I knew it was time for a new RV mattress when I got into bed one night and I felt a coil in my back. Adam and I flipped the mattress but after sleeping for two-years full-time on our mattress that came with the RV we knew it was time to get a replacement. Our old RV mattress was almost 9 years old and came with our RV when we bought it used in 2016.
RV mattresses are typically thin, between 4-6 inches, with coils and they are cheap. We were actually surprised that we managed as long as we did with our RV mattress without replacing it. It certainly wasn’t as terrible as we were expecting. That being said, we noticed a huge difference once we purchased our new RV mattress.
Searching for a new RV Mattress
Living in Tofino, a town filled with resorts, we could have bought a mattress from the local Facebook marketplace. This would have been the best solution for replacing our RV mattress as most of the resorts in Tofino are 4-5 star resorts with quality beds. They replace them frequently and then sell them for $50-100 on Facebook. Unfortunately, all of those mattresses were at least 12 inches thick which wouldn’t work for us or most RVers. Most RVers, including ourselves, only have so much space for a mattress. Anything above 10 inches in height would block our windows on either side of the mattress. We have read about RVers customizing their bed’s platform to make it lower to allow for a full-size mattress but this would mean taking away valuable storage underneath our bed which we didn’t want to do.
Sleep is something that is super important to both Adam and I. We work hard through the summer, and we need a comfortable mattress for a good nights sleep. Our needs were simple – firm and not too expensive.
Adam took over the investigation as to which RV mattress we should get. This quickly took him to watch endless videos of people reviewing mattresses on YouTube. Who knew that there were people out there who reviewed mattresses for YouTube? I didn’t.
The main type of mattresses Adam was looking at were mattresses-in-a-box. These types of mattresses seem to be all the rage these days for both RVs and stick-and-brick homes. Most of them are memory foam based with other features/toppers included.
Here’s the video he watched comparing various boxed mattresses.
Our main concern with the new memory foam mattresses is whether or not the mattress would be firm enough. I have sciatic nerve problems and Adam is just tall and needs a firm mattress to support is long torso. We knew that we weren’t going to be able to go and test a bunch of mattresses as we did in the old days, so we relied on research and reviews.
On a lot of the RV sites that we follow, people were raving over the Lucid and the Zinus* (pictured above). Both are affordable, come in the mail, and are made of memory foam. Both had really good reviews and features about them.
*Note – The Zinus mattress linked above is specifically designed for RVs. We don’t believe this model was available through Amazon when we were initially doing our research into mattresses. We believe that this would be a great option if you’re looking to replace your RV mattress.
Purchasing our new RV Mattress
After a lot of shopping around, Adam made the purchase and went with Lucid. Later that week, we went to the post office in Tofino thinking that we would both need to carry it out. Not the case at all. Even though the sticker said, “HEAVY,” one of us could have easily carried it out to the truck.
We removed our old mattress and took the new Lucid mattress out of the box. We carefully cut the plastic off and unrolled it. There was a warning in the instructions that the mattress may have an odour and to put in a ventilated room. We didn’t notice that much of a smell, thankfully.
The next couple of nights, while the Lucid mattress was given time to expand and breathe (it takes about 48 hours), we put our old mattress on the floor of the kitchen and slept there. Two nights later, we finally slept on our new bed. It perfectly hugs your body, which I instantly liked, as it supported my bad knee. We watched an episode of Peaky Blinders and then it was off to sleep. The next morning, I felt great. I slept straight through and I didn’t feel Adam kicking or moving around like I normally do. We were both really impressed with the firmness of the mattress.
Do we still like our RV Mattress?
We’ve now had our Lucid mattress for almost a year. We’re still impressed with its firmness and the quality of sleep we are regularly having. We’ve never found it too hot in the summer months either but it does seem to keep us warmer in the winter months.
Finding a perfect mattress is never an easy situation, especially when there’s more than one person in the bed and everyone has their own level of sleeping comfort.
Is this mattress the perfect RV mattress? Probably not, but we’ve been extremely happy with the value we’ve received for $300. We may add a gel-topper in the future to give us a little more overall thickness to the mattress but for now, we’re still happily getting a good night’s rest which is all that matters. In hindsight, we wish we ordered the 8-inch option available but we went with the 6-inch based on the fact the old RV mattress was 6-inches.
If you do end up replacing your mattress in your RV let us know what kind and how it worked out for you. And if you do decide to replace your mattress, investigate giving your old mattress to someone who may need it. We ended up giving ours to a lady who wanted it for her two dogs to sleep on. Try to find a use for it rather than sending it to the landfill.
*Note – We did not/do not receive any compensation or commission from Lucid or Zinus and all opinions are our true and honest opinions.*
