Best Budget Backpacking Sleeping Bag

Best Budget Synthetic Sleeping Bag

NEMO Kyan 35

Weight: 1 lbs 14 oz | Packed size: 6.6 liters

The Nemo Kyan 35 stacks up well against sleeping bags that cost up to twice as much. Perhaps its most impressive attribute is its weight — under two pounds for a synthetic 3-season bag is pretty much unheard of. It also won't take up much room in your pack because it comes with a great compression sack and packs down as small as the best down bags we've tried. In camp, we also think you'll be pleased with the dimensions that feel surprisingly roomy for a traditional mummy bag design. Another feature we like is the zippered "gills" on the top of the bag that allow you to spread the insulation out on warmer nights.

Our only concern is the Kyan's overall warmth. The 35°F version that we tried didn't quite live up to its temperature rating, so it wouldn't be a great choice for cold spring or fall overnights. Fear not, though; there's a 20F version that's filled with six extra ounces of Primaloft Silver insulation. We haven't had a chance to test this warmer version yet, but the advertised specs suggest it's every bit as good as the 35F version that we love. Pick the temperature rating that fits your needs, and we're confident you'll get a great backpacking sleeping bag at an even better price.

Read review: Nemo Kyan 35

Best Budget Down Sleeping Bag

Kelty Cosmic 20

Weight: 2 lbs 10 oz | Insulation: 600 fill power down

Try as you might, it's tough to find a cheaper down sleeping bag than the Kelty Cosmic. This bag is comfortable, with a soft and cozy interior designed with enough room to accommodate multiple layers of clothing, if necessary. It packs down into its stuff sack smaller than most synthetic bags, but don't expect it to disappear in your pack. The shell is durable and adds to this bag's longevity. Features like a neck baffle and an easy to adjust hood help keep warm air in and cold air out.

This model isn't the warmest bag, though, and the 20°F manufacturer rating is somewhat generous. It's toasty in the low 30's, but you'll need to layer up if temps enter the 20's. The 600 fill power hydrophobic DriDown also won't dry out as fast as synthetic models (a drawback of all down insulation). And while this model utilizes lightweight down, the whole bag still weighs more than two and a half pounds. However, if you're new to backpacking and daunted by steep price tags, this down bag can provide a tremendous performance-to-price ratio. It's also available in a women's version that our female testers really like.

Read review: Kelty Cosmic 20 and Kelty Cosmic 20 - Women's

Why You Should Trust Us

Jack Cramer and Ross Robinson combined forces to find the best budget backpacking sleeping bag. Jack is an avid climber, a member of the Yosemite Search and Rescue Team, and an experienced backcountry traveler. His backpacking chops include a 3-month National Outdoor Leadership School course, a solo trek across Mongolia, and countless off-trail overnights throughout the Lower 48. Ross is a similarly seasoned backpacker and world traveler who gained his expertise on separate 500+ mile hikes in Peru, Thailand, and Germany. None of these travels were as lucrative as the authors would have liked, so they also know what it's like to be shopping for gear on a budget.

This review began with research of more than 100 of the most popular budget backpacking sleeping bags. Ten of the top-rated bags were then purchased to undergo full hands-on testing. Our team of testers brought them on overnight trips throughout the American West, where they evaluated their comfort, versatility, and features. Back in the lab, we weighed each bag on our scale, measured their packed size in a third-party compression sack, and slept in them under controlled conditions to determine their warmth. An overall score was then calculated by weighting performance in each of these areas according to what our experienced authors consider to be the most critical characteristics of a budget backpacking sleeping bag.

Related: How We Tested Budget Backpacking Sleeping Bags

Analysis and Test Results

A sleeping bag is a cornerstone piece of gear in the modern overnight kit. Even in the nicest of climates, storms and cold temperatures can roll in unexpectedly. When they do, your comfort and safety often depend on the performance of your sleeping bag. The obvious question then becomes — is it ok to settle for a budget model? Or because of a sleeping bag's central place in your overnight kit, is it better to spend more on the absolute best? After formally testing over 100 sleeping bags over the years (and many more informally), here's our advice.

