Pilgrimage Sleep Kit
If your pilgrimage accommodation is mostly hospitality, sleeping in hotels, bnbs and friends’ homes, you may not need any sleep kit at all. The most you might wish to carry is a silk liner, to ensure cleanliness.
But if you are claiming sanctuary or coldharbouring on your pilgrimage, you’ll need to carry the basics to sleep:
a mat to lie on;
a sleeping bag/quilt;
a pillow.
Sleep Mat
A mat keeps you from the cold and discomfort of the ground or floor. Sleep directly on earth or stone can sap bodyheat quickly, and will become incredibly uncomfortable. If you have nothing else, ferns or bracken piled up, or cardboard from a skip, are preferable to lying directly on the ground.
However, the best bet is to carry a portable mattress. This can be closed-cell foam, which is indestructible, waterproof and cheap, but bulky and less comfortable, and usually requires transport on the outside of your bag, which advertises your intentions. For closed-cell foam ‘roll-mats’, Multimat make the classic British foam option, though Thermarest have a novel option with a folding ‘egg-crate’ design.
Alternatively, inflatable mats are another option, and can include an internal insulation layer. Many pilgrims prefer inflatable mats for the reason of comfort. You will almost certainly sleep better on an inflatable mat than a piece of foam. And good sleep matters!
However, inflatable mats can be a lot more expensive, as well as being more prone to failure. If one thorn enters the (often thin) fabric, you will have a cold night’s sleep followed by a tricky repair or an expensive replacement. I once had a feral cat attack my foam mat, and I slept on it for years afterward. No inflatable mat offers such resilience. It is recommended to ALWAYS carry a repair kit for your inflatable mat, just in case.
Despite this doom-talk, inflatable mats do not often fail. It has never yet happened to me during pilgrimage. Valves might get leaky after a few year’s cupboard life, but brands like Thermarest offer a lifetime guarantee, so you can easily get a replacement. Always be sure to test your old mat for a night at home before setting out on a long pilgrimage!
Some inflatable mats are internally insulated, via a layer of synthetic or down insulation within the mat. These are vital if you intend to make pilgrimage in winter, or sleep on cold stone church floors. A mat that is simply full of air will not offer much help from the cold.
Due to the lightweight materials used in the manufactire of inflatable mats, they can be surprisingly noisy. A swooshy sound can accompany your comfortable sleep. This will likely not be a problem for you, but it may well irk any fellow pilgrims with whom you are sharing a space.
Exped make the best inflatable mats in my opinion, but Thermarest are often more widely available. Trekology make the cheapest option.
It’s worth carrying a ‘pump-sack’ (aka a ‘schnozzel’) with an inflatable mat, as inflating it with your mouth will add moisture to the inside, which will degrade the insulation and eventually cause mould issues. A pumpsack is startlingly easy and quick to use. It’s like one giant nylon lung. And you can also store the rollmat inside it as a drybag when not in use.
How long and wide should a sleeping mat be? Some people only use 3/4 length mats, which helps reduce weight. They might put their lower legs on top of their backpack, which often already contains a layer of foam insulation. Would you like your head and feet on the mat? Make sure your mat is sufficiently long for your needs. Inflatable mats can also be found in double size, if you are sharing or simply keen for rolling room.
Whether to choose foam or inflatable may depend on how you sleep. Side sleepers often prefer a thicker mat, as hips can focus anatomical pressure, which may result in their touching the ground through thinner mats.
For some pilgrims, the ‘best of both worlds’ is a good option - a 3-season inflatable mat, as well as a foam mat. In deep winter pilgrimage, combining these two will offer the same warmth and comfort for far less money than a single specialist winter mat, as well as offering a failsafe redundancy if the inflatable layer pops.
Another option is to carry a sheepskin. These can be a wonderfully tactile and comforting addition to your kit, especially if you dislike plastic. You can buy organic English sheepskins here. But they are heavy, and not as waterproof as foam, unless you wax the base. Also, they are bulky - but sometimes, the right bulk feels good to carry…
Sleeping Bag/Quilt
There are a great many options of insulated sleep covers available. What you need depends on the season and climate in which you are making pilgrimage, as well as your own physiology.
