I’m a big fan of lightweight, quick-dry travel pants, but most of them are not ideal for traveling in cold climates. So I’ve been pretty psyched to try out these new Flexcord pants from ExOfficio. They’re warm and cozy like your regular corduroy pants, but they’ve got all kinds of features to make them ideal for travel.

The first thing is, these pants are still pretty lightweight and though they’ll take up more space in your bag than something like the wispy Altyn pants, they’re still quite easy to pack—they feel about half the weight of my blue jeans but are warmer. They also dry reasonably fast too since they’re only 63% cotton. (The rest is polyester and spandex.) They’re preshrunk, so if they fit when you try them on, they’ll still fit after a few washings as well.

There are a few other little things that vault these over regular corduroy pants. There’s a handy hidden zipper pocket inside a regular pocket so you can stash some cash in a secret place. They also have a Velcro long pocket on one leg that’s great for holding a Swiss Army Knife or a Leatherman tool. It’s also got the usual ExOfficio double button action going too around the waist, with one on the inside, one on the outside.

My only problem with these pants is that they’re quite long. They’re marked as a 32-inch inseam, but need to be rolled up to keep from dragging the ground on my average 5’11″ frame. Unless you’re at least a few inches taller than me, go for the “short length” version. And of course they make that “fwick fwick” sound when your pants legs rub together as you walk, but that’s inherent with corduroy it seems. Well, unless you’re bowlegged.

The FlexCord pants come in the color pictured here or a khaki version and sell for around $78 at the ExOfficio site, at REI, or at RockCreek.com

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