Having worked at Macpac for a couple of years, I’m impressed at how popular the Macpac Inflatable Pillow is.
People will come in and ask for it having been recommended it by others. If a product has half decent word of mouth marketing, it must be alright yea?
In short, is the Macpac Inflatable Pillow worth it? Here’s my video review, or continuing reading on below.
Yes, it’s great value. The full price is $24.99, but the member’s discount (free to join) means it’s never more than $20, and is often less. It’s great for travelling, camping, and/or hiking in NZ.
If you don’t want to read my complete review of a pillow (fair enough), you can buy in online at these links:
*If you don’t see the product on the links above that means it’s currently unavailable online. You might be able to go in to a store and request for someone to order one for you.
With all the word of mouth marketing I’d been hearing, I had to try it out for myself.
Here’s my Macpac Inflatable Pillow review.
The packaging is simple. What you see is what you get which is partly why it’s a good present from Macpac I guess.
The pillow inside a stuff sack, and once you cut off the information tag, it’s ready to go. Inside the stuff sack you’ll also find some glue and extra material for a patch up job if need be.
Weighting in at 90 grams, this pillow is light. It’s not as light as a Sea to Summit Ultralight weight pillow that’s 60 grams, but it’s not exactly going to influence your decision to or not to buy the item…unless you really want to carry the littlest amount of weight possible.
As you can see, it’s essentially the size of a coke Sprite can.
The stuff sack is solid, and not annoying. It’s super simple to use, there’s no need learning curve on how to use the pillow thankfully.
INFLATING THE MACPAC TRAVEL PILLOW
I was surprised at how quick it was to blow up. It took two half attempted full breaths to get it up to maximum capacity. It’s a wide open valve which makes sense and the nifty little flat inside helps prevent air flowing out of the pillow after each breath and before you close the valve.
USING THE PILLOW
With 38cm x 25cm x 9cm dimensions, the pillow is more than big enough for me. As someone who is a side sleeper I found it works for me good as gold. By the time you actually put your head on the pillow there’s a little bit of compression, but you’re definitely not on the ground.
The colour doesn’t bother me personally, if anything it’s helpful.
In terms of comfort? Good as gold. It’s hard to gauge, but if you wanted you could put a little more air in the pillow if you wanted, but I had maybe 90% of air capacity inside. I appreciated the little bit of softness.
In terms of noise, I haven’t noticed any that’s what I wouldn’t consider normal. But I’m not the most sensitive to this.
Durability wise I haven’t had any issues yet. The stretch fabric material is TPU coated, so that means it’s UV resistant and can put up with some abrasion and the like.
If I end up puncturing it at some point, I’ll come back and let you know how the repair goes. In theory, the TPU coated stretch materials can hold in air well when combined with glue. I had to look up exactly what TPU coating is, skimming this page helped.
DEFLATING THE MACPAC INFLATABLE PILLOW
Deflating the pillow is easy. You undo the valve then press on the little flap thingy i mentioned earlier and the air comes gushing out. On my first attempt at rolling up the Macpac Inflatable Pillow I realised I didn’t get enough air out of the pillow. This isn’t exactly a nuisance and I quickly had the pillow back in the stuff sack ready to be put away.
And there you go. That’s my experience of using the Macpac Inflatable Pillow.
At the price point, you can’t really fault it. It’s light enough, small enough, comfy enough, and so far has held up well for me. So all in all, great value.
You can buy it in pretty much every Macpac store, or online:
If you have any feedback or questions, leave a comment below or email jub@churnewzealand.com.
Hey, it’s Jub here. I’m the guy behind Chur New Zealand, helping you have the best time hiking, trekking, walking…whatever you want to call it…in NZ. I’m based in Queenstown and am always out and about exploring trails, old & new. If you have any questions, reach out.