Trtl travel pillow review
The Trtl V-shaped, fleece-covered travel pillow, or neck brace, is easy to travel with, but it fails to offer significant support to justify its place in your carry-on
Purchasing a product using one of our affiliate links earns us a commission and supports this site at no additional cost to you. See our disclosures here.
The idea is a good one; design a flexible neck brace that can support a traveller’s head far better than any pillow. Make it moveable, adjustable and, above all, lightweight and easy to travel with. For anyone who’s sick of travelling with a blow-up pillow or, worse, a bead-filled bag – neither of which work – the Trtl is an intriguing and appealing concept.
Trtl Travel Pillow: V-shaped
The only problem with the Trtl? In our tests, it just didn’t work. A V-shaped plastic brace wrapped in fleece materials and Velcro, the theory is that it wraps around the neck either to one of the sides, or even at the front. The days of your head lolling around when falling asleep on public transport? Those days are gone. Well, gone-ish.
Trtl Travel Pillow: Long-haul
Used by two travellers on a combination of long-haul flights (the seat flaps were better), short-haul flights with lower seats (useless) and on some 8-hour+ bus and train journeys, the Trtl failed to give us enough support to sleep. And while it lessened the flop of the head, it certainly didn’t stop it (TravGear painfully observed this one!)
Trtl Travel Pillow: Tight fit
Part of the problem is that the title doubles as a scarf, its fleece material being great in a cold aircraft but unusable in a hot one – and if you’re travelling in humidity, forget it. However, the biggest problem was the tight fit; I found that I had to wind round my neck very tightly to have any significant support.
Trtl Travel Pillow: Unloved
A good try, but in our tests, the Trtl just didn’t fulfil its promises, and went unused and unloved in baggage for most of TravGear‘s test trip. It’s available in black, grey and red.