CAIRA: From the New York Times, you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
CHRISTINE: Hey, everyone, it’s The Wirecutter Show. I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin. We work at Wirecutter, the product recommendation site from the New York Times.
CHRISTINE: Each week, we bring you expert advice from our newsroom of 140 journalists who review everyday products that will make your life better.
CAIRA: This episode of The Wirecutter Show is called Pack Your Bags!
SFX Zipper
CHRISTINE: Caira, Rosie.
CAIRA: Hey.
CHRISTINE: It is my turn to bring a question to you-
ROSIE: I love it.
CHRISTINE: … this week. I am taking a big trip, I’m so excited. I’m going to Japan!
CAIRA: I’m so jealous.
ROSIE: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: It’s going to be great.
ROSIE: We’re coming, actually.
CHRISTINE: Are you?
ROSIE: I forget if we told you.
CHRISTINE: Oh, wow.
ROSIE: Yeah, Caira and I are coming.
CHRISTINE: Okay. Well, I’ll let my family know.
CAIRA: We are your family now.
ROSIE: Yeah, we are your family now.
CHRISTINE: Well, I do have a couple problems.
CAIRA: Okay.
CHRISTINE: The first thing is I don’t speak Japanese.
CAIRA: Okay.
ROSIE: I think that’s okay.
CHRISTINE: Yeah? You think I’ll get through?
ROSIE: I think that’s okay.
CHRISTINE: I am in a fierce Duolingo battle with my 11-year-old right now. We are getting our streaks.
CAIRA: On brand.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Learning things like water, and sushi, and-
ROSIE: Bathroom?
CHRISTINE: Bathroom? I haven’t gotten that far, but I’m hoping to. Yes.
CAIRA: That’s a good one to know.
CHRISTINE: But beyond the language barrier, I don’t really know if I have the right bags. I’m not sure.
CAIRA: That’s a tricky one.
CHRISTINE: I’m very minimalist when it comes to my luggage. I have a backpack from college.
CAIRA: Wow, Christine.
CHRISTINE: And I have a duffel bag that my family brings. I know. Caira’s face looks really-
CAIRA: Who has a duffel bag?
CHRISTINE: … offended. Yeah.
ROSIE: I think it’s totally fine. This is a big trip.
CHRISTINE: It’s a big trip.
ROSIE: And you’re going with your husband and your kids.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
ROSIE: I feel like … I think about this all the time, because I think my luggage needs have changed so much since I had kids where I’m sharing a suitcase with them now. Do we do the carryon? How much do you bring? Do you check? I feel you on this conundrum.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. I don’t have much room to store luggage in my home, so that’s why we use a duffel bag. It’s worked well. We’ve gone to the Caribbean with it, we’ve gone to Mexico with it. But it is definitely not the easiest thing. Yeah, I’m looking for some advice here.
CAIRA: Yeah. I’m sorry for giving you a hard time about the duffel, because I actually have never bought myself luggage before.
CHRISTINE: Oh!
CAIRA: I stole my mom’s carryon from her set, and she’s just finding out about it right now.
ROSIE: I knew there was a reason she shouldn’t listen to the show.
CAIRA: Exactly.
CHRISTINE: We’ll put a disclaimer at the beginning of this episode.
CAIRA: Caira’s mom, just don’t listen.
CHRISTINE: Don’t listen, yeah.
CAIRA: She calls me every year, by the way. She’s like, “Hey, do you have this bag?” I’m like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
ROSIE: You are outrageous.
CAIRA: But it’s just a really big purchase. Whenever I’ve thought about it me returning this bag to her and letting her complete her set, and buying myself my own, I just don’t want to do it because they’re not cheap.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
CAIRA: That’s why we’re going to bring on somebody who can help today. It’s Kit Dillon. Kit is great. He’s so well-versed in this problem because he is Wirecutter’s resident travel writer. Kit has been with Wirecutter for a really long time, nearly a decade.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
CAIRA: He currently lives in Hawaii, and we’re all jealous of that.