Will a Budget Backpacking Sleeping Bag Suffice?

The difference between a budget and a premium sleeping bag is similar to the difference between flying economy and flying first-class. Both accomplish the same purpose, but one is vastly more enjoyable. There is also a large enough difference in cost that it will factor into most people's decisions. "Economy" sleeping bags can go for under $100 while "first-class" bags filled with goose down retail for $500+.

For this review, we defined a budget backpacking sleeping bag as a 3-season bag with a 20-35°F temperature rating and an MSRP under $200. Any bags with similar characteristics that cost more than $200, we called a premium backpacking sleeping bag. We observed substantial differences between these two categories in terms of weight and packed size. Premium bags, on average, weigh about a pound less and compress 3 liters smaller. The differences also extend to comfort and versatility. More expensive models incorporate more luxurious materials and sophisticated designs that make them more useful across a greater range of temperatures and conditions. After the exertion of backpacking all day, however, our testers noticed almost no difference between budget and premium bags in terms of their sleep quality.

Our advice for sleeping bag purchases, therefore, is to follow the airline travel analogy. Frequent business travelers may opt for the perks of a first-class ticket, but the added cost probably isn't worth it for casual, less frequent travelers. When it comes to sleeping bags, we think the lower weight and smaller packed size of a premium bag are easily worth it for frequent, or more serious, backcountry travelers. However, occasional and recreational backpackers can sleep nearly as well and save a couple hundred dollars with a budget bag without sacrificing their safety should a storm arrive.

Value

After you decide that a budget bag is right for you, it's still important that you get a good deal. Sleeping bags are like any consumer product--price often corresponds to quality. But not always.

We believe the Nemo Kyan 35 is an outstanding value. In our performance tests, it scored as high as many premium bags, but it retails for under $200. The Big Agnes Husted 20 is another great deal, receiving better performance scores than other similarly priced bags. It's the warmest we tested within our set price-range, but it's also pretty heavy, which might rule it out for some. Keep in mind, however, we use list price for this analysis. It's not uncommon to find some of these budget backpacking sleeping bags on sale.

Warmth

The classic mummy shape of most sleeping bags is designed to provide maximum warmth with minimum materials. And this design is effective—mummy sleeping bags offer arguably the highest warmth-to-weight ratio of any insulating layer. This warmth is determined largely by the quantity and quality of the insulation, along with the thermal efficiency of the bag's design. These factors work together to prevent your body heat from escaping to the outside world.

There are two primary types of sleeping bag insulation: down feathers and synthetic fibers. Pound for pound, high-quality down (800+ fill power) is more effective at trapping heat than synthetics. High-quality down, however, is extremely expensive, so budget bags usually resort to lower quality down or synthetic fibers for their insulation. The performance differences between these less expensive materials aren't quite as stark or easy to generalize.

The other significant factor that affects warmth is sleeping bag design. The more form-fitting a bag is, the less sleeping bag space your body needs to heat, and all other things being equal, the warmer you will feel. Other design details can also influence warmth. Draft tubes and draft collars, for example, ensure that heat doesn't escape out the main zipper and hood closure, respectively.

You can get a rough idea of a sleeping bag's warmth by analyzing its insulation and design. Without considerable experience, though, it can be hard to make an accurate prediction. An industry-standard test has been developed to address this problem and to give consumers more consistent temperature ratings. These European Norm (EN) ratings use a copper mannequin, rather than a human being, to scientifically measure warmth. However, our testers have noticed significant differences in how warm they feel in bags with similar advertised EN ratings. For example, the author stayed comfortably warm in the Big Agnes Husted at temperatures near its 19°F rating (EN lower limit) but shivered in temps 20°F above the Klymit KSB 35's similar 21F rating (EN lower limit).

To share our hands-on knowledge with you, we've scored each bag's warmth relative to the others on a scale of one to ten. We've also tried to comment on a bag's warmth relative to its advertised EN rating. Picking the best sleeping bag, however, is not as simple as picking the bag with the highest warmth score. It's also essential to consider the temperatures in which you will use the bag. We recommend 35°F bags like Nemo Kyan for warm summer nights and lower elevation trips in spring and fall. A 20F bag like the Kelty Cosmic is a better choice for "cold sleepers" and full 3-season use.

