The Best Neck Support Collar for Travel: Enhancing Your Journey Comfort
Frequent travel is often part of a busy lifestyle, whether you’re following the latest entertainment news across continents or simply taking a much-needed break. Enduring long flights or drives comfortably often hinges on finding the right support, making a quality Neck Support Collar For Travel an essential accessory. Among the many options available, one stands out for its superior design and comfort: the Travelrest Nest Ultimate Memory Foam Travel Pillow.
The Travelrest Nest Ultimate has consistently been a top recommendation for years due to its plush yet firm memory-foam core. This core provides significantly more support to your neck compared to other travel pillows we’ve tested. Its design feels specifically tailored for airline seats, featuring an angled back with a grippy texture. This ensures the pillow aligns perfectly with both upright and reclined positions, preventing it from sliding down as you drift off.
This velvety-soft pillow comfortably supports various head and neck sizes and includes an adjustable cord and clasp for a customized fit. While its hemi-doughnut shape might appear similar to other neck pillows, a collection of thoughtful details elevates the Travelrest Ultimate, making it softer and more supportive than its counterparts.
The Travelrest excels in providing comprehensive support. Its wide, soft walls cradle your entire neck circumference, offering ample support without feeling constricting. The easy-to-use Velcro strap allows for a snug fit for necks of different sizes. There’s even a small indentation thoughtfully included to accommodate curlier hair or a ponytail.
The Travelrest Ultimate, a top neck support collar for travel, pictured on a soft surface.
Ensuring comfort during your journey goes beyond support; feeling confident and comfortable in your attire, whether considering travel dresses for older women or other travel wear, contributes significantly to overall travel satisfaction.
In addition to providing a great neck fit, the Travelrest’s back tapers upward to sit flush against an airline seat back. Many neck pillows lack this feature; their excess padding can push your neck away from the headrest, causing it to droop forward. Furthermore, the Travelrest includes grippy dots on the back to prevent any slippage during your journey.
Beyond its exceptional support, the Travelrest offers high levels of comfort and coziness. The memory-foam core is encased in velour, which kept my neck warm without causing overheating. The velour material also felt smoother against my skin compared to similar covers on other pillows, such as the Cabeau Evolution. Cleaning is straightforward as well: the Travelrest’s cover can be easily unzipped and is machine-washable. The velour maintained its softness even after undergoing a wash and dry cycle.
Close-up of the Travelrest Nest Ultimate memory foam neck support collar designed for travel comfort.
While not an inflatable pillow, the Travelrest can still compress significantly, reducing its size by a quarter for convenient packing. It packs down to roughly the size of a roll of toilet paper when placed in its carrying case. By folding it in a spiral (like a cinnamon roll) until it fits inside the pouch, a Velcro strap on the pouch helps compress it even further. If space is still tight in your bag, its drawstring allows you to clip it to any exterior loop. Beyond just a quality Neck Support Collar For Travel, efficient packing often involves smart clothing choices, like a travel sweatshirt with lots of pockets, to keep essentials accessible.
These meticulous details were highly appreciated by our testing panel. They awarded the Travelrest the highest scores for comfort and neck support among all pillows tested, with two-thirds of testers selecting it as their preferred option.
After over a year of consistent use, this neck support collar for travel has shown no loss in supportiveness. The memory foam remains as firm and resilient as it was when new, and the Velcro strap is still easy to secure. For those it fits well, this pillow stays securely and comfortably in place throughout a long flight. However, some travelers have found that the pillow’s firm memory foam doesn’t offer much flexibility and may not fit comfortably if a height of up to 5 inches is too restrictive for their neck shape. In such cases, exploring alternative options might be more suitable.
While the Travelrest Nest Ultimate won’t compress to the minimal, flat size of options like the Trtl pillow, its exceptional, cushioned support still packs down to a manageable size, and its 13 ounces adds negligible weight to your carry-on. If maximizing space is your absolute priority, the Trtl offers a space-conscious alternative without the potential hassle of an inflatable pillow.
The Travelrest’s substantial plushness can support heads leaning left, back, or right, but the pillow might not effectively support the chins of individuals with smaller faces. When my head tilted forward, my face settled into the gap between the pillow closure and my neck. While the Velcro strap allows for adjustment, its length doesn’t permit tightening to the same degree as the adjustable strings on the Cabeau.
The unparalleled support offered by the Travelrest is partly due to the height of its sides, designed to reach the wearer’s jawline. This design means the pillow might be incompatible with larger over-the-ear headphones for people with shorter necks. For instance, attempting to wear the Travelrest with my noise-cancelling Bose headphones resulted in the pillow pushing the headset uncomfortably high on my head, lifting my earlobes. However, an editor with a longer neck did not encounter this issue.
In conclusion, finding the right neck support collar for travel can dramatically improve the comfort of long journeys. While the Travelrest Nest Ultimate offers exceptional support, comfort, and durability, its specific dimensions and firmness mean it may not be the perfect fit for everyone, particularly those with smaller face shapes or shorter necks who use large headphones. Nevertheless, based on extensive testing and user feedback, it remains a top contender for those seeking reliable neck support on the go.