Air Mattresses
Trying to sleep in the wilderness can be rough. Especially when you are tent camping on a spot that has random rocks and sticks making your sleeping conditions less than comfortable. One of the best options to aleviate the unknown of the forest floor is to use an air mattress.
The obvious difference between is the sizing. If you have ever owned a bed, and I am assuming everyone has, you will be aware of the difference between twin, full, queen, king... Air mattresses are the same thing. You can get them in different sizes. Be careful when thinking how big a mattress will fit in your tent. Incase you haven't realized it yet a two person tent is barely big enough for two people to lay side by side and most likely won't fit a queen. I know that a twin sounds like enough room for one person, but it depends on your size. If you are bigger and haven't laid on a twin size mattress in a while you might give it a try. Laying all night with your arms falling off the side of a mattress may not be the most comfortable sleep.
We have bought cheap air mattresses before and the biggest issue I have noticed with them is their depth. Cheaper air mattresses are often six to eight inches deep. This can cause your head and feet to be raised up, but your hips could sink down to the ground. Again, this is dependent on your size, the mattress size, and how many people you have on it. With two people on a thin air mattress that is a queen the air stays well distributed, probably similar to a single person on a twin. But when you have only one person on a queen there often is too much area for the air to move and you can sink in spots.
I would prefer air mattresses that are a couple feet deep. These also make you feel more like you have a bed rather than just a floatie.
Some come with stands, some with internal pumps, and some self inflate and self pack up. These different options can cost a pretty penny as well as add weight and space. If you have a ton of room in the back of a truck with a large payload limit, then I would highly recommend all the bells and whistles. It's great not having to keep track of a pump and figure out how to fold things back into a box. But, I don't have that luxury, so I go with no bells and whistles. Everything is doable (folding, pumping, remaining on the floor) and it all depends on how much you want to rough it.