CHRISTINE: Super jealous.
CAIRA: Today he’s going to talk us through the difference between a great bag and a bad one, and how much you should expect to pay for it.
ROSIE: And then later, Kit’s going to play Bag Concierge, and give us his best luggage recommendation for our next trip, and certainly yours, Christine.
CHRISTINE: I cannot wait.
ROSIE: We’ll be right back.
CAIRA: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. With us now is Kit Dillon, who is Wirecutter’s senior staff writer covering travel, who has traveled to about 20 countries. Some of which include Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa, just to name a few.
Kit has worn many hats over the years before joining us here at Wirecutter. From owning his own sandwich shop in scotland to inspecting oil derricks, which I didn’t know that was a job but it sounds really cool. Now he covers everything from camping tents to luggage.
CHRISTINE: Kit, welcome to The Wirecutter Show.
KIT: Hi.
CHRISTINE: It’s great to have you. Kit, you have lived a really adventurous life. You’ve traveled all over the world. You have some really wild and amazing stories. I’m thinking of one in particular you told me recently about how there was an alligator on the luggage belt. Can you tell us about that?
KIT: Yeah. I believe it was Equatorial Guinea. It was in my 20s. Yeah. One day, we were all waiting for our bags to come out, and out of the luggage carousel comes an alligator trussed up with with electrical tape around its snout. It was alive. I asked one of the security guards, because I was standing there and watching this thing go by. I was like, “What’s this all about?” He said, “Oh, there’s a wedding.”
CHRISTINE: So it could be anything.
CAIRA: It could really be maybe a gift.
KIT: Yeah, it could have been anything. I was like, “All right, great.”
CHRISTINE: We’ll save that for another gift episode. Is that the weirdest thing you’ve seen come off of a luggage carousel?
KIT: That’s absolutely the weirdest thing I’ve seen come off of a luggage carousel, yeah.
CAIRA: Hard to top that, I think.
KIT: It really does stay in my memory.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
CAIRA: Well, Kit, I think the main question that all of us are wondering today is will the best luggage in the world make traveling easier?
KIT: No.
ROSIE: The big sigh.
KIT: No. It might make you a little more relaxed. It might improve your day-to-day while you’re traveling. But I don’t know if it makes it much easier, no. Sadly.
CAIRA: Do you still hate the process of traveling? Even though you’ve traveled everywhere, you have the nicest luggage you can recommend, but you still hate traveling?
KIT: Absolutely. I’m six-three, getting on an airplane for me is a horror and it gets worse every year. There’s a small little glimpse of a moment where, when you’re packing and you’ve got a really nice bag, and everything’s being packed really well, everything’s in the right place where you feel like, “Oh, you know what, this is going to be the trip. This is the one that’s going to really work.” Then you get there and you’re like, “Oh no, it’s just as bad as it was before. It’s worse.”
CHRISTINE: I’m back at the airport!
KIT: I’m back at the airport, and I’m in the face of my own mortality as I get onto this airplane.
CHRISTINE: Well, even if it doesn’t make the trip necessarily easy, you did say that it can take away some anxiety. If you are shopping for a bag, there are so many options. There’s hard-sided, there’s soft-sided. You can get carry on checked. I think we want to talk through some of the most common scenarios people are looking to buy luggage might find themselves in, and we want you to walk us through your guidance.
Let’s start with the first thing someone should ask themselves when they’re about to buy a new travel bag. What do you think is the first thing they should ask themselves?
KIT: I think what people usually ask themselves is what material they want the luggage made out of.
ROSIE: How cute is the person going to look?
KIT: Right. It becomes very much an aesthetic choice. There’s nothing wrong with that. Largely, a lot of luggage does what it’s meant to do.
I think the first thing people should ask themselves is how you travel, and how much you carry with you often. I think back to when I was in my 20s, I could largely travel, I think a lot of people can, with a carry on backpack. They make these really great travel backpacks now, that you can put in your overhead, you can throw on your back, very nimble. For a solo traveler, or even very adventurous people with maybe small families, that’s really great. I think it makes traveling just that much easier, one less thing to run away from you on the wheels. They’re a little less clunky than luggage.
