Best booster seats for travel

BubbleBum Inflatable Travel Booster Seat

An inflatable backless booster that deflates and folds into a bag small enough for a daypack, which is why it shows up on almost every family-travel packing list. It inflates in a few breaths, and at 13 inches across three of them fit on a back seat, so it solves carpools as well as taxis and rental cars. Car Seats For The Littles has reviewed it through updated belt guides and treats it as a legitimate booster, while urging caution: getting the belt right on a soft, inflated seat asks more of the adult than a rigid booster does. One catch travelers miss is that it expires four years after purchase, well short of the 7 to 10 years most rigid boosters get.

hiccapop UberBoost Inflatable Booster Car Seat

The other well-known inflatable booster, and the one that goes to a higher child weight than most seats here. It inflates in under ten seconds and packs into a supplied travel bag that hiccapop sizes for a carry-on or a large purse. Its 14.5-inch square footprint means three will usually fit across a bench seat. Worth knowing: hiccapop sets no minimum age of its own, pointing instead to federal guidelines, so the judgment about whether a child is ready for a backless booster is left entirely to you.

RideSafer TravelSmarter Booster Seat

A one-pound rigid backless booster from the makers of the RideSafer travel vest, meant to be dropped in a bag rather than inflated or folded. It works on its own or paired with the vest, which is the reason it exists. Car Seats For The Littles calls this style of seat a plopper: there is no installation, you set it on the vehicle seat and buckle up. They also flag that its seat belt routing is unusual, with the lap belt running under the armrests on both sides, so it is worth reading the manual rather than assuming it behaves like other boosters.

Mifold Comfort grab-and-go booster

Mifold inverts the usual idea: rather than lifting the child up to meet the adult belt, it pulls the belt down onto the child's hips and shoulder. That is how it gets so small, folding to roughly the footprint of a hardcover book and about two inches thick, which fits a glovebox or a backpack pocket. If the seat has to fly in hand luggage, this is the one. The trade-off is fit: Car Seats For The Littles lists inconsistent belt fit as its main drawback, meaning it sits well in some vehicles and on some children and less well in others, so it rewards checking rather than a blind buy.

Mifold Hifold fit-and-fold booster

The only high-back seat in this table that collapses. Its MultiFold system drops the back and folds the sides in, taking a full high-back booster down to about 13 by 13 by 11 inches; reviewers on Mifold's own page describe fitting it into a large bookbag and using it through a string of Ubers. The Multi-Fit adjustment has 243 positions, so it keeps fitting as a child grows, and a real back means head support for a sleeping child that no backless seat offers. Two caveats: it costs several times what most seats here do, and Car Seats For The Littles warns that its unusually low height and weight minimums, with no age minimum at all, mean a two- or three-year-old would technically qualify, which is far too young for a booster.

Cosco Rise LX Booster Car Seat

The budget answer, and a genuinely good one for travel: under twenty dollars and under three pounds, cheap enough to buy a second for grandparents or to leave behind in a rental. Safe in the Seat names it their travel pick and points out it is light enough to throw into a backpack. The wide base and raised, covered arm rests are designed so a child can buckle themselves, which matters when you are driving an unfamiliar car and cannot reach into the back. It is a plain positioning seat with no back and no LATCH, and Cosco leans on its slim shape for fitting three across.

Graco TurboBooster 2.0 Backless Booster

The backless booster you can find on a shelf almost anywhere, which is its real travel argument: instead of flying with a seat, many families buy this one at the destination and hand it on or leave it behind. It is cheap, about five pounds, and Graco rates it for children from four to ten years old. Nothing about it folds or deflates, and at 16.5 inches it is wider than the compact travel seats here, so three across is a squeeze. As a simple, widely available belt-positioner it does the job; it just does not pack down.

Chicco GoFit Plus Backless Booster Car Seat

The GoFit Plus is the backless booster built for moving between cars: it has a built-in carry handle and LATCH connectors with a one-hand quick release, so it clips to the anchors and stays put rather than sliding around or becoming a projectile when nobody is sitting on it. That anchoring is the real reason to pick it for a week in a rental car. It takes heavier children than most seats here, up to 110 pounds. At six pounds and 17 inches wide it is one of the bulkier options that still calls itself portable, so it suits road trips better than flights.

Clek Olli Backless Booster Seat

The premium backless booster, built around rigid LATCH so it bolts to the car's anchors rather than sliding about. Clek markets its five-pound weight explicitly for carrying between vehicles and through airports. It takes bigger kids than anything else here, to 120 pounds, carries a nine-year expiration date, and its fabrics are flame-retardant-free and PFAS-free, which is why plenty of buyers choose it over a twenty-dollar seat. The catches are price, several times the plain backless boosters in this table, and width: at 18 inches across the arm rests it is the widest seat here, so three across is unlikely.

Peg Perego Viaggio Flex 120

A full-size high-back booster that folds flat, which is the trick that gets a 14-pound seat onto a travel list at all: folded it is under ten inches thick, and Peg Perego lists a matching travel bag as an accessory. Car Seats For The Littles found it folds with one hand whether or not it is still clipped to the lower anchors, and is easy to carry once folded. It also fits children longer than anything else here, to 63 inches and 120 pounds, so it can be the last seat you buy. It is the most expensive and the heaviest option in this table, which makes it a road-trip and rental-car seat rather than a carry-on one.