Sleeping bags work by trapping in your bodyheat, so you can effectively warm yourself. The first key question is Down vs Synthetic. Down comes from geese (duck down is the cheaper less effective option), and can come in any different grades of fluffiness (loft). In general, down is warmer and lighter than synthetic insulation, but it is also more expensive. And if (when?) down gets wet, it fails to insulate, whereas synthetic insulation functions well even when damp. Down is also more compressible than synthetic, but you don’t want to really squish it imo. It can take a while to recover.
Another consideration is the outer fabric - is it windproof? Water resistant? If you are coldharbouring regularly in colder climates, having a sleeping bag that cuts the wind will help tremendously to retain body heat. But these materials can weigh and cost more.
Also, the shape of the bag. Some of the lightest sleeping bags are very narrow at the foot, but this results in a more restrictive sleep experience. Wider cut bags are more comfy but heavier.
Then there is the zip. Does it have a backing baffle to keep out draughts? Can it be unzipped all the way down for hot nights? Some ultralight sleeping bags have no zips at all, which saves weight but requires caterpillar-like entry/exit.
And there is the question of sleeping bag vs quilt. A sleeping bag surrounds the body, typically incorporating a hood, to enclose the sleeper. Quilts are more like insulated blankets, and are subsequently far lighter than sleeping bags. They offer no base protection, on the logic that the base of a sleeping bag will be compressed, and offer no real warmth benefit. So why carry this extra material? Quilts remove this part of the sleeping bag, so you rely on the insulation offered by your mat. Quilts are generally more comfortable as they don’t squash your legs in a narrow tube. This form of sleep kit has not taken off in the UK as much as in the USA, and the best quilts are made in America, by Enlightened Equipment and Mountain Laurel Designs.
Sleeping bags can be doubled up for extra warmth. So if you have an ultralight summer bag and a 3 season bag, these can potentially be combined for winter rather than buying a specialist super warm bag. Check they fit together before heading out. This option can be heavier, but much cheaper.
The Best
The best sleeping bags in the world are handmade in Nottingham by Peter Hutchinson Designs (PHD Down). They are correspondingly expensive.
Also Very Good
A really good maker of UK sleeping bags is Alpkit. Their ‘Pipedream’ bags are excellent.
Snugpak also make a range of British manufactured sleeping bags.
Mountain Equipment are also very decent makers of sleeping bags.
Pillows
A pillow can make all the difference to a good night’s pilgrimage sleep. Some people stuff clothes into a packing cube, and wrap it with a clean t-shirt (as a pillow cover). Some folk get away with a well rolled-up jumper. Or you can buy a dedicated camping pillow. You decide what works for you.
I personally have never enjoyed inflatable pillows. My favourite pilgrimage pillow is the Thermarest Compressible pillow, maunfactured from off-cuts of thermarest insualtion. It compresses quite well in the bag, and offers a decent night’s head support. It feels almost like a normal pillow. But it’s pretty weighty and bulky, compared to ultralight inflatable options.
Sleeping Bag Liners
It is definitely recommended to carry a liner to go inside your sleeping bag. We all sweat at night, and it’s best if this does not soak into your sleeping bag’s insulation. Also, sleeping bags are a nightmare to wash (they need very slow drying). So it’s better to let the liner get dirty, and wash this regularly instead.
A liner also adds a layer of temperature variability to your sleeping bag. When you are hot, it can be enough to only use the liner. And when you are cold, a liner is an easy way to add another layer of insulation, keeping you that little bit more cosy.
Silk is the best material for a sleeping bag liner, in terms of weight/warmth and comfort. It feels pretty lux to lay under a tree and sleep in a silken bed… But in extremely cold weather, I have been known to enjoy a merino wool sleeping bag liner too.
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