Checked bags, now as they start charging fees and things, become pretty onerous for most people. I think most people are probably best served by a basic carryon piece of luggage.
CAIRA: By being best served, do you mean that it’s easier, it makes it easier for you to be in the airport?
KIT: Yeah. Well, I think having four wheels is just an incredible luxury when moving through busy airports. It keeps all your stuff well-protected. You’re not carrying 30-pounds on your back. Yeah, they’re just very functional. They’re very functional objects.
CAIRA: I’m the kind of traveler who will fight to pack everything in a carryon so I don’t have to check a bag because I want the bag with me at all times. But if someone is on the fence about checking a bag versus carrying it on, what are some other questions people should be asking themselves to help them make that decision?
KIT: There’s two things. There’s how much do you pack, then issues with lost luggage do exist. I’m torn, because my personal theory is that you either check everything and you walk on with nothing, or you carryon everything and you check nothing. I think once you’ve done both, that’s when you’ve really screwed yourself. If you checked a bag and you’re carrying on, now you’ve got the worst of everything. If I’m checking things, I just want to check it all, and then I want to walk on with my wallet.
CHRISTINE: Are there certain places that you’re more likely to get your bag lost on a flight? Like some cheap airlines in Europe where it’s you better …
KIT: Well, in Europe with the smaller flight, it’s more that they just have really onerous rules about what can and can’t be carried on. You’re sometimes forced to check things that in America we would think is absolutely a carry on item or even a personal item. Then there’s puddle-hopping flights around the Caribbean and such, where you’re getting onto propeller planes and things. If you’re in those modes of travel, again, I go back to a backpack as being probably the best.
CHRISTINE: I actually had a bag … I went to the Caribbean this past year with some friends and they had carryons, and my family had a checked bag, and our checked bag didn’t make it onto the plane. Our friends with the carryons had to wait with us and pray with us that our bag would come on the next flight, which it did. But we were a total pain in the rear for them.
CAIRA: Yeah, that’s never fun.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
ROSIE: Kit, what about soft versus hard-side luggage? Is hard-sided really more protective? Does any of it make a difference?
KIT: Okay. This is the whole debate of the internet over the last 20 years about luggage it seems. The short answer is no, hard-sided does not seem to protect anything that much more than soft-sided does. What it can do is break somewhat catastrophically in a way that soft-sided luggage does not. But the risk of that happening is also pretty low. It’s just if it’s going to break and it does shatter, then the whole bag can shatter in that regard.
CAIRA: Right. Then your whole vacation is ruined.
KIT: Then your whole vacation’s ruined. Whereas with soft-sided, it might tear a little, or a wheel might break, or a handle might break. That’s a bummer, but it doesn’t mean that you can use the luggage completely. Hard-sided luggage just has a few extra failure points where all the energy can go. The zipper can break, and then the bag doesn’t work, and it’s pretty much it. Then obviously, the shells can break and they crack, and that’s not so good.
ROSIE: Aesthetics?
KIT: Yeah. Well then, aesthetically, hard-sided luggage looks great because you can print it in these various colors and prints, and I think that’s why people are drawn to it. Then in soft-sided luggage, you really can only just do nylon in certain bright colors. It just doesn’t look as good. You end up looking like, I don’t know, a mid-level businessman walking around.
CHRISTINE: Truly, truly, soft-sided luggage to me looks like pleated khaki pants. That’s what I see.
ROSIE: Our sincere apologies to all mid-level businessmen who may be listening to the show.
CAIRA: Wearing pleated khaki pants.
ROSIE: We see you, we love you.
KIT: I walk around, I know it, I know what I look like.
ROSIE: What about packing a soft-sided versus a hard-sided?
