worry one bit about getting a comfortable fit or a good heat seal with your sleeping bag.
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This mummy bag from Western Mountaineering is built with exactly that in mind. This is a great bag for someone that’s serious about camping no matter what season it is. It’s rated for 20-degree weather, incredibly spacious, and the zipper placement and style make it incredibly easy to regulate your temperature once you’ve made your way inside of this bag.
The zipper on this sleeping bag is a high-quality YKK zipper, you’re basically never going to run into snags, splits, or breaks which means you’re going to be able to hang onto this sleeping bag for a long time. It also seals well with the insulated draft tube and a full down collar around your head, keeping the heat inside of the bag without and the cold outside where it belongs.
The filling (16 ounces of 850 fill goose down) and construction of this sleeping bag isn’t the only thing working to keep you warm once you’re inside. The 20 denier shell fabric is incredibly breathable and weather-resistant, so even if your bag gets caught out in the wet with you inside of it somehow, it will work to keep water from seeping in and taking your precious personal warmth.
Read more buyer reviews at Amazon.com.
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Nemo Disco’s sleeping bag is made with a million tiny details that give you the perfect night of sleep, whether you’re backpacking across the country or taking the car down to a local site and bedding down for a single night. It’s a sleeping bag that takes advantage of the advances that have been made over the last few years of developing sleeping bags and crams them all into this incredibly light and delightfully warm and comfortable sleeping bag.
This sleeping bag is filled with 650 fill power hydrophobic down. It’s packed nice and tight so that your body stays warm inside of the sleeping bag without sacrificing too much body heat to the world around you. Keeping heat inside is crucial to its performance, but the hydrophobic nature of the bag is going to fend off any condensation that would build up overnight or any moisture you’d encounter.
The distinctive spoon shape of this sleeping bag is to give your arms and legs additional room to move around once you’re all zipped in. It’s great for side sleepers, which we feel is a type of camper accidentally ignored by tent designers. The sleeping bag also incorporates what they call Thermogills.
These are areas all around the sleeping bag that allow you to unzip the bag in strategic areas to regulate temperature easily without having to do something drastic like totally unzip the sleeping bag or stick one of your legs out through an asymmetrical hole you made by fiddling with the zippers.
The foot box is another innovative feature they worked into this sleeping bag. It’s an area of the bag that’s waterproofed and extra breathable to prevent condensation from building up down by your toes. This little addition is going to keep your feet warm after you’ve popped off your boots, and it keeps the natural dew that builds up over the course of the sunrise from ending up inside of your bag and chilling you to the bone.
Read more buyer reviews at Amazon.com.
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The North Face always makes incredibly high-quality products. It’s a brand known for making outdoor gear that will protect you from some of the worst the world has to offer in terms of weather and conditions on the trail. If you want something dependable, then you really can’t go wrong with the Blue Kazoo from The North Face. As a 3-season sleeping bag, it might seem a little extreme when you first look it over.
It’s rated for survival at about 15-degrees Fahrenheit, which is pretty cold, but remember that a minimum rating is also taking into account your tent, the group layer you’ve deployed, and it assumes you’re fully dressed for the winter weather, so in the grand scheme of things, this sleeping bag is perfectly comfortable all year round, especially for how little it weighs.
This sleeping bag has an incredible weight to warmth ratio, which is to be expected from The North Face. The trick here is their use of down insulation. This sleeping bag is 700-fill water-resistant down that dries quickly. So morning dew, rain, or an unfortunate detour into a river will all roll off of this sleeping bag pretty quickly, leaving it dry and comfortable for you no matter what your conditions were like just before heading to bed for the day.
Read more buyer reviews at Amazon.com.
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The Marmot Helium is one of the lightest sleeping bags out there right now, and it’s able to keep its weight down while providing a large comfortable space to sleep. It’s part of a long line of sleeping bags that have harnessed the properties of down fillings and used them to make something that’s hyper-compressible, incredibly light, and extremely comfortable once you’ve tucked yourself into it for a good long night of rest.
Because this sleeping bag is such a cozy place to set yourself up in for the night, you’re hardly ever going to have a poor night of sleep while you’re on the trail. The foot box here is a real winner. It’s built specifically to conform to the shape of your feet, minimizing the amount of extra space down at the end of your sleeping bag, and keeping your feet dry throughout the night.
The wrap-around construction of the foot box is also just a comfortable addition, utility aside. The comfort and functionality of the foot box are a good example of how this sleeping bag provides comfort during camping season while maintaining a high degree of usefulness and customization. This lightweight 3-season sleeping bag is rated for survival at 15-degrees, and it’s covered in zipper compartments and zipper-related features.
The zippers are all sewn into place along with an anti-snag system as well as additional protection from the elements in the form of subtle, yet effective flaps of material keeping the heat in and the cold out. The fold-down zipper section is a life-saver during the summer months. This sleeping bag is pretty robust, so if you’re going to use it in the summer as often as you’d use it in the late fall, you need a way to regulate the temperature in the sleeping bag.
3-season bags are at their best when you can alter them in simple ways to better suit the situation at hand, and the fold-down zipper does this incredibly well. It opens up a lot of space for you in the sleeping bag so you can really perfect the amount of airflow you’d like inside of your sleeping bag.
Read more buyer reviews at Amazon.com.
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Looking for a good sleeping bag isn’t hard, but it’s important to know what you’re looking for. Getting yourself set up with a sleeping bag is all about understanding the season you’re camping in, the temperature in the area you’re going to be bedding down, and the amount of space you’re able to dedicate to the bag you’re carrying around. This opens up a million avenues of consideration, and it makes shopping for a sleeping bag pretty daunting.
You have to think about the fillings, the material the bags are made for, the temperatures they’re rated for, how much the bag weighs, whether it compresses down into a shape that’s manageable for the amount of time you’re hiking or backpacking to your destination, does it come with its own method of carrying or are you going to have to tie it down yourself?
Where do you even begin? That’s what we’re here for, we can guide you through finding a reliable bag, and once we’ve broken down all of the considerations, we’re going to suggest what we believe is the best 3 season sleeping bag out there right now.
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It’s hard to beat this sleeping bag. From head to toe, it’s totally designed to meet and exceed all of your needs while you’re out on the trail. If it were any better from protecting you from the elements it would just be a tent all on its own. The mummy-style makes it great for holding in your body temperature in any climate or temperature.
If you want to use it in the summer, just sleep with the zipper open or use its length to generate a little more airflow to regulate your temperature. It’s almost never out of season for this bag. When you pair it with a good ground layer, some warm winter clothes, and a decent hat, you can thrive in temperatures well below freezing during the winter. It’s not just a good 3-season sleeping bag, it’s a winner all year round.
It’s incredibly comfortable. The material that the bag itself is made from is like being embraced by the embodiment of a restful night of sleep. The bag is filled with a unique mixture of filling to create the ideal tag team of insulation.
The soft feathery down on the top and sides is very proficient at holding in heat and allowing you to compress the bag down into a more than manageable size. They also went an extra step and added a synthetic layer underneath to keep the parts of your body in contact with the ground from losing all their heat and adding much more comfort to the entire equation.
Bonus tip: Avoid the danger and discomfort of a cold night of sleep with this video!
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Riley Draper is a writer and entrepreneur from Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a world traveler, he has been to more than fifty countries and hiked some of the most elusive trails in the world. He is the co-founder of WeCounsel Solutions and has published work in both national and global outlets, including the Times Free Press, Patch, and Healthcare Global. When he’s not writing, he’s probably on a hiking trip or climbing in the mountains.
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