August 31, 2020 | By Sean McCoy
The Hest Dually is an incredibly comfortable mattress that sleeps two but folds in half for travel. But its remarkable comfort and durability are matched only by its hefty price tag.
Rooftop tents get all the glory these days, but it’s still hard to beat the practicality of throwing a mattress in the back of your pickup. Especially with a topper, it’s camping at its easiest. And if you choose a great mattress, it’s also incredibly cozy.
For the past couple of months, I’ve been demoing the Hest Dually, and I’m feeling spoiled. After a night in the topper sleeping on this plush memory foam mattress, it’s really tough to go back to a sleeping pad on the ground!
In short: Hest designed the Dually exactly for those who sleep in their truck beds. It folds in half, allowing lots of space for storage beside it in the truck bed. It also has a protective, water-resistant surface that works even while folded. But at $500, it costs as much as many people’s home mattresses.
It’s hard to overstate how comfortable the Dually is. Having slept in it for several nights this summer, I’d stay it rivals the Purple mattress I have in my bedroom. But unlike my bedroom mattress, the Dually is 100% at home in the outdoors.
To achieve great comfort at just 3.9 inches thick (open), the mattress uses two layers of high-performance polyfoam. It both cradles your body for sleeping and provides insulation against the cold truck bed below you. My wife and I have enjoyed wonderful nights of sleep on this mattress.
Folded open, the sleeping surface of the mattress has a DWR-treated nylon stretch twill that feels very comfortable against the skin. I’ve mostly used sleeping bags on the mattress but have considered adding sheets and blankets to my truck sleeping setup.
It fits perfectly in the back of my F-150’s 6-foot bed with a little room to spare. However, be sure to measure the space you plan to use before buying! See the sizes in the specs below.
The bottom and sides of the mattress use heathered nylon woven with a polyurethane backing for durability. It’s a tougher fabric that can handle jostling around in the back of a pickup truck with other gear. I’ve packed lots of gear on top of the mattress when folded, and it shows no wear.
And that brings us to the very cool aspect of this mattress folding up for transport. I’ve left it in the back of my truck all summer, even though I also use the truck regularly to haul around stuff for home improvement projects and whatnot.
And it leaves plenty of space for a boxed-up lawnmower, for example. To fold it, just flip one side onto the other and snap shut a couple of clips.
Other cool features include phone pockets on each side and handles for easy carrying. Because of the design, there’s also no noticeable seam where the mattress folds.
Overall, the Hest Dually is a remarkably comfortable mattress with a lot of design elements that make it ideal for sleeping in a vehicle. For those who spend a lot of nights in the bed of a pickup or back of a van, it should be high on the list of possible sleeping options — if you can stomach the $500 price tag.
Sean McCoy is the Editorial Director of GearJunkie, and 5+ other All Gear websites.
He has been writing about [hunting, fishing, trail running, camping, skiing, and more] for [15+ years].
Prior to GearJunkie, he was the chief photographer for the Virgin Islands Daily News and former Editor In Chief for GearJunkie. Based in Denver, Colorado, McCoy is an avid trail runner, camper, hunter, angler, mountain biker, skier, and beer tester.
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