KIT: Well, the thing is a soft-sided just has more advantages ultimately. It is easier to pack usually, the way it’s designed. Externally, soft-sided always has usually extra pockets which is great when you’re traveling. There are just all these benefits. And yet, we are just drawn to hard-sided luggage.
The little secret there is that hard-sided luggage originally was designed, they thought it would be lighter because they could produce these polycarbonate shells in these really light forms. It was essentially lighter than soft-sided luggage when it first started. Then they broke more, so then they made the polycarbonate thicker. And then it broke less, but then it weighs the same amount as the soft-sided. The original notion of why we built these things didn’t make any sense, but now they’re here and we like them.
Ultimately, after doing this for about 10 years, I think it’s probably just over-thought. If you really are splitting hairs, and we like to do that here, then yeah, soft-sided is a little bit better than hard-sided luggage.
CHRISTINE: Let’s talk a little bit about price because bags can be really, really expensive. We recommend bags at a few different price levels… an Away bag at $275 … TravelPro bag at $365 … and a high end briggs & riley bag for $699. I’m sure some listeners are thinking… I can find something cheaper than that at Marshall’s or TJ Maxx. But Kit: why are our picks so pricey and how much should people expect to spend to get a decent bag?
KIT: After a long time of doing this, I really pretty easily say don’t spend less than $200. You’re just risking things going catastrophically awry when you first use the bag, your first trip.
CHRISTINE: Like the bag breaks?
KIT: The bag breaks, it didn’t work in the first place, the handle got stuck the first time you use it. Not really worth it.
This is the part of the job that I don’t like the most, is when you’re telling people, “You need to spend this much money.” There are absolutely moments when you might need just a spare bit of luggage for one flight, and walking into Marshall’s and grabbing a bag is going to be fine. Or you’re trying to save some money and you think, “You know what, if anything breaks, I can duct tape it, I can make it work.” Absolutely.
The baseline in materials have gotten better and cheaper. What you’re paying for in higher end things will often be smoother rolling wheels, or a really nice zipper, these sort of things. They do matter, you do notice it. How much are you going to notice it? I’m not sure. It’s really ultimately the customer service and warranty of a more expensive bag, you’re going to get more use out of it over your lifetime. If you spend over $200, you start to get access to those things.
CAIRA: On the other hand, a lot of the Wirecutter picks do come with warranties. What does that actually get you?
KIT: Right now, there’s three big players and they’re also our picks. We have Away, TravelPro, Briggs & Riley.
TravelPro, it’s on the less expensive range. But they have excellent warranties that protects against airline damage, which is what we really look for. And they have a really good reputation. You’ve got a company that will repair your bag if it comes off the airplane, and all the wheels have snapped off, and it’s not your fault. The only problem is that sometimes getting that warranty claimed, you have to send the bag in to TravelPro, you have to get it repaired. That’s fine if it breaks when you’ve returned home and you don’t need the bag again. It’s not so good if you’ve flown somewhere and your bag is broken now. You can take it into luggage repair shops, they do exist, but the warranty system won’t repair your bag for free right there.
Which is the case for Briggs & Riley. If you spend, this is in the upper range, $600, $800, you can bring your Briggs & Riley in anywhere where they have a repair center, and there are tons of them all over the country and around the globe, and get your bag fixed right in front of you for about 30 bucks for a rush. It’s free if you just leave it there for a week or so. That’s pretty incredible. We don’t really see much of that, and it’s a testament to how much Briggs & Riley stands behind what they produce. The bag itself is warrantied. It’s not warrantied against the purchaser or anything else, so the object itself is under warranty. If I picked up a broken Briggs & Riley off the curb and I brought it in, they’ll fix it for free.
CAIRA: That’s nice.
KIT: Yeah. Pretty good.
Then there’s Away, and Away has the opposite model, which is just we’re going to produce a million of these things. We’ll warranty them, so when yours breaks, you just walk into an Away store. More often than not, like Patagonia and these other companies, they will just replace it for you. Not very environmentally friendly, but you do walk away with a new bag.