Weight

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of a budget sleeping bag is the weight. For example, an ultralight premium bag like the Rab Mythic 400 provides similar warmth to the Therm-a-Rest Saros but weighs over 2 pounds less. This weight probably isn't a dealbreaker for short overnights near the trailhead, but it becomes problematic for a longer trip deep into the backcountry.

Fortunately, some budget sleeping bags are designed to be genuinely lightweight. The Nemo Kyan 35 and Klymit KSB 35 both weigh less than 2 pounds and are suitable for warmer 3-season applications. For full 3-season use, the Mountain Hardwear Lamina 30 and The North Face Cat's Meow offer additional warmth while weighing only a half-pound more than comparable premium sleeping bags. For any long-distance backpacking, we caution shoppers from purchasing the heaviest budget bags, like the Therm-a-Rest Saros or Marmot Trestles, because their additional weight will almost certainly lower your happiness.

At the same time, try not to get too caught up on the weight of your sleeping bag. The difference between the lightest expensive bag and the lightest budget bag is not as noticeable as one might think. It's also a viable strategy to save your money on a budget bag and use the extra cash to get a lighter tent or backpack, which might be a more effective way to reduce the total weight of your complete overnight kit.

Comfort

The weight or packed size of your sleeping bag matters little if it's uncomfortable. This is a real problem with some ultralight premium bags that have shrunk their dimensions to shave ounces. Fortunately, budget bags haven't gone to the same extremes to reduce weight, and there aren't any bags in this review that we believe are narrow enough to disturb the sleep of the average backpacker. For larger folks or more restless sleepers, however, comfort can be an important consideration.

In our view, the comfort of a sleeping bag comes from the spaciousness of the interior dimensions and the feel of the lining materials. All the budget bags that we tried have roomy interior dimensions compared to the narrower cut of some ultralight premium bags. Side and stomach sleepers will likely appreciate particularly wide bags like the Kelty Cosmic 20, Therm-a-Rest Saros, or Nemo Forte, which give you a larger foot box to stretch your legs.

From a materials perspective, most of the budget bags had similarly soft fabric linings made of glossy ripstop nylon. The Big Agnes Husted 20 was a pleasant exception. Our testers consider its polyester taffeta lining to be even more comfortable.

The Husted 20 also has a smart piece of fabric that directs the hood drawstring away from your face. Although nobody seems to be copying this feature yet, we hope we get to see this great innovation on other bags soon.

One surprising aspect of comfort that we didn't anticipate was smell. Several testers complained about the unpleasant odor of the Klymit KSB 35 during the first month of testing before it aired out and got broken in. We aren't sure where this smell originated, but we are happy that this wasn't a problem with the other models.

Packed Size

Behind weight, the second biggest drawback of a budget bag seems to be the packed size. The smallest premium down bags can be less than half the size of similarly warm budget bags. Depending on the types of overnights you like to do, this may or may not be an important issue. If you mostly backpack on wide, established trails, the extra volume is unlikely to be a huge problem. However, if your adventures include hikes through dense woods, off-trail, or even some climbing and scrambling, then a bulkier sleeping bag becomes less desirable.

All the bags we tested came with a sack for storing them in your backpack. The quality and effectiveness of these sacks varied considerably. We've tried to differentiate between the two by referring to sacks that can fully compress a sleeping bag as compression sacks and ineffective designs as stuff sacks. If the bag you're considering comes with a stuff sack, expect to spend an extra twenty bucks on an aftermarket compression sack if you want to pack it down to its minimum volume.

For evaluating the minimum packed size, we tried to keep things fair by using the same 15L Outdoor Research compression sack for all the bags. The Klymit KSB 35 and Nemo Kyan 35 were both impressive standouts for achieving minimum packed sizes below seven liters. On the other end of the spectrum, the Therm-a-Rest Saros and Big Agnes Husted 20 were more than double the volume and seem more suitable for car camping than true backpacking.

