The 6 Best Camping Cots We’ve Tested

Once you’ve got the basics of car camping down, it’s time to look at upgrading your setup: camp kitchen, camping hammocks, and camping cots. While most campers settle for sleeping on the ground while in the great outdoors, camping cots allow you to sleep more like you would at home, elevated above the ground, making it easier to get in and out of your sleeping bag at night. Here are the six best cots we’ve tested.

Best Camping Cots of 2025: Reviews & Recommendations

Best Overall: Cabela’s Lounge Cot

The Cabela’s Lounge Cot was a nice surprise.It’s comfortable, convenient to use, has a 350-pound weight limit, and has the best carry bag I tested. 

Setting up the Lounge Cot is a breeze, and the adjustable feet and legs afford you the opportunity to stabilize it on uneven ground, or even to use it as a lounge chair during your mid-day nap (perfect for turkey season). 

Offering a 350 lb. weight limit is a plus, as the cot itself is not oversized or bulky. The Cabela’s Lounge Cot has a ton of built-in padding, including a comfortable pillow. The padded surface has a tendency to fold up a bit around you, and is best suited to sleeping on your back. That said, it’s roomy enough to toss and turn some. 

The Lounge Cot has a slightly higher price tag than some, but with that comes perks. It’s more comfortable than most other cots, very nice to carry to and from the truck, relatively lightweight, and includes a convenient organizer pocket (which most others do not).

If you don’t require an oversized model, consider the Cabela’s Lounge Cot. For a slightly higher price, you’ll get extra padding, added conveniences, and a great night’s sleep. — Nate Kennedy

Best Budget: Coleman Trailhead II Camping Cot 

The Trailhead II does not have many frills or features. It’s sleek, simple, and easy to set up. It’s comfortable enough, sturdy enough, and offers a 300-pound weight capacity. It’s less bulky than other military-style cots, and comes standard with a decent carry bag. While similar in construction to the Big Outdoorsman and Outfitter XXL, the Trailhead II does not offer locking mechanisms or heavy duty features. 

The Trailhead II might not last a lifetime of hard use, but for the money it’s an excellent option. — Nate Kennedy

Best XXL: Teton Sports Outfitter XXL Camping Cot

The quality, durability, and comfort of the Outfitter XXL are all top-shelf. It’s heavy duty and structurally reinforced, and the steel X-leg design keeps it rock-solid on the ground. The 600-pound weight capacity is seen and felt in this cot, and it’s the ideal option for anyone looking for size and stability first and foremost. 

While the Outfitter XXL carry bag is not as nicely designed as, say, the Big Outdoorsman’s, it works. At 26 pounds, you wouldn’t want to hike this cot up a mountain, but you’d be happy to carry it from the boat to a shoreline wall tent, or from the truck bed into grouse camp. 

The Outfitter XXL is ideal for a semi-permanent setup like a week-long stay or hunting camp, and is the most comfortable cot I’ve slept on, especially for bigger folks like me. 

Perhaps the most impressive detail of the Outfitter XXL is its patented pivot arm. This small, red pivot arm sits on the pesky fourth corner of the cot, and lines up with a notch (also red) on the bottom crossbar, which guides the cot perfectly into place. This is a nice fix for the usual frustration of military style cots, particularly those with quality surfaces that are not easily stretched. — Nate Kennedy  

Cabela’s Big Outdoorsman

The Cabela’s Big Outdoorsman is a classic. In fact, I’ve kept one at our deer camp for years, as a backup bunk for extra guests. It’s well built, quite comfortable, and spacious, even for me at 6 feet 4 inches and 300 pounds. It travels well in a quality carry bag, but is the heaviest cot I’ve tested. It’s got some potential to pinch fingers during setup, but with experience is pretty simple to put together. Multiple locking mechanisms and quality materials make the Big Outdoorsman a solid choice for longer stays and larger humans.

In a large tent or hunting camp, the Big Outdoorsman makes a fine choice, particularly for fans of a king size cot. I’ve used this cot a lot in very wet, rainy conditions and have been thankful that it’s quick to dry and water resistant. 

If you’re in the market for a solid, affordable XXL cot that will hold up and stay dry, the Big Outdoorsman is a fine choice, particularly if you don’t mind carrying a little extra weight. — Nate Kennedy

REI Wonderland Comfort Cot

I’m glad I only tested one REI Wonderland Comfort Cot. It took up an inordinate amount of space in my Toyota 4runner, easily twice the space of the other camping cots I tested. It was also so awkwardly shaped and prone to opening that I ended up packing for our three-night testing trip around this cot. This was such a serious issue that I would not bring this cot camping again for this reason alone. 

Read Next: The Best Sleeping Bags

But if you have endless space in your car camping setup, or are planning to park a camping cot in one spot and never move it, this is an excellent choice. It was the longest cot I looked at, the widest cot I looked at, and the most comfortable cot I looked at. It was also a lot warmer than the Cabela’s, Alps Mountaineering, or Decathlon cots, although REI has not assigned it an R rating for this purpose.  

One note about this cot is that you’ll need to adjust the knobs on the side to get it to lay flat and stay there. During my initial testing I missed this detail and had the top of the cot spring back and strike me in the head with surprising force. — Laura Lancaster

Warmest: Helinox Cot One Convertible Insulated

A problem I kept running into again and again with the camping cots in this test is that I was cold. I typically sleep on one of the best camping mattresses for couples or one of the best backpacking sleeping pads. Even though I’m sleeping closer to the ground with one of these options, they are much, much warmer, due to the insulation inside of the pad. While camping cots elevate you off the ground, they do little to protect you from the cold air whooshing back and forth underneath your cot all night. And your sleeping bag will struggle to protect you, too, since you are squashing all the insulation beneath your body and preventing it from lofting. 

