Buying Sleeping Bags for Camping

Keeping Out the Cold

If you are thinking about buying sleeping bags for camping, make sure you consider these aspects before you get serious about making a purchase, because not all sleeping bags are created equally. This brief guide will cover the major differences between sleeping bags for sale as well as the features of sleeping bags specially designed for camping.

Mmmm...toasty!

Shapes and Sizes

The first thing to determine when you are shopping for sleeping bags is what shape of bag you want. The three predominant types of sleeping bag are rectangular sleeping bags, tapered sleeping bags, and mummy sleeping bags. The key differences in these three bag designs center around the degree to which each kind of bag retains body warmth. After all, the purpose of a sleeping bag is to retain and recycle your own body heat as you sleep and your body's endogenous temperature naturally drops throughout the night.

Many people find rectangular sleeping bags to be most comfortable, as you have room within these to spread out and fan out your limbs. Unfortunately, the rectangular sleeping bags are also the least effective at retaining body warmth. Mummy bags are designed to be the most effective at retaining natural bodily warmth, yet they are also the most restrictive, which is irritating or uncomfortable to some campers. Mummy bags are so named because they fit tightly to the entire body and include tight hoods which only leave the face of the camper exposed. Some people find this level of encapsulation to be comforting, even oceanic, hence their freudian joke-name within the nerdiest of camper circles: Mommy bags.

It's what's Inside That Counts

True for both calculators and syringes, this old adage doubly applies to the realm of sleeping bags. Sleeping bags are filled with a myriad of various materials, ranging in cheapness from polyester blends to wool or scientifically engineered synthetic fibers adept at retaining heat. Funseekers, it's important that you realize that although synthetic fibers may sound soullessly commercial, they are actually designed to take an icy beating from a wood's-worth of rain and still maintain their heat-retention properties. Wool and polyester is less skilled at doing this, not only because they are simply lazier materials, but also because they lack the extensive and shadowily-funded chemical treatment of their superiors, which is the key to the modern world.