When it comes to tramping pillows, I’ve always been a puffer jacket-in-stuff-sack devotee. It’s not perfect – lumpy, with a tendency to slip out from under my ear – but sufficient. 

One chilly night while cycle touring, my three-year-old ended up with my puffer as an extra blanket and I found myself without a pillow, and an aching neck.

Then I remembered the inflatable travel pillow I’d scored in an op-shop for a dollar to stop my son’s head lolling in the bike trailer. He’d rejected it months earlier, leaving it to slide under the seat. Remarkably, it was still there. That night, I had the best sleep I managed in a tent in years. 

It would’ve been problem solved if my son hadn’t clocked that the pillow now had some worth and demanded it back. Over the next few trips I returned to my trusty puffer but it felt like a poor second. What was a cheapskate with a dodgy neck to do?

Back in 2016 the US website Section Hiker surveyed 746 hikers about their pillow preferences. Only half still used clothing in a stuff sack; almost 40 per cent used a commercial inflatable pillow. Close to eight per cent didn’t use a pillow at all with the remaining using a variety of objects. These included hydration reservoirs, inflated cask-wine bladders and even pipe insulation. Apparently, no one used an actual pillow.

But on the New Zealand Tramping Facebook page, some swore by the real thing, primarily for overnighters. (I once met a guy with not one but two full-size pillows strapped to his pack; he reckoned it was worth it.) Enthusiasts recommended cutting the pillow in half, or dividing a memory foam pillow into quarters. I knew this would be too weighty for me with a little person in tow.

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Enter the inflatable pillow – a contoured air cell with or without a foam filler or a down topper. It’s a relatively modern  invention, but one with a strong following because it ‘adds more to a sleeping system than it detracts from a packing philosophy’, as Therm-A-Rest blogger Briana Halliwell put it. That is, they’re light and small enough to justify carrying in return for a much-improved night’s sleep – the Klymit Pillow X, for example, weighs just 55g. 

I have since found many of my friends, are inflatable converts. One thru-hiker declared her pillow “second only to a good pair of hiking boots”, and had recently upgraded to the top-of-the-range Nemo Fillo Elite Luxury pillow ($120). Another recommended the entry-level K-mart camping pillow. It’s $3 and cancels out my usual protestations about price.

As inflatables get lighter and cheaper, more of us stuff-sackers are likely to make the transition. Why wouldn’t we?

My hesitation in acquiring a pillow, I realised, had as much to do with ego as anything else. A puffer-in-stuff-sack felt more hardcore. An actual pillow felt … soft. Silly as it sounds, I didn’t like the perception of myself as someone who needed propping up.

It turns out a bruised ego is better than a stiff neck. I went with the K-mart pillow. It can be a little cold, so my puffer is still part of the equation, but I sleep infinitely better.