ROSIE: All right, the things that stuck in my mind here. $200 is going to be probably the low end what you’re going to spend on something that is going to get you a decent quality suitcase. The other thing is the W word that I started to hear a lot when I started working at Wirecutter, which is warranties. The most unsexy thing, but helpful in a lot of ways and definitely in the case of suitcases.
I think the other thing that’s a highlight here is the idea that actually soft-sided is a slightly better bet than hard. Even though hard-sided is-
CAIRA: Pretty.
ROSIE: … trendy and cool.
The real takeaway is don’t overthink it.
CHRISTINE: Okay. We’re going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we’ll talk about Kit’s testing process and tips for efficient packing. And we’ll get his personal recommendations – I’m super excited about this – for the right bags for our type of travel.
CAIRA: Yeah I’m really interested to hear what he’s gonna say for you Christine.
CHRISTINE: About my duffel bag?
CAIRA: Yeah about your duffel bag. Somebody needs to talk to you.
CHRISTINE: Yeah I know. I’m gonna get a talking to. Alright, so we’ll be right back.
CAIRA: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. Earlier in this episode, we walked through the questions anyone should ask themselves when shopping for a new suitcase. Now we’re going to talk with Kit about how he tests bags, specific bags he recommends, and his best recs for packing like an expert.
CHRISTINE: Kit, you are in Hawaii. How are you testing these bags?
KIT: Really, I travel with them a lot. When you live in Hawaii, you’ve got a 3000-mile flight no matter where you’re going, so you’re always long-hauling. Which is a curse for someone like me, actually.
CAIRA: And a blessing.
KIT: And a blessing. It is a blessing. It’s also a curse.
CAIRA: Kit, are you afraid of flying?
KIT: Absolutely. No, 100%. It gets worse every year.
CHRISTINE: Wow! This is a tough job for you.
KIT: It’s a really tough gig, yeah.
ROSIE: Who’s forcing you to do this?
KIT: Yeah. I have to face myself every time and it just gets-
CHRISTINE: Face your fears.
KIT: Oh, it gets worse and worse. I just think of all the things I haven’t done yet.
CAIRA: Okay. Your testing process for the bags.
KIT: Right.
CAIRA: What are you doing?
KIT: There’s three avenues that we try and really look at. A, it’s usability. That would be everything from packing it, storing it, moving it through airports. The major part of that really is just packing it. It’s just how does it feel to pack this bag? You’d be amazed how many bits of luggage … At this point, I’ve looked at maybe not quite 1000, but certainly over 500 pieces of luggage I would say.
ROSIE: Wow.
KIT: You’d be amazed how many bags just don’t feel good to pack.
One of my complaints about hard-sided luggage is that it has to generally open as a clamshell, which means that it has two equal sides. It just means that you have a shallow tray to put things in, and then they compensate for this by building straps, or plates, or some sort of way to hold everything in place. So that, when you close the clamshell, all your stuff doesn’t go flying everywhere. Certain brands have made this a little bit better, a little bit easier. A lot of brands haven’t. Soft-sided luggage, by and large, has a more lid design. You have a large container to pack, and then you close the lid on top of, which is really exceptional.
Then we look at durability and how well it rolls through the airports, or over surfaces. Carpets, linoleum, et cetera. Then we look for longevity. How well will this bag travel over the years? We expect everything that we recommend to last at least five-plus years. Hopefully it’s going into a decade. Some of our bags, I believe, like the Briggs & Riley, I think you can actually probably pass on generationally if you take care of them.
CAIRA: Wow. I do want to mention for anybody that hasn’t seen it that, Kit, you have this amazing video on our instagram where they blindfold you, and then put a bag in your hand. You scored, what was it, seven out of eight times you were able to tell which bag it was just by touch alone?
KIT: I know. My disappointment in missing that last one, too. It’s actually palpable.
CAIRA: But it’s so impressive! You’ve really gotten your hands on all of these bags and tested each one of them.