The only camping cot I found that dealt with this issue head on is the Helinox Cot One Convertible Insulated. It essentially integrates an inflatable sleeping pad with an R value of 5 into the cot setup, which kept me plenty warm on nights when temps dropped into the forties. The other major benefit to this cot is that it’s comparatively quite small, about half the size of the other camping cots in this test, and also very lightweight.

Read Next: The Best Cold Weather Sleeping Bags

That does come at a cost, however, both a literal one (this is seven times as expensive as my best value pick) and in the time it takes to set it up. It also didn’t get me all that high off the ground, although Helinox does sell legs separately that can be used to raise yourself up to a more typical camping cot height. — Laura Lancaster

Best for Tall People: Alps Mountaineering Escalade 

See It

Pros

• Highest weight limit in my test
• Second longest length in my test
• Comparative packed size to shorter cots

Cons

• Only camping cot in my test to suffer damage during assembly and disassembly
• Didn’t fit into all the tents in my test

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Key Features

• 
  Size:

  
  80 inches long x 31 inches wide x 20 inches tall

• 
  Weight:

  
  19.5 pounds

• 
  Packed Size:

  
  41 inches long x 7 inches wide x 7 inches tall

• 
  Weight Limit:

  
  325 pounds

One limitation of the Decathlon Quechua Folding Camping Cot is that it has a comparatively low weight limit: only 240 pounds. If you’re not quite petite enough to fit those parameters, the Alps Mountaineering Escalade may be what you’re after. With a weight limit of 325 pounds and a length of over six and a half feet, the Alps Mountaineering Escalade will fit a wider range of body types than other choices we looked at.

This cot suffered some issues during testing. The first is a corollary to its long length: it didn’t actually fit into the first tent we were going to test it out with, the Decathlon Pop Up Camping Tent. (It did fit in the four-person Heimplanet Backdoor, barely). If you don’t need this length and weight limit then you are better off with another pick on this list.

The Alps Mountaineering Escalade was also the only camping cot I looked at to suffer damage during testing, as a result of one of the slots for the support beams becoming misaligned and poking through the fabric during disassembly—something I didn’t even realize had happened until much later. — Laura Lancaster

How to Choose the Best Camping Cots

Packed Size

Camping cots take up a surprising amount of room in a packed vehicle due to their long length. Before you purchase one for every member of your family, take a moment to look at the packed size specifications above and measure your vehicle to confirm that these dimensions work with the rest of your setup. 

Setup Size  

Camping cots also take up more space inside of your tent than a traditional sleeping pad. If you are upgrading multiple people to a camping cot, consider also upgrading to one of the best 8-person tents. 

Weight Limit

There was a surprising amount of variation in the weight limits of the different camping cots I looked at, even when they appeared similar when set up side by side. If you are on the larger side, check that your chosen cot can support your weight before making a final purchase.

Warmth

Most camping cots will need the addition of a sleeping pad or mat to protect you from the cold air underneath the cot, even if you are using a traditional sleeping bag rated for cold-weather use.

How We Tested the Best Camping Cots

Camping cots were tested by two contributors with different backgrounds, physical statures, and preferences. Here are the testing parameters each used.

Nate Kennedy’s Test Protocol

I spent this spring reviewing a suite of camping cots that range from inexpensive to higher-end, compact to king-size, and a few pounds to downright heavy. On turkey hunts and fishing trips, I tented out in my usual haunts, packing around various brands and styles of cots. I’m 6-feet 4-inches tall and a little over 300 pounds so size, comfort, stability, and weight limit are important to me. I like cots that are easy to pack and set up and took note of those features for each cot I reviewed.

Laura Lancaster’s Testing Protocol

Camping cots were tested on a four-day, multi-family car camping trip at Spencer Spit State Park. While my partner and I were the primary testers for these cots, we also shared them with other people on the group trip, soliciting a range of opinions as to what people did and did not like about what they were using. There were both long-time cot users and first-time cot users on this trip, so I was able to learn what both groups of people value. 

When assessing the cots, I took a number of factors into consideration. I looked at how much space they took up in my vehicle versus their size once they were set up at camp. Time to assemble and pack away again were taken into account, along with how difficult it was to get the cots into the various tents I was using on this trip. After sleeping in each cot (and talking to others about their experiences), I considered how comfortable (and warm) each was. Finally, prices and weight limits were taken into consideration.

FAQs

Final Thoughts on the Best Camping Cots

Making the switch to cots, when feasible, has been an all-time hack for quality camping experiences in my outdoor pursuits. Sleeping on the ground was fine, cheap air mattresses were good, hammock setups were great. But camping cots have changed the game. 

The cots I tested offers a wide range of weights, prices, and applications. From oversized options with 600 pound capacity to 4 pound cots that fit in your backpack, this review set out to provide variety and versatility. There isn’t a bad cot in the bunch, but some certainly stand out. 

Tailor your next cot purchase to your personal needs as much as you can. There isn’t really a one-size-fits-all option, but weigh the pros and cons of each option and choose the one that best meets your needs.