Buy Quality Packable Down Jackets
There are folks out there who are wary of winter travel and dread the colder months due to inadequate clothing. However, winter excursions do not have to be terrifying nightmares. Winter travel clothing can be comfortable, functional, lightweight, and reasonably affordable while keeping you warm and toasty the entire time.
A packable down jacket is definitely a wardrobe essential during winter!
What are the benefits of a packable down jacket for me?
Goose down, long renowned for manufacturing luxuriously warm comforters, has several benefits over other materials that make it excellent for lightweight trekking even in the summer.
Warmth: Down is very high, with lots of tiny bristles that trap heat inside. There isn’t much on the globe that is as warm as high-quality goose down, especially when it comes to components used to manufacture clothes.
Weight: Because the amount of down required to keep you warm is so tiny, you can manufacture a down jacket that is half the weight of a similarly warm coat made of other fabrics.
Packability: The loftiness that keeps down warm and snug also makes it very compressible, allowing it to fit into half the space of a standard fleece jacket.
And those are just the benefits of down; because it’s virtually typically integrated inside a lightweight nylon jacket, you receive these extra benefits as well:
Weather resilience: Down jackets are almost always windproof and water-resistant, making them good outer layers, while a thick fleece would almost certainly require an additional covering to keep the breeze out.
Silky smooth: Down jackets usually are so frictionless that they can be stuffed into nooks and crevices that would otherwise be empty, allowing them to vanish into open-air pockets as if by magic. It also works well as a soft cushion for delicate items.
Where does a light down jacket shine the brightest?
Because of this unique set of benefits, I consider down jackets to be a must-have for ultralight winter travel, but they’re also great for chilly fall and spring adventures. Instead of acquiring a super-warm parka, receive a mid-weight jacket that will keep you warm in milder weather, and then layer it with other items when it gets cold.
They’re also fantastic for the notorious multi-season (or multi-elevation) journey, which necessitates packing summer and winter clothes in the very same backpack, with winter gear lying unused half of the time.
Down coats are by far the greatest option for these types of trips since they are lighter and much more compact than almost anything else. An idle down jacket will be half the weight and size of an unused anything-else jacket, making it far easier to lug about while not in use and enabling you to easily compile an RTW packing list.
My favourite combination is to wear a lightweight fleece or zip-up wool sweater as a next-to-skin layer over a t-shirt, and then put a packable down jacket on top as a weather-resistant outer layer. This enables numerous layers while staying relatively comfortable, weather-resistant, and lightweight.
What exactly is fill power?
This is simply the down’s quality rating. Fill power is the amount of volume it fills for a given weight after being compressed and allowed to progress again — the greater the number, the better.
However, because it measures both volume and weight, a higher fill power does not always imply a warmer environment. It indicates that it will be warmer for the same weight or lighter for the same warmth. It’s also more packable.
So, while higher is better, bear in mind that it does not always imply that a jacket with a higher fill power would be warmer.
What constitutes a good fill power?
Most down coats are between 400 and 600, while quality models, such as those found in a camping store, have approximately 800 fill power. They’ll be more expensive, but you’ll get the most out of the benefits of warmth, weight, and compressibility, so it’s not a terrible investment if you live somewhere chilly.
I’ve seen fill power reach 1000, but it’s pretty unusual and relatively expensive because it necessitates hand-selecting the best quality feathers. Okay, if you require the very finest, then go ahead. However, take in mind that it will only be 25% warmer (or 25% lighter) than 800 fill power down, but it might be twice as costly.
Conclusion
Packable down jackets are meant to be light outer layers that do not necessarily keep you warm, but they do keep you dry. Since they’re so thin, you can squish them up and stuff them in a bag, making them great for rainy days. Insight Clothing offers the highest quality jackets for all your needs.