We are one of Gear Junkie's Best Travel Pillows for 2024! Read the article below.
Upgrade your next flight with a travel pillow.
We’ve all been there: shuffling through first class, begrudgingly looking at the spacious cubicles of the travel elite — the leg room, the side tables, the seats that fully recline into flat beds.
While first class has elevated comfort to new heights, it seems like the rest of us are only losing ground in airline seating. It won’t bring you hourly cocktails, but a good travel pillow can make the best of your travel experience.
The GearJunkie staff’s travel schedule isn’t stacked — we’ll take maybe five flights a year. But arriving rested is important for a number of reasons. We are either flying across the country, requiring a (very) early departure so we can make afternoon meetings. Or we are traveling overseas to a media event packed with presentations followed by a full plate of physical activity.
Either way, if we are not working on the plane, we are sleeping. Or trying to sleep. And we are always flying coach.
If you are trying to catch some winks in the air, outside over-the-counter medication, the best way to make the most of it is by investing in a good travel pillow. Really folks.
If you are spending hard-earned cash on a rare travel opportunity — maybe a once-in-a-lifetime trip — you really owe it to yourself to ditch the rolled-up sweatshirt and spend an extra $40 on a pillow. Feeling rested gives you a leg up on arrival, allowing you to do more of what you are there for … enjoying the trip.
Specs
- Materials Copper infused cooling memory foam
- Shape Head pillow
- Weight 2 lbs., 8 oz.
- Travel Bag Yes
Pros
- Incredibly comfortable
- You can add or remove fill to match your desired firmness
- Hand-made in U.S.A.
Cons
- Expensive
- Bulky to carry
- Large size forces chin to drop even with the seat tilted all the way back
Take your favorite pillow from home, shrink it by 30%, and cut a wedge in it so it curves around the neck, and you’ve got Honeydew’s Scrumptious Travel Pillow ($130-220).
The memory foam fill is shredded into small pieces, giving it a soft and even fluff. Infused with copper, it’s antimicrobial and helps keep the body cool. The downside is that it doesn’t pack down as well.
Stuffed inside the provided cotton sack (included), the pillow carries around at a bulky 9 x 12 inches. That’s partly the foam, but there’s no getting around — it’s a lot of pillow. Unpacked, the Scrumptious is a whopping 12 x 21 inches.
A crescent-shaped notch lays behind the neck and over the shoulders, allowing you to lean back into the pillow. But it wasn’t enough to prevent our chins from dropping. Even with the seat pushed all the into the furthest position, the mass of the pillow pushed our heads forward. We found it hard to prevent the chin from dipping down as we dozed.
The Scrumptious is big and not all that comfortable while on the plane. But once we arrived at our destination, we stored the hotel pillow in the closet and used the Scrumptious instead. The soft and even proprietary fill is better than our pillows at home and gives us a better night’s rest while on the road.
You just need to be prepared to carry the extra baggage with you as a carry-on, or find room for the pillow in your bags. For the comfort the Honeydew Scrumptious Travel Pillow provides, however, it’s worth finding the space.
