Sleep specialists generally recommend lying on your side while dozing as the best position for keeping your spine in alignment, though people with back pain might find greater relief lying supine.
Do you know what no sleep experts recommend? Sitting upright in a cramped airplane seat for hours on end with your chin to your chest, à la a snoozing Big Bird of Sesame Street (not that there’d ever be enough legroom in coach to accommodate the 8-foot-tall Muppet).
Even if you recline your seat—and no, I will not be delivering a verdict on that matter at this time—or prop your head against the window or your neighbor’s shoulder, a fundamental lack of horizontality puts long-haul flyers at high risk for fitful sleep characterized by a strained neck and that thing where you start to nod off but then immediately jerk back awake as if zapped by an electric cattle prod.
Acquiring a decent travel pillow could improve your odds of getting some rest. But which pillow should you buy? Will picking up a simple horseshoe-shaped number from the airport’s Hudson News do the trick? Or should you go with something more high-concept that makes you look like you’re cosplaying as a cremini mushroom?
After many years of unsatisfactory sleep on planes, I determined to find, once and for all, the best travel pillow for long flights.
I scoured the internet for the top-rated options according to travel experts as well as civilians, and landed on five well-reviewed contenders. I decided to try all of them out on one long journey to and from a vacation in Vietnam and see if I could find a fave. I made my husband, Frank, help me with the testing.
Lo and behold, we found a clear winner.
How We Determined the Best Travel Pillow for Long-Haul Flights
Our flight itinerary to Vietnam went like this: Boston to Seattle, then Seattle to Seoul, then Seoul to Ho Chi Minh City, for a total of 23 hours in the air. It was a long day. And at the end of the trip we had to do the whole thing again in reverse.
Each of the five travel pillows under review received at least 6 hours of neck time from both Frank and me.
We scored each product according to five criteria collectively dubbed (by me) the PACES Pillow Principles.
PACES stands for:
Portability. How convenient is the pillow to travel with? Is it durable? Does it have a compact size? A handy carrying case?
Adjustability. How versatile is the pillow? Can you use it in different ways, depending on your personal preferences?
Comfort. Is the pillow soft or pleasantly firm? Does it fit your head? Does it get too hot or trap you in one position?
Ease of use. Is installing or adjusting the pillow intuitive or complicated?
Support. Does the pillow actually hold up your neck?
Each pillow received scores in the five categories on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best and 1 being worst, for a maximum possible score of 25 per pillow per tester. Then the two testers’ scores were added together for a maximum cumulative score of 50 per pillow.
Ballots were kept secret until tabulation.
What are your pillow testers’ qualifications?
I’m a travel editor of many years’ standing and a strong opinion-haver of many more. I’m a pretty solid sleeper on terra firma, averaging 7 hours, 14 minutes per night, according to my Apple Watch.
Though not a professional traveler, Frank is a seasoned plus-one, a champion napper, and a Taurus—the astrological sign said to be most fond of material comfort.
Let’s look at the results!
The Top 5 Travel Pillows, Ranked
5. Cabeau Evolution S3 Neck Pillow
cabeau.com, $39.99
Praised by: Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic, CNN
Amazon users’ star rating: 4.2/5
Our PACES score: 35/50
This carefully designed memory foam pillow has several promising features meant to upgrade the standard U-shaped variety. A flattened, rather than rounded, back lets the pillow go flush against the seat back so that your head doesn’t tilt forward. Raised side supports and an adjustable clasp in the front help limit side-to-side wobbling. And Velcro straps loop around your seat’s headrest to keep the pillow—and, by extension, your head—stationary rather than rolling around.
The seat-strap system isn’t always easy to secure, though, and made me feel like I was in traction. Flyers, like Frank, whose height falls in the short-king category might find that the strap system suspends the pillow closer to the ears than the neck. And because the sides are high to begin with, that could make using over-ear headphones difficult while ensconced within the Cabeau.
We did find this pillow to be among the most portable of the ones we tested. Thanks to the foam, you can smush it down to half its size to carry in an accompanying pouch that clips to your carry-on or backpack.
