PACMAT Review – The Best Picnic Mat for Packing Light

PACMAT Review – The Best Picnic Mat for Packing Light | AD

PACMAT by rubbastuff is a new kind of picnic blanket. The idea was inspired by the creators’ experience of family life and their love of the outdoors. PACMAT picnic mats are designed to be light and compact to be easy to take on any adventure. Additionally, they are waterproof, durable, machine washable, and made in Britain from 100% recycled fabric.

Read on to find out more about PACMAT and why we love our new PACMAT XL picnic mat. 

A Picnic Mat for Family Adventures

We love going on family adventures, both near and far. We especially love hiking up mountains but also less strenuous activities such as walks in the woods or spending the day at the beach. When we head out, we like to always come prepared with backpacks with our family essentials: water bottles, packed lunch, snacks (these high-protein crisps are a great healthy choice), extra layers, first aid kit, and something to sit on.

Until we discovered PACMAT we had two choices for something to sit on – smaller individual seat pads or larger picnic mats. The ones we had were quite bulky so they took up a large chunk of our backpacks. Now, I know that there’s a much better solution out there for people who want to pack light but still have a mat to sit on when out and about. 

A PACMAT is exactly what we needed. They come in lots of different sizes for different needs. From the smallest Patch size, to Solo, to Family, to XL, and to the largest XXL size. 

PACMATs also come in a wide range of beautiful prints. We have the Snakes & Ladders XL PACMAT Picnic Blanket which is one of the brand’s interactive game designs. There’s also a wonderful range of map prints featuring some of Great Britain’s favourite locations. You can even get your own custom OS map printed on a family picnic mat too.

Snakes & Ladders XL PACMAT Picnic Blanket

We are a family of five so we need quite a large mat for all of us to sit on at the same time. The XL PACMAT is the second largest size available with the following dimensions: 240cm x 140cm. This is plenty of space for all five of us to sit on with spare space for our packed lunches. 

Though the picnic mat is so generously sized, it also packs down incredibly compactly as you can see in the image at the top of this article. The low-bulk design means the XL mat is only 20cm x 12cm x 12cm when packed into its mesh storage bag. This makes it really easy to carry with you on adventures, to fit into your backpack, and to store at home too. It weighs just 720g which is not much for a mat of this size.

This lovely picnic mat is comfortable to sit on and has some excellent additional features. As well as being lightweight and compact, PACMATs are also:

• Waterproof: Made from a soft technical polyester that sheds water and dries fast. 
• Machine washable: Easy to wash at home and hang up to dry quickly. Thanks to the material choice, it won’t smell either. 
• Equipped with four embroidered button holes in the corners. These are there so that you can easily tie the corners up (like a tarp) or peg the mat down on the grass or into the sand. You can order pegs when you buy your PACMAT from rubbastuff. They come in a pack of 4 ground sheet pegs in a storage bag and cost just £3.99.

The Best Picnic Mat for Packing Light

It became clear pretty much straight away that our new PACMAT is the ideal family picnic mat for our adventures. Our packs stay light but we have a versatile, family-sized picnic mat to sit on together for a rest or to enjoy our sandwiches. We’ll be taking our XL PACMAT on all our family adventures – if you follow along over on Instagram, I will share more photos there of the mat in use in different locations over there.

Collaboration.