Compact Inflatable Neck Pillow

As a frequent business traveler, I have spent the past few years trying to find the ideal travel pillow to take with me on trips.The two options before I purchased this were either a) a stuffed / padded / filled circular neck pillow that takes up far too much carry-on space (or requires you to hold it separately), or b) various types of uncomfortable and difficult to use inflatable neck pillows.The Lewis N. Clark pillow manages to bridge the gap between these two unfortunate options. On the one hand, when inflated just below full, it feels almost identical to the stuffed pillows, due to its shape and the surprisingly high quality slip cover it comes with (feels like the soft stuffed ones and a huge step above the plastic-y smelling cheap inflatables). Yet at the same time, it is easily inflated and deflated (the "on" system is much easier to use then the bite-and-blow standard valves on other neck pillows) and takes up less room than a very small, thin paperback in your bag.The pillow also does a great job of staying on your neck, and keeps your head in place if you've got your arms up on the armrests. It also works great leaning against the wall of a plane if you're a window person, and is very comfortable to take off and use as a pillow on the tray table.I believe you'd only have issues with this pillow if you insist on having a snap closure at the front to accommodate a larger neck that might not work as well with this shape. However, the narrowing back part and thicker front part does a good job in my experience of helping avoid the "head nod."

This product has good and bad points. The thing is, with any type of inflatable pillow, there is bound to be some air loss over time. I think this is just a fact about this type of product. If you can easily inflate and deflate something, it will lose air when pressure is constantly applied (when in use). If there is an inflatable pillow out there that doesn't lose air over time, please let me know because I have looked.In any case, I bought this pillow after reading tons of reviews because I was going on my first lengthy flight alone. I was very nervous and now that I'm getting a little older (30), I thought why not do what I could to make the travel a little easier on me. I went to South Africa in June and took 4 flights to get there, the longest being about 17 hours. I needed something small enough to fit into my bag, so it was important to me that it was a pillow I could easily inflate and deflate. I certainly didn't want to be the person on the plane bothering the people around me by manipulating something large, awkward, or hard to use. The design of this pillow was appealing to me and the reviews that I read suggested that this pillow would fit what I was looking for well, and it did. Overall, I was very pleased with this pillow as it allowed me to sleep for a few hours at a time.Pros: It is incredibly fast and easy to inflate and deflate. It takes me two breaths to fully inflate the pillow and about two seconds to fully deflate. It comes in a handy pouch which is small enough to fit into a side pocket of my travel bag. There was even enough room in the pouch for my eye mask, which I found convenient. For me, it was well shaped and comfortable around my neck. That might not be the case for a male, I do not know. The material was fairly soft, being a somewhat fuzzy material...just enough so that you aren't resting your skin on straight plastic.Cons: It isn't entirely reasonable for me to take away a whole star for this (would do half if I could) because I'm not sure it is possible to not have this happen, but after a couple hours, the pillow started to sag a little bit and it would wake me up. I want to note that I have a hard time sleeping even in my bed, so I have never been able to sleep on an airplane before. If you don't wake up as easily as I do, it might not be a problem for you.Tip: A couple of times, instead of wearing it around my neck, I put it on my tray table and covered it with the airplane blanket and used it as a pillow that way. By using a couple of different sleeping positions, it was a little easier on my back.

First of all, airplanes are uncomfortable. Being on an airplane for 12+ hours is not my definition of a great time or a good nights sleep. And lucky me got the middle seat. So with the limited space I had at my disposal for packing, this pillow was perfect. First of all it takes up about the same amount of space as a shampoo bottle. Less actually. Then there's the fact that you blow it up. YOU FREAKING BLOW IT UP. It's awesome. At first I was skeptical that it would be comfortable, but I was quickly shown that it was as comfortable as a non blow up travel pillow (it was better actually). I slept like a baby on an airplane. Which wasn't the best sleep I've ever had, but it was a heck of a lot better than none! Actually it was a lot better than the people on both sides of me got with their regular travel pillows. And I didn't have any of the hassle! So yes the review has one minuscule piece of criticism. It was slightly difficult to deflate the pillow fully. But all that you really have to do is hold down the button and keep folding the pillow until all the air is out. So all in all, this pillow saved my butt. I got a decent sleep on both flights and has plenty of space! Get this pillow. You won't regret it!