If you're a parent, your stroller can be both a blessing and a curse, especially when traveling. Sure, it makes it easier to get your pudgy little infant and 50-odd pounds of accompanying baby paraphernalia from a to b. But strollers are also nightmarishly big and bulky, making them especially difficult to manage on planes and public transportation, as well as to store in small city apartments.
Available today, the Pockit from infant accessory brand gb is a minimalist stroller that aims to solve those problems. Billing itself as the world's smallest folding stroller, the Pockit collapses to about the size (11.8 x 7.1 x 13.8 inches) and weight (10 pounds) of a coffee table art book, small enough to fit under a plane seat, or even slide into a large tote. According to the manufacturer, it's still strong enough to support children older than six months up until they weigh 55 pounds.
Of course, with strollers, how small one folds is only part of what makes the design good. The other part is how quickly and easily it collapses. The Pockit folds in up to three movements, and unfolds with up to a couple flicks of the wrist. We say "up to" because the Pockit's design allows you to make a trade-off: You can opt to fold it to be slightly less compact in order to make it easier to deploy, or compress it down to its smallest size, adding another motion when you unfold it. Either way, even if you have a squirming, caterwauling toddler in your arms, it should still be fairly easy to flick open the Pockit.
To achieve its small form factor, the Pockit wasn't designed totally without compromise, but not as much as you might think. Although the canopy of the stroller isn't going to cover as much of your baby's face as a conventional stroller, it still is enough to afford some shade. Likewise, while moms who practically live out of the back of their baby's stroller won't be able to make the Pockit their day-to-day buggy, it still has a basket and a back pocket for storage.
The Pockit's design first debuted in 2014, and went on to win the iF Gold Award. It's now available to purchase from Babies 'R' Us for $249.99. A little expensive for a stroller, especially one that many parents would use mostly use for travel, but then again, how many other strollers can fit into your bag?