Stay Relaxed and Comfortable – Whatever the Journey
If you’re taking a long trip – a plane flight or hitting the road to drive, travel pillows are an integral part of your luggage. Doctors will often recommend these pillows, too, if you suffer from pain in the neck area or are recovering from surgery.
However, not all are created equally so we are here to offer our words of wisdom.
There are three main types of travel pillow:
Inflatable Travel Pillows
These are perfect for light packing and fold up very small. Often U-shaped, you can personalize them, inflating until the right firmness level is found. These tend to be the cheapest pillow type.
Microbead Travel Pillows
Filled with tiny polystyrene balls, these are lightweight, and will mold their shape to provide support; however, they are considered to give the least amount of comfort, and being quite bulky, hard to pack.
Memory Foam Travel Pillows
This type of travel pillow is generally seen as the most comfortable and relaxing. Although the most expensive, they can be compressed to fit in your luggage, and are lightweight to carry.
Next, which fabric do you choose?
Plastic is the least comfortable and may cause you to overheat, irritating your skin, so it’s best avoided. Velveteen or fleece covers are much better for comfort, but they should be removable for washing.
Introducing our Top 5 Travel Pillows:
1) BCOZZY Chin Supporting Travel Neck Pillow
Overview
There is a huge color range to select from and ours arrived ahead of schedule, and neatly packaged.
It feels very supportive, and wrapping around the neck, you can easily position it in the best place for you. They’ve even thought of attaching a strap so that you can fix it to your carry-on bag if you wish.
What We Like
Although it’s well filled, it didn’t push our heads forward and we were able to relax into the pillow. It’s also easily foldable for a higher head position, easy packing or to fit a child.
This pillow is perfect to take on flights, long train journeys or car travel. If you need a little extra support, you can even use it while relaxing at home.
The fabric covering is soft and kept us at just the right temperature.
What Needs Improving
The only thing we would add is a way of fixing it to itself, helping it to stay in place – maybe a small piece of Velcro, or a press stud, but that, in no way, is a deal breaker.
$59.97 in stock
6 used from $46.52
2) Trtl Pillow – Scientifically Proven Neck Support
Overview
This is small, lightweight and super soft. It looks like a normal neck scarf, but has, what Trtl calls an internal neck support system. This feels like a comfortably flexible neck brace positioned inside the cushion.
What We Like
To be honest, we were wary about how Trtl’s support system would work, but it was amazing. The company prides itself on using a scientifically proven ergonomic design and it works. We tried placing the pillow in every position, but the support worked well each time – just flexible enough to be really relaxing, whilst keeping our heads softly cradled.
There is also a neat mechanism that allows you to attach your pillow to luggage so it won’t get lost in transit.
What Needs Improving
We had to fiddle around to find the best positioning for ear buds while using this travel pillow, but once we did, they were as comfortable as anything.
3) Therm-a-Rest Compressible Travel Pillow
Overview
We love the look of this Therm-a-Rest – it’s like a bedroom pillow but smaller, and as a result, surprisingly comforting on a long journey. The fabric patterns are a nice touch.
As suggested, we washed this before use, and not only did it dry quickly, but it fluffed up impressively; we could still compress it down to fit easily in our luggage, however.
What We Like
This pillow is incredibly supportive and comfortable. We found it also worked well for lower back support when driving long distances. We didn’t overheat, it’s soft enough to shift around when you’re asleep and is even great to use as a regular pillow when you reach your destination.
What Needs Improving
It could be improved by adding a means of affixing it to the outside of a backpack – a little loop, maybe, but the drawstring from the bag does the job; we’re just very lazy and would like to avoid tying a knot!
4) Cabeau Travel Pillow
Overview
On unpacking this, we were impressed by its sturdy, no nonsense construction – this is a travel pillow that means business and isn’t ashamed to say so. Hard wearing, yet comfortable, soft yet supportive – so far, so good. Cabeau have even been thoughtful enough to include free memory foam earplugs.
What We Like
Cabeau have created a really great travel pillow. They use a patented ergonomic design that is perfect for all body types. Although it looks big, we love the way it compresses down to fit in the smallest corner of a case, and then springs back to life when required again.
It’s very durable and left us feeling relaxed and refreshed after sleeping during what would otherwise be a really uncomfortable journey. There have been no residual aches or pains, and even after spilling a cold drink, it came up as good as new after a quick wash.
What Needs Improving
This is uncomfortable if you wish to wear over large ear phones, however earbuds are the way round this minor issue – problem solved.
5) Travelmate Memory Foam Neck Pillow
Overview
This looks like a high end, quality product – well made and durable, with a lovely soft cover. It’s not bulky at all, easily compressing right down to fit in small spaces, but then springing back to size when you need it.
What We Like
The carrying/attaching strap is a very useful addition, making it easy to add to your case without worrying about leaving something out.Having removable sections meant that we could customize this pillow, depending on how we wanted to rest – this is an excellent idea from TravelMate, and one which we all appreciated. Because of this feature, we were able to wear our noise cancelling headphones comfortably, and relax with our heads leaning back at the same time. Although this feels a high quality travel pillow, the price means that it’s easy to afford this luxury product.
What Needs Improving
The only way this could be improved upon is to add some kind of alarm system that would prevent people from stealing it – friends and family deny all knowledge of this happening!
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