4. Infinity Pillow
infinitypillow.co, $55
Praised by: Travel + Leisure, The Independent
Amazon users’ star rating: 4.2/5
Our PACES score: 36/50
The Infinity Pillow is like an infinity scarf, only thicker. In other words, it’s just one big floppy loop of fabric and filling (nylon, bamboo rayon, and polyester). The pillow gets top marks for adjustability. In fact, an illustration on the packaging shows a multitude of ways to configure the thing: looped around the neck, over the eyes, over the ears, around the back, over the shoulders, and so on.
But it’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades-yet-master-of-none situation. Although the pillow is soft, it’s both bulky and lacking in firm consistency, so you’re liable to feel that you have a lot of pillow but not a lot of neck support. The product comes with a strap to keep the loop to a manageable size during transport, but the filling doesn’t have the squishiness of memory foam. Consequently, the Infinity Pillow takes up, well, infinitely more room in a carry-on than the other options on this list.
3. Travelrest Nest Ultimate Memory Foam Travel Pillow
travelrest.net, $39.99
Praised by: New York Times, CNET, Wired
Amazon users’ star rating: 4.1/5
Our PACES score: 42/50
Like the Cabeau pillow, Travelrest has incorporated several key enhancements to the usual neck pillow design. But Travelrest manages to avoid overcomplicating things. A velvety microfiber covering encases what feels like high-quality memory foam (crucially, it doesn’t seem to retain heat to a suffocating degree), and the back of the pillow is flat and outfitted with a textured covering to prevent slipping on the seat. A strip of Velcro on the front of the pillow lets you join its two arms to keep your head from falling forward.
The pillow is highly portable, squishing down to a quarter of its size to fit into an accompanying stuff sack that closes by drawstring.
Aside from varying the pillow’s tightness via the Velcro strip, you won’t discover any adjustable features to speak of. And, as with the Cabeau, the high sides make wearing over-ear headphones difficult unless you have a long, swanlike neck. Still, this is a solid choice overall and, given the quality of the materials, a good value, too.
2. Ostrichpillow Go Neck Pillow
ostrichpillow.com, $69
Praised by: CNN, Travel + Leisure, NBC News
Amazon users’ star rating: 4/5
Our PACES score: 42/50
This is the most expensive pillow we tested. And, while the promotional copy makes a defensible claim that the product delivers “first class comfort” due to its quality and design, doesn’t $70 seem a little steep for an accessory you might forget in your hotel room? (Or in the cabin of your Ha Long Bay cruise ship, as the case may be?)
That said, the pillow’s “BASF memory foam viscoelastic core” does somehow manage the feat of being soft and lightweight yet dense enough to offer solid neck support at the same time. And the curving, asymmetrical sides solve the problem other pillows have of going either too far up your neck (freezing you in place and preventing the wearing of headphones) or not far enough (letting your neck droop and bob).
Instead, you can adjust this pillow to find the chin/neck/head/ear placement you prefer. A Velcro closure along the arms further helps adjust snugness. And the pillow easily squeezes into its small drawstring bag. It’s chic; it’s sumptuous; it’s a little too expensive.
Especially when you could get the best travel pillow instead:
1. Trtl Travel Pillow
trtltravel.com, $59.99
Praised by: National Geographic, Washington Post, CNET
Amazon users’ star rating: 3.9/5
Our PACES score: 46/50
Who knew the ideal filling for a travel pillow would be a hard piece of plastic? The folks behind Trtl’s innovative design eschewed pillow precedent for improved spinal alignment and ended up with the best travel pillow on the market.
Instead of centering on a cushion, the Trtl has a mostly flat, slightly curved internal support structure wrapped in a long tail of fleece. You position the support against your ear, jaw, and neck, then wrap the fabric around your neck like a scarf and Velcro the arrangement in place. It might take you a minute to find the best fit, and if you want to switch sides you have to undo the getup and rewrap.
Once we got the hang of it, we found that the Trtl pillow does a remarkable job of keeping the head and neck where they’re supposed to be and, among the products tested, the Trtl is the most effective at preventing the wobble-nod-snap-repeat routine that can be so disruptive when you’re trying to get some shut-eye while sitting up. Plus, the product is lightweight and folds into a flat package with dimensions similar to a hardback book, making it very easy to carry.
A long-haul flight in economy class will never be an ideal setting for slumber. But at least with the Trtl travel pillow, catching zs doesn’t have to be an entirely fruitless chase.
