Muk Mat; are they just an over priced piece of fake grass?
A long time ago, I saw a product that a lot of caravan owners were using, called the Muk Mat, and I quickly didn’t like the idea for a couple of reasons which we go into below.
They are just an over priced piece of fake grass, that you wipe your feet on before going into your caravan, camper or RV, right?
Well, yes, but not exactly. We bought one just over a year ago, and my perspective has changed a lot, and here’s why.
What is a Muk Mat?
These are mats that are designed to go outside your caravan, camper or RV (although they do make them for steps now too), which aim to remove as much muck from your shoes or feet before you go into the van or camper trailer.
This is nice for your feet, but also is supposed to greatly reduce the cleaning required inside your home on wheels.
They are essentially a piece of fake turf with some differences, which we go into below.
Why did I resent the Muk Mat so much?
I mentioned above that I really didn’t like the Muk Mats, and there are two reasons why:
The price you pay for a piece of fake grass
You can buy a piece of fake lawn for hardly anything, and the thought of paying $50 – $80 for a tiny piece of fake lawn just didn’t make any sense to me.
It seemed like one giant marketing arrangement where people were over paying for something that they didn’t need to. Why would you pay so much money for a brand name bit of fake turf when you can just get an offcut from a fake turf installer for much less?
‘Influencers’ pushing them left, right and centre
The second reason relates to the affiliate marketing side of things, where a heap of influencers, including travelling families, couples and individuals raved (and some still do) about the Muk Mats, with discount codes at the end of their posts.
Each time the discount code is used, they earn a small commission, and so they keep sharing the codes. There was a time a while back where a huge number of travelling families were promoting these, and it was seen several times a day on various social media feeds.
I don’t have a problem with people genuinely recommending a product, but when you do it with commercial intent, I have to question their level of honesty.
Is it a great product that they recommend and in turn make a few bucks, or is it a great product just because they make money promoting it?
This is something that really grinds my gears, as I’ve seen a HUGE number of people who start off small and genuine and within a year or two have turned into giant selling machines. Where’s the authenticity gone? What can you actually trust from them anymore?
If you want to read more about our thoughts on this, you can read a controversial post I wrote a while back – Travelling Families and Influencers selling themselves.
We picked a Muk Mat up
Despite all this, we picked a Muk Mat up. I have to eat some of my words here though, as we were walking through Anaconda a while back when I saw them on the shelf.
This was the first time I’d actually seen them in person, and been able to play with them, and I went over, sneakily determined to rip some of the strands out and prove that they were no better than the fake lawn we had at home.
When I picked it up though, I could see that these were very different to normal fake lawn. The strands are much longer, way stronger and its really well put together.
Despite me yanking on several, and even individual strands I couldn’t rip anything out. The finished product is nothing short of excellent, and we really did need a way to reduce the muck going into our camper, so we agreed to get one and see how it went.
Worst case, if it was rubbish I could gloat that I was right all along, but for $50 I was prepared to find out.
They come in different sizes and configurations
If you are looking at the Muk Mat, you can get a couple of different sizes. The Medium is 500 x 650mm, Large is 600 x 900mm and Extra Large is 600 x 1200mm.
They also do a step one, designed to go on your caravan step, or in the footwell, and also sell grey ones if that’s more your thing.
Pricing varies depending on what you want, but you can check that out for yourself online, or at your local caravan and camping shop.
Muk Mat Review
Again, I eat my words. This thing is amazing, and I’m often shocked at how much sand and rubbish it collects. Our camper still gets dirty, but not nearly as much and I’m thoroughly impressed with its build quality, the fact that its Australian made and that it works well.
We’ve used the Muk Mat extensively over the last 12 months living on the road full time, and in our experience, its a fantastic product.
There are competitors (and I’ve seen some influencers move to others; no doubt paying more commission!), but these appear to be the original caravan mat, and they work really well.
My folks have been using a piece of fake lawn for some time now, and these are chalk and cheese. The edges are really well sewed up, the grass bristles do an excellent job of cleaning your feet, they are comfortable to walk on and they are heavy enough to rarely get blown around.
I’m pretty confident you could hammer these for years and they’d hold up just fine. Do that with a piece of fake lawn, and you’d have nothing left as it flattens out, the strands fall apart and it would probably blow away with a bit of wind.
Now, I have a discount code for you to use, so I can make a few bucks if you purchase one. JUST KIDDING! We’re not in that business, and never will be.
We really like our Muk Mat, and if you are looking for a caravan mat I’d recommend you go and look at one in the store, and see what you think.
If you don’t like it, don’t buy one. This is purely an informational post to share our thoughts, and we are really happy with our Muk Mat, that is getting hammered on our big lap of Australia. I honestly don’t know how we’d live without it now.
On another random note, we actually burnt our Muk Mat, and it turns out its really common, from nothing more than a caravan door or window and a decent amount of sunlight!
Hopefully this review is of value to you, especially knowing we have no commercial intent! Not all things are as they seem, and a well done to Muk Mats.
