For those who use a pillow at residence, I like to recommend taking a tenting pillow with you in your backpacking journeys. You’ll nearly actually sleep higher when you have one as a result of your physique is used to having the additional assist. I discovered this the laborious approach myself, attempting all types of how to scale back my backpacking gear weight by not carrying a pillow, solely to find that I sleep infinitely higher after I carry one on my journeys.
An important factor to search for when shopping for a backpacking pillow is getting one which stays on prime of your sleeping pad all evening and doesn’t fall off. You’d suppose that backpacking and tenting pillow producers would have discovered it is a must-have attribute, however most don’t embody any form of pad attachment system to maintain the pillow beneath your head all evening.
Personally, I swear by the pillow attachment system that comes with Sea-to-Summit sleeping pads and works with Sea-to-Summit Tenting Pillows. It consists of particular (and optionally available) non-abrasive hook-and-loop patches that adhere to your sleeping pad and stick with the underside of their pillows. I exploit this pillow attachment system with a 2.5 oz Sea-to-Summit Aeros Down Pillow and a Sea-to-Summit Insulated Etherlight XT Sleeping Pad and sleep like a child on all my journeys. Please notice, this pad attachment system solely comes with Sea-to-Summit sleeping pads and solely works with their pillows.
After I began backpacking, I didn’t carry a devoted pillow to be able to cut back my gear weight. As a substitute, I stuffed an insulated jacket right into a stuff sack and used that as a pillow, despite the fact that it didn’t present the identical assist or head peak that I most well-liked when sleeping at residence. In hindsight, it was barely satisfactory and by no means stayed in place at evening.
I attempted quite a few different pillows after that together with the Flex Air Ultralight Pillow, the Hyperlight Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow, the NEMO Fillo Pillow, and so forth., however none of them stayed in place both. Consequently, I concluded that the pillow isn’t as essential because the pillow attachment system.
Clearly what’s wanted is a pillow attachment system that’s sleeping pad and pillow unbiased. Whereas I haven’t tried it but, the brand new Pillow Strap pillow attachment system appears to be like prefer it ought to fulfill that want properly. In fact, you may in all probability obtain the identical outcome through the use of a cutoff pair of pantyhose in a a lot cheaper approach.
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