Over years of camping with the Silver Shadow, we have found that bringing along camp mats is an important part of keeping camp tidy and clean.  We have tried lots of different kinds of mats with varying success. Many don’t dry well or are heavy.

We like to have small ones on the sides so that you can put your feet out of the camper and not immediately encounter dirt or mud. This makes it much easier for putting on and taking off shoes as you get in and out of the trailer. We also like to have a larger mat at the back of the camper to give a clean area so that the kitchen area doesn’t get so dirty.

We have found that Fab Habitat makes a really nice mat that is woven from recycled plastics and has some great designs. These wash easily with a hose or can be folded and put into the washing machine for a deeper clean. They can be shaken to get loose dirt out while camping and make a good ground cover that helps when it is raining or damp.

We actually bought two of the bigger mats in order to divide one of them into the two mats we needed for the side doors. We put some colored duct tape along the middle on both sides and then cut it in half. It’s really important to do this first as they can become easily unraveled and fast! Then we folded more tape over the cut in order to seam closed the open edge. This allows us to have the three mats we need and all matching!

We keep an old hammock bag that we use to store them in after we roll them up. This way they pack back into the Shadow when we move along without getting any dirt in the cabin.