Now, this is a great camping pillow!
When packed, it fits into a tiny little sack, and weighs almost nothing. Unpacked and inflated, it’s big and comfortable. And it’s very easy to inflate and deflate.
If you have one of those squishy-material camping pillows, throw it out or give it to the dog. Then get yourself an EXPED.
An update to the pillow review, made on September 18, 2015:
Backpacking on Australia’s Bibbulman Track and through California’s Emigrant Wilderness, sea kayaking through the Bahamas’ Exuma Cays, truck camping through Tennessee’s Great Smokey Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas…wherever we have used these pillows, we have been impressed with their tiny packed-away size, their light weight, and their inflated comfort.
But, finally, after four years of use, we have found a flaw: one of our two pillows has a failed intake valve.
It’s a weird thing, because the two pillows have different intake valves, and we bought them together. We didn’t notice the difference until the failed valve forced us to look.
The failed valve has a flap of rubber-like material, joined to the body of the valve by two close-together pins. The flap is only supported at its perimeter, where it makes contact with the body of the valve. The flap keeps separating from the pins, and we keep reattaching it for each inflation. The valve now leaks a bit, even after reattachment, making it impossible to fully inflate the pillow.
The flap in the still-working valve attaches to a cross-type framework in the valve opening, which supports the flap across its entire surface, not just along its perimeter. This looks to be, and has proven to be, a much more durable arrangement.
Why two different intake valves? We don’t know, yet. Maybe it was a manufacturing error.
An update to the pillow review, made on December 22, 2015:
The manufacturer has earned our loyalty. We contacted them about the problem with the failing intake, and they told us to send it back, and then they sent us a new pillow. Fantastic! Always refreshing to deal with a company that stands behind its products. All too rare, these days, where most everyone seems to be trying to take your money for as little outlay as possible.
We just took the pillows on a kayak-camping trip in Palau. As always, they did the job like champs, despite rough packing, saltwater, wet conditions, and tons of sweat on hot nights. These things are winners.
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