In my younger years, a transatlantic red-eye flight in coach posed no greater problem than wondering what kind of music I should stock my iPod with. Armed with the airline-issued “pillow,” I could fall asleep within minutes, only to somehow wake up actually refreshed upon touching down in Rome.
Sadly, those days are behind me, and I now travel with an arsenal of products to help me eke out a few hours of rest on a long-haul flight. I’ll pop gummy melatonin before boarding, swaddle myself in an oversized plane blanket, and then attempt to block out all exterior stimuli with a heavy-duty eye mask and construction-grade earplugs. The final element is a neck pillow. Without it, I find myself jerking awake whenever my head lolls forward, which is about every 15 minutes. (I’m a blast as a seatmate, if you couldn’t tell.)
And while I’ve found stellar eye masks and blankets over the years, the platonic ideal of a neck pillow had eluded me until recently. Most were not supportive enough for sleeping, or could only be used to rest your head on one side. But one day, while scrolling through Instagram, the Pluto Pod popped up. More than just a neck pillow, the Pod also boasts a lightly structured and padded hood, as well as a pull-down eye mask. Do you resemble a bobble-headed, 1950s-style alien when you wear it? Yes, you do. Is it, by far, the best travel pillow I’ve used? Absolutely.
The pillow is the result—like many wonderful recent innovations—of curious people with time to kill during the pandemic. Susana Saeliu, founder and CEO of Pluto Pillow, spent a lot of 2020 daydreaming about when she might be able to fly again. And, after successfully launching a unique sleep pillow, she wanted to try her hand at a travel version. Pluto partnered with lauded design firm IDEO to create it, and received a lot of valuable feedback from focus groups made up of flight attendants and frequent travelers. “It was like one big therapy session,” Saeliu says. “They groused about how tiring traveling is, and that the travel pillow options today are a mess of tradeoffs that fall short. Pillow A might be comfortable, but it’s not portable. Pillow B is portable, but it’s not comfortable. And on and on.” The result of these sessions and many prototypes is the slightly wacky-looking but supremely comfortable Pod.
The pillow has helped me cut down on my sleeping tools. With the Pod, I can eschew ear plugs and an eye mask because the padded hood dampens noise and the flip-down eye mask blocks almost all light. Sleeping with one is like being inside a mini sensory deprivation tank, except you don’t have to worry about getting wet. The first time I used it, I passed out in the morning for a solid two hours on my way to Nemacolin in Western Pennsylvania. It’s also worth noting that if you’re wearing a face mask, it’s a lot more comfortable to use this pillow’s built-in eye mask than a traditional over-the-head model. Since Pod’s mask is not pressed up against your eyes, it’s much easier to breathe through the face mask.