What a travel potty seat has to fit

A travel seat has two jobs and they pull against each other: it has to grip the rim of a toilet it has never met, and it has to disappear into a bag you already carry.

The rim

Public toilet rims vary more than people expect. A seat that grips at home can sit proud on a wider rim in a service station, and a child who feels it move once will not sit on it again that day.

Look for a seat that grips from underneath rather than resting on top, and check the widest rim it lists rather than the narrowest.

The bag

Folded size is the number that decides whether the seat gets carried. If it only fits a changing bag when the changing bag is otherwise empty, it stays at home, and a seat at home is not a travel seat.

The other half of this is whether it folds clean. A seat that folds with the sitting surface on the outside goes into a bag once and never again.

What we print

Rim width and folded size sit on every travel seat here, because those two numbers are the whole decision and describing them as compact tells you nothing.