Few things are more annoying to a camper than trying to keep your pillow on your sleeping pad. Waking up with your head on the ground and blindly groping around in the dark for a missing pillow is a great way to ruin your sleep at 1 a.m.
Thankfully, many camping pillows have features to prevent this. Some pillows are made with a contoured shape to mold to your head. Others have scalloped “wings” that help conform the pillow to your head and shoulders. This prevents it from squeezing out from under you while you sleep.
Some have texture on one side to increase friction and prevent sliding. This texturing often comes in the form of small rubber dots that add a bit of stickiness to help keep it on the pad. While it can help a bit, sleepers who tend to move around can still easily knock the pillow off the pad.
Some pillows include a more secure feature made up of elastic straps on the bottom of the pillow. The straps wrap around the sleeping pad to hold it in place.
Others still are made to pair specifically with sleeping pads in the same brand. Often, these pads and pillows are designed to nest within a sleeve on the sleeping pad. In some cases, the pillows have hook-and-loop fasteners that are paired with similar fasteners on the pads.