Best Travel Pillows

The right travel pillow depends less on brand than on how your head actually moves when you sleep sitting up. Most people do one of three things: lean against the window, tip to one side in an aisle or middle seat, or let the chin drop toward the chest. A classic U-shaped pillow handles side tilt reasonably well but does little for forward head drop, which is why the designs that lead current reviews, the Cabeau Evolution S3 with its seat straps and the scarf-style Trtl with its internal brace, are built specifically to hold the head upright or to one side.

The most common buying mistake is judging a pillow by how it feels in hand and ignoring how it travels. Memory foam U-pillows are plush but bulky: reviewers weigh the Cabeau S3 at about 11.6 ounces, and its case compresses it to roughly a third of its size, while the original Trtl weighs 4.7 ounces and folds flat. On airlines that strictly enforce one free personal item, such as Frontier with its 14 x 18 x 8 inch limit, a bulky pillow can end up competing for space with everything else you carry on.

Hygiene and price are the other gaps. A neck pillow touches skin, hair and airplane seats, so a removable, machine-washable cover matters more than extra features; Cabeau, Trtl, Ostrichpillow and BCOZZY all list washable covers or fully washable construction. Prices have also drifted: the original Trtl now lists at $54.99 before frequent sales, the Ostrichpillow Go is $69, and Purple's Harmony Anywhere, a small rectangular latex pillow rather than a neck pillow, lists at $149. Check the current price and the pillow type before assuming a comparison is like for like.