I found the medium size most suitable for storing trousers rolled up and folded golf shirts. They’re also really handy to grab from your case and pop directly onto the hotel room shelf without having to unpack and the zippered mesh cover tells you what’s inside at a glance.
Two other Sea to Summit items really came to good use on our recent South East Asia trip. On a previous long-haul flight, I took a memory foam pillow which was very comfortable but took up too much space. The Sea to Summit Aeros Premium Pillow is a great replacement as it is extremely lightweight and once deflated folds into a handy pouch, small enough to fit into a shoe.
What impressed me was its kidney shape which worked well as a lumber support and, when not fully inflated, draped easily around my neck. Best thing is you don’t feel like you’re doing a lung-function test to inhale it. It has an amazing one-way air membrane (more about this tech later) so you can whisper into it and it will inflate. Deflating is as easy as removing a second clip closure. I didn’t try to put all my weight onto it but it seems sufficiently sturdy to use as a seat cushion when you need one. The R629 price tag is more than your traditional inflatable but, to my mind, this is the Rolls Royce of inflatable pillows and really delivers.
One of the joys of holidaying in Equatorial islands is that the temperature and bath-like sea make it hard to stay out of the water. Faced with the problem of how to travel with wet towels and bathers in our carry-on, the Evac Drybag, typically designed to keep water out, worked perfectly well to keep the water in. What makes this range better than other dry bags I’ve used is that the nylon fabric is extremely thin and light but, magically, tiny membranes in the fabric that keep water in or out also allow air out. What this means in practice, and you’ll know if you’ve ever tried rolling a zip-locked bag to reduce space, is that you can remove all of the air once the bag is sealed just by applying pressure and don’t need to deal with the bulk that trapped air produces.
I loved using the 20L bag (R529) so much that I’m now using it to store my swim bag with bather, snorkel, fins, etc. after swimming at the gym and my kit bag has, finally, recovered from that wet-dog smell because of it.
