Eiderdowns and Throwbeds
Portable beds for unstructured days.
When I was 17, I spent the summer traveling with a school friend whose childhood au pair was from Gothenburg. Her apartment was our first stop, and she promptly took us to her family’s postage-sized summer house off the coast of Malmö. Her grandmother pulled out the family eiderdowns: ultra-warm duvets filled with the feathers of wild eider ducks, traditionally harvested from deserted nests. We slept on them as mattresses, tucked into a little nook off the living area. One of the coziest sleeps of my life. Not especially luxuriant, but a full, sensory experience.
The throwbed, or travel bed roll, is a modest descendant of this tradition. You can fold your winter duvet in half and arrive at roughly the same thing, which is worth knowing. But I like the size and portability of the options below. This summer: at the beach, thrown over the worn-out chairs in the garden, an instant guest bed, a reading corner for my daughter, outdoor sleeping, bench seating, and everyday across the sofa. Consider it the anti-itinerary of summer.
