Nomadic Sleeping Arrangements

Mattresses on the ground would be the most practical. Generally nomads sleep on (slept on) ground cloths with minimal padding; a bag of straw would usually be enough padding. In quite a few parts of the world a carpet or two or three are used as sleeping pads.

There are wooden beds which work like jigsaws and can be taken down into a bunch of boards in a couple of minutes, and wooden chairs the same. The problem with transporting a bed like that is more the mattress than anything else - carpets and furs take less space and are generally easier to shift, but if you must have a bed, it might have a more futon-style mattress. Unwieldy but not too bad.

Or have them sleep in the wagons, if there are vehicles.

Hikers carry sleep mats which are rolled up person-length pieces of foam plastic to sleep on. I don't see why your nomads would not have something similar.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Rugs and furs would be the traditional way to go. Another possibility would be fold-up cots.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Look into what the Mongols do in thier circular yurts.

Also the plains Amerinds in the US and Canda.

Hamocks would be problematic unless your folks have really good, stout, tent poles.

The Mongols, from what little I know, carried a lot of stuff around with them. That might be a good first place to look.

It can also depend on how you are transporting your stuff. For instance, the more pack animals you have, the more you can carry but the more food you need to find. But I would use rugs and blankets and stuff that can be rolled.

An air mattress was my first thought, especially since this is a futuristic story. I'm assuming that society has collapsed along with the Great Lakes, so that would count out any space-age new-fangled foam stuff. But you can get air compressors that work through a car's cigarette lighter (okay, power port nowadays) so if they have vehicles the battery will work fine to inflate a mattress.

But how are you fueling the vehicles? And how are the pack animals keeping up with the vehicles? Pack animals are used more for endurance than speed, aren't they?

Orianna2000 said:

They have trucks, as well as pack animals, so they can carry quite a bit. I was thinking about cots, but do those come in a double-width? I've only ever seen narrow portable cots.

I tried those foam mats that hikers use. It might have been better than sleeping directly on the ground, but I sure couldn't tell the difference! I ended up sleeping on a fold-up pad (about four inches thick) while my husband used the foam mat on the ground, with his sleeping bag. He complained bitterly! Next time we went camping, we took an air mattress.

Say . . . is there any reason they can't use air mattresses? Would they be sturdy enough for frequent traveling through the desert? They could collapse into a small, lightweight package, then get filled with air once they reach their destination. They have batteries, so they could run small air compressors to fill the mattresses. Would that work?

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I have slept on bare ground, smooth flat rock, pads, air mattresses, cots, a sleeping bag, and ordinary beds. If the ground doesn't have stones, then it doesn't make much difference what's underneath, but cots are worse than bare ground. Air mattresses can be very comfortable, and they are easy to fill. I haven't used the recent ones, but they probably have gotten better.

King Neptune said:

I have slept on bare ground, smooth flat rock, pads, air mattresses, cots, a sleeping bag, and ordinary beds. If the ground doesn't have stones, then it doesn't make much difference what's underneath, but cots are worse than bare ground. Air mattresses can be very comfortable, and they are easy to fill. I haven't used the recent ones, but they probably have gotten better.

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Whoa. I've slept on all those things, too, and also sand, a trampoline, a horse's back, a raft, and probably a few other things. And I really don't think a cot is worse than the ground.

What makes you not like cots? It seems counter-intuitive (and counter my experience). Why would people bother with cots if the ground is better? Isn't a mattress, even a thin one, going to be softer than the ground?

Is it possible you slept on a really, really bad cot?

Having slept on many surfaces, I've found the ground comfier than a camping mat, but prone to be colder unless you have a good sleeping bag. Airbeds are okay (but easily punctured), and rely on a source of rubber which may not be available if trade routes have broken down.

'Cot' could describe many things, so specifying what sort might help. If your cot was anything like an army camp bed, there's a knack to sleeping on those and they typically don't come in doubles. They can't tip over properly if they're wide enough for two.

Orianna2000 said:

They use an advanced solar power system for the vehicles. I didn't consider how the animals would keep up, but I could easily fix it so they only use the animals for food/wool/etc. and pack them up when they move locations.

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Hmmm..... that don't seem to make sense to me. But I may be misunderstanding. You're moving your animals by solar powered truck? So kind of like a futuristic wagon train?

I have heard of, but not actually seen, air beds that are filled with a foam rubber type substance so that they can be crushed and rolled up small and capped to be transported, but when the cap is removed, the foam expands and it is self-inflating. Then the cap holds the air in until time to roll it up again.

