I thought that, as a travel writer and frequent Ryanair flyer, that my packing game was completely on point — I even use the app PackPoint to ensure I never forget anything.
But when a friend repeatedly raved about them, I thought it would be fun to give them a try, mainly so I could prove to her they were a waste of money. After deciding to try them, I had to find the right ones. The brand had great reviews, and I appreciated that the cubes were more malleable and less structured than some of the others so I could easily fit them in a backpack. Further reading: 15 best shoes for travel. Fast-forward a couple of years. I particularly love using the cubes for items like undergarments, swimsuits and to keep fitness or casual clothes separate from dressier or business items.
I also use the smallest cube for cords or miscellaneous items like adapters. In the future, I plan to order more structured cubes to use in larger trolley suitcases and transparent cubes so I can confirm the contents of the cube without having to unzip it.
Further reading : 8 tips for doing laundry while traveling. But they can be especially helpful if:. Sign up for the free daily TPG newsletter for more travel tips! Terms Apply. Disclaimer: The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser.
Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. Many of the credit card offers that appear on the website are from credit card companies from which ThePointsGuy. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. This site does not include all credit card companies or all available credit card offers.
Please view our advertising policy page for more information. Skip to content. Advertiser Disclosure. Lori Zaino. Packing cubes can help you carefully pack your suitcases and travel better in a number of ways: Different-sized cubes help organize and separate clothing.
You can group items together by color or type of clothing e. Putting small items, like socks or power cords, into a packing cube can help them from rolling or moving around in your bag. A packing cube can double as a pillow, laundry bag, shoe bag or cosmetics bag in a pinch.
The great thing is that if you did have an overweight suitcase, you could easily remove a cube and easily carry it on a plane. Clothes get less wrinkles in them with packing cubes because they are compressed. You can put clothes in rolled or flat.
I prefer rolled! The mesh panel in these packing cubes makes it easy to identify what you have in each cube. I bought black for Matthew and turquoise for me. Many people shared with me that they have a color for each member of their family, which makes family vacation packing a breeze.
I love this idea and plan on investing in more colors for my family. Packing cubes are useful for a variety of traveling needs including flying, camping, and backpacking. Because they are so thin, they are easy to store. You can fold them into one another, or even tuck them in your suitcases. I have them in a small bin in my closet for easy access. Seriously, if you travel, you will love having packing cubes. Don't be like me and think, nah, I don't need them.
Trust me. You do need them. And you will wonder why you didn't own these little suitcase miracles sooner. Looking for other travel recommendations? Check out my travel section , which includes everything from travel hacks to favorite travel destinations.
This post was not sponsored in any way. I wrote it simply because I feel like everyone needs to know about packing cubes. Amazon link is an affiliate link, which is used at no cost to you. Obviously it is. Thanks again for a great read. Great photos of you! I am obsessed with packing cubes!
I also recommend following Travel Fashion Girl on Facebook and You Tube — she has some good videos on how to pack in cubes to truly maximize the space. Kit Dillon has covered luggage and travel gear for Wirecutter for over six years.
Jack Chance is a journalist and filmmaker who frequently travels with too much gear that needs to stay organized. In researching this guide, he also spoke with several regular business travelers about the features of their favorite packing cubes and why they use them.
Packing cubes are small bags that hold and organize your clothes within your luggage. If you imagine your suitcase as a dresser, you can think of packing cubes as individual drawers: All of your underwear and socks in one container, all of your shirts in another, and your workout clothes in yet another.
Pull out only the cube you need so that the rest of your suitcase stays organized. Regular business travelers likely already own a few packing cubes. But these are also lightweight enough for backpackers, daytrippers, and weekend road warriors. Very organized packers will also appreciate the tidiness of these bags. Those are the qualities we considered most important when we were choosing which of the dozens of available packing cubes on Amazon and elsewhere to test.
And when we tested the 18 sets, we focused on:. Because most packing cubes have the same basic design, our testing process came down to assessing build quality and practical, real-world use. Into each of these medium cubes we packed things that anyone might bring on a typical weekend away: a rain jacket, two T-shirts, two pairs each of socks and boxer shorts, two polo shirts, a thin fleece pullover, and a small travel towel.
When overstuffing to test seams and zippers, we added a lightweight down jacket and a pair of jeans. Eagle Creek is the company that popularized packing cubes, and despite the recent proliferation of some more-affordable competition, the company still makes the best all-around cubes. Solidly built from quality materials, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original cubes a set includes a full bag, a half-bag, and a quarter-bag, roughly equivalent to a medium, small, and extra-small bag are made to take years of abuse on the road.
In particular, their mesh weave is finer than that of any of the other cubes we tested, and so it is less likely to snag or tear as the cubes get tossed around by an indifferent TSA agent. On the top panel, fabric is placed toward the sides, with mesh in the center, keeping contents visible and reducing zipper strain on the seams. This is especially beneficial at the corners, since it will prevent the zipper from getting stuck and should help these cubes last a long time.
The Pack-It Original cubes are made of denier polyester micro-weave fabric denier is a measure of the fiber thickness of individual strands in fabric; the higher the denier number, the stronger the fabric. The fabric is stiff enough to hold its shape, which makes these cubes easier to pack and to zip once they are full. A medium, liter cube weighs 4 ounces empty—right in line with other cubes we tested.
The zippers themselves felt solid and easily rounded the corners without getting hung up—even when we overstuffed the cubes. But should anything go wrong, Eagle Creek offers a lifetime warranty. The Specter I like for packing by item type, assuming I remember what I put where. The Originals are well constructed and zip easily because of the thicker-gauge material. They get used about once a month and are all in great shape—even the Specters, which have been through the wash.
If you want the organizational benefits of packing cubes, but you also want to add the least possible weight to your suitcase, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech Cube Set is a great choice. These weigh about half as much as regular Pack-It cubes of the same capacity 1. Similar to the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original set , these bags come as a set of three bags, in medium, small, and extra-small sizes.
Whereas our other picks take up about the same packing volume as a balled-up pair of boxers, these compress down to the size of a single ankle sock. But the new Specter Tech line is a huge improvement over the older design, because you no longer have to choose between saving weight and easy packability.
The old design had a half-length zipper that kept the cube from opening all the way. Packing them felt more like loading a stuff sack than a packing cube, and they were a poor choice for folded clothes.
The new Specter Tech cubes open all the way—just like the Pack-It Original cubes—because the zipper extends across three sides. The REI Co-op Expandable Packing Cube Set which includes three cubes: large, medium, and small has the most capacity of any set of packing cubes we tested, but it can compress down to take up the least amount of space in a suitcase.
0コメント