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The Trtl travel pillow is not a U-shape and not something you inflate. It is a soft fleece wrap with a J-shaped support hidden inside. It goes on like a scarf. The support sits against one side of your neck and stops your head folding over, and the whole thing weighs about 148 grams.

A J-shaped frame inside a fleece wrap

The support is a J-shaped internal frame, and the wrap around it is soft fleece. You set the frame against your neck on the side you want to lean. Then you wrap the rest around and it stays put. It weighs about 148 grams. It packs down to roughly half the size of a U-shaped pillow. The whole thing is machine washable, which matters on something that sits against your face.

Pick the side you lean

This is the thing to understand before your first flight with it. The frame supports one side, not both. You choose which way your head is going to go. Get that right and the head-bob stops, which is what owners describe most often. Get it wrong and you are leaning against nothing. If you want support on both sides instead, the firm U-shape of our LUXSURE pick does that.

What keeps coming up

The owners who get on with it are emphatic. No head-bobbing, no waking with a stiff neck, and sleep on flights where they normally get none. Australia, New Zealand and long economy legs come up again and again. Several say it does not feel like wearing a device. Most travel pillows cannot say that.

Two things decide whether it works for you. The fleece is warm, which is welcome on a cold cabin and less so on a full one. It also needs to be wrapped snug to hold. If you dislike anything close around your neck, you will feel that. Owners with shorter necks report the frame sitting less comfortably too.