The most comfortable bed I have ever slept on in my life was a bison hide on the ground.

Really the ground itself is pretty comfortable, but you ideally want some insulating barrier between your body and the cold damp earth. Wool or hides work really well. So do camp mattresses or even a tarp.

Seconding Canotila re: wool and hides.

When my spouse and I go camping, we almost always sleep on top of spread-out wool skirts that we wore during the day. If we can afford to bring the weight, also wool blankets above and below us. And if we can afford even more weight (i.e. have a vehicle or only a short hike) then furs on top and a big old leather coat as a ground cloth below. Wonderfully cozy. Sometimes I've also brought a thick wool rug for the ground cloth. That works well, too, though our leather coat does better at keeping out the wet.

Sleeping on the ground can be partly practice. I got much more comfortable after I tweaked my sleeping positions, instead of acting like I was in my bed at home. The differences I noticed were fairly subtle - no "shouldn't sleep on my side" stuff, more like "detail of where I put my arm when I'm on my side". I imagine plenty of people do that automatically, but I overthink everything.

My first thought re: hammocks is that they seem like they could get pretty cold in Canada. Also, the bug situation might be quite different on the plains, but as someone who lives just south of Quebec, I wonder about the bugs. Hammocks seem better designed for preventing scorpion bites than black fly and mosquito? That's just random mass guessing though - I've only ever used a hammock indoors in hot weather.

But I did want to note that marital hammocks exist. Two-person hammock sleeping is a thing, so don't feel constrained by that aspect of the plot if you decide the other aspects of hammocks do make sense.

Edit: Ah, cross-posted. The only air mattress I have experience with always lost air in the middle of the night and I would wake up very stiff and cold on a half-inflated amorphous thing, but I imagine that most mattresses don't do that. Unless of course you want the characters to wind up less comfortable than they expected...

If they have the capability to use all these vehicles to transport animals, why not have vehicles with built in sleeping arrangements a la Travellers' caravans or even motor homes?

ETA: we had army-issue tough rubber air mattresses that lasted forever. Unlike the wimpy plastic ones at Target.

Well as a starting point here's the basic layout of a Mongol tent. The "bed" was usually more of a couch where the head of the tent would welcome guests. At night the family would generally sleep huddled together for warmth on furs on the floor. Chairs were generally not used. People just sat cross-legged on the floor around the fire. Slaves sat near the door. During migrations they'd transport their belongings in two-wheeled carts.



And here's a typical Mongol camp. The larger tents of important people would usually be kept permanently mounted on large ox carts. The larger square tents would be used for banquets. The circular formation made the camp easier to defend in case of attack. A lot of times the carts they transported their goods in would be lined up around the camp to form a makeshift fence. All tents faced south for religious reasons.

LeFevre said:

I have heard of, but not actually seen, air beds that are filled with a foam rubber type substance so that they can be crushed and rolled up small and capped to be transported, but when the cap is removed, the foam expands and it is self-inflating. Then the cap holds the air in until time to roll it up again.

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We use self-inflating foam mattresses on bunks for the kids when we go camping. They roll up quite small. Really easy to use. Unscrew the caps, they suck air in themselves and after a while you cap them to sleep on. Then to roll up you uncap, roll tight squeezing the air out, then cap to stop the air getting back in.

Being futuristic though, you can probably get creative with your bedding

Orianna2000 said:

It's a futuristic caravan. They have to be able to move quickly, to escape bandits, so it would make sense that they herd the slow animals onto trucks while they drive to their next location. When they're attacked, they drive into a circle and protect the vulnerable vehicles, while gunner trucks protect them. I actually didn't go into detail about whether the vehicles are solar powered or gas powered, so it could be either, or even both.

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Ah! Now that does make sense. It's more like a wagon train than nomadic herders.

Although... is there any reason the people can't sleep in the vehicles?

Captcha said:

Whoa. I've slept on all those things, too, and also sand, a trampoline, a horse's back, a raft, and probably a few other things. And I really don't think a cot is worse than the ground.

What makes you not like cots? It seems counter-intuitive (and counter my experience). Why would people bother with cots if the ground is better? Isn't a mattress, even a thin one, going to be softer than the ground?

Is it possible you slept on a really, really bad cot?

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It depends on the cots, but they are less likely to be accommodating to human bodies, while soil is. And yes, there are some cots that are fairly good, but I would still prefer pine needles.

Sand slipped my mind. If I had a choice I would take sand over almost anything else, as long as there are no stones mixed in.