Versatility

All sleeping bags need to be able to keep a single person warm within their specified temperature range. Some sleeping bags, however, can also be shared between two people comfortably or continue to offer considerable warmth even if they get wet. Other bags have clever designs that allow you to adjust the amount of insulation to extend the usable temperature range. The more of these things a single bag can do, the more versatile it is, and the more value we believe it provides.

One significant factor that influences sleeping bag versatility is the type of insulation. Down feathers, regardless of whether they receive water-resistant chemical treatments or not, will clump if they get wet. When clumped, the feathers lose virtually all their ability to insulate. Synthetic fibers, in contrast, don't clump when wet and retain a considerable portion of their insulative power even when soaked. This property gives synthetic bags a clear advantage for wetter activities and climates.

Another factor that influences versatility is the length of a sleeping bag's main zipper. Full-length zippers allow you to vent excess heat or use the bag as a blanket on warmer nights. One bag in this review takes the zipper length even further for more versatility. The Klymit KSB 35 has a longer-than-full-length zipper that lets you unzip all the way around the foot of the bag. This design gives you the option to use it as a true quilt or share it between two people on an ultralight mission. The zipper versatility also makes it easier to continue "wearing" your sleeping bag on cold mornings as you prepare breakfast or enjoy a hot beverage.

Versatility increases with smart accessory features. Neck baffles, or draft collars as they're also known, are extra tubes of insulation near your neck that seal heat inside the main compartment of a bag. This feature extends the bag's usable temperature range to colder conditions. In the other direction, the "gills" on the Nemo Kyan and Nemo Forte allow you to reduce the amount of insulation to ensure you don't overheat on a warmer night. The Marmot Trestles 30 extends its upper-temperature range with an accessory zipper opposite the main one that lets you fold the top of the bag open.

Features and Design

Sleeping bag makers have come up with many ways to make their products stand out from the crowd. Some of these features are undeniably useful, but others don't make a whole lot of sense. Our reviewers tested each in the field to evaluate these myriad features and examine how effectively they address the problems they were designed to solve.

Ten years ago, it seemed as if every sleeping bag zipper had a horrible snagging problem. Today, that's thankfully no longer the case. The ubiquitous zipper manufacturer YKK now offers a Y-shaped zipper slide that reduces snagging and is utilized on several bags. Other bags use stiffened fabric adjacent to the zipper to keep the silky lining fabrics away from the zipper's teeth.

Zippers can also be modified to provide additional venting options or enhanced versatility. As already mentioned, we're big fans of the extra-long zipper on the Klymit KSB 35 because it allows you to vent only your feet or to unzip the bag into a true quilt.

The Marmot Trestles 30 adds a second zipper to let you vent extra heat from the hood opening. This detail is kind of nice but requires additional weight (zippers are common culprits of adding weight), resulting in lower overall versatility than the KSB's smarter design. In a slight contradiction, accessory zippers on the Nemo Kyan 35 boost versatility while adding minimal weight. That's because these accessory zippers are tiny, ultralight, and used to operate the "gills" on the top of the bag that adjust the amount of insulation, adding a degree of control to the bag's warmth.

Another feature that's appearing on a lot of bags is a small stash pocket. These pockets are great for keeping your phone or headlamp close at hand. We especially like zipperless stash pocket designs located on the inside of the bag because they are light and will keep the batteries in your electronics warm and working well.

A final feature that more sleeping bag makers are introducing in their newer models is a system for attaching the bag to a sleeping pad. Most of our testers think these attachment systems are unnecessary because it can be downright tricky to roll off a pad inside a cramped two-person tent. Some people, however, do appreciate being able to secure their sleeping bag to their pad. Either way, we've chosen to only award additional points for sleeping pad attachment systems that are also removable. The Therm-a-Rest Saros incorporates such a system pretty nicely.

Conclusion

We love overnighting in the outdoors. And while you certainly can spend multiple paychecks on your backpacking and camping kit, we don't believe everyone should have to do so. If the price of entry is the largest obstacle between you and enjoying a night out in nature, we emphatically recommend saving money and grabbing a budget sleeping bag. And even if that's not the case, we think there are a few budget bags that are still worth considering.