KIT: Yes. I’ve held a lot of luggage in my life. It’s a weird thing to find yourself suddenly with this Rain Man-like ability to identify … It happens to me when I’m getting on and off airplanes now at airports, too. Things will be coming off the conveyor belt, and my brain is clocking which brands are coming off.
CAIRA: Yeah.
KIT: I can’t turn it off, it just happens now.
ROSIE: Kit, you obviously have held, handled, tested tons of bags. What is the most interesting bag you’ve seen?
KIT: Right now, the ones that I find the most interesting are travel trunks. They’re these-
ROSIE: Like from yesteryear?
KIT: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Like from the Titanic?
KIT: From the Titanic, yeah. Yeah, exactly. No, I’ve always loved steamer trunks anyway. There are a bunch of brands remaking, at least in form. They’re not as beautiful as we might imagine these old trunks to be, with the drawers, et cetera, et cetera. But we also don’t have stevedores carrying these things around anymore. There is something slightly romantic about the shape of this luggage. I don’t know why I’m drawn to it.
CAIRA: Okay, Kit. We’re going to do a quick lightning round where we will all take turns telling you about ourselves as travelers, and then you’ll tell us what bags you’d recommend.
I am a last-minute traveler. I am often traveling internationally and domestically, and alone. I hate checking a bag. I don’t actually think I’ve ever done it in my adult life. What would you recommend I get?
KIT: For you, definitely it’s a carryon and I would say a travel backpack, a backpack built specifically for traveling.
CAIRA: What brands would you recommend?
KIT: For us, that would be a TravelPro Platinum Elite 21-inch. Then the Cotopaxi Allpa 35-liter travel pack. I think they’re great. It’s like having a piece of luggage on your back, it’s perfect. You can pack it easily. They’re amazing, I love them. I travel with them all the time.
CAIRA: That is my favorite thing. I actually currently have a Lo & Sons, but I have found that their zippers keep popping off so I’ve been looking for something new. But I have not found a backpack that’s as deep as the one that I have.
KIT: Try the Allpa.
CAIRA: Okay.
KIT: It carries way more than I think even they advertise.
CHRISTINE: I got to take the Allpa on a trip this past winter. I got to borrow it from your editor, Kit, actually. It was great.
CAIRA: Really?
CHRISTINE: Yeah. I would buy it, it was good.
CAIRA: Okay.
ROSIE: My turn. In my Merchant Ivory fantasy, obviously I’m traveling with a trunk. Obviously. In my reality, I am usually traveling with my family. So two little kids means usually my wife and I are toting around our toddlers’ stuff and trying not to lose anything in the airport, on the plane, wherever we’re going. I don’t have a ton of space to store any luggage when suitcases aren’t in use. This is sort of my dynamic. Need to pack a lot of stuff, but don’t have a ton of space when my luggage is not in use.
KIT: Yeah. For that, you’re looking definitely at luggage sets. If you buy a checked luggage and your carryon luggage separately from two different brands, you’re not always guaranteed that they’ll nest within each other. Part of the manufacturing aspect of this is that brands build their bags to nest within one another. It’s largely for shipping I’ve been told. As they produce these things, they’ve got their very small carryon it, it fits into the next size, and the next size, and the next size. It Russian dolls its way up. Then they can ship them all over together.
That is true also in your closet. If you buy a checked luggage and a carryon from the same brand at the same time, they will nest together and sit very nicely stored away.
ROSIE: What are a couple of brands you might recommend?
KIT: Yeah. Again, it’s TravelPro. They keep coming to the top of our list. TravelPro Platinum Elite and/or Briggs & Riley baseline. But it’s expensive, Briggs & Riley is expensive.
Also though, Briggs & Riley feels like a magic trick. I don’t think we mentioned this, but they have this compression system that, when in use, it doesn’t feel real to me whenever it happens, but the entire bag itself essentially compresses around your stuff and ratchets down onto it. It just means you can carry that much more, it feels more secure. An incredible piece of luggage.
ROSIE: That actually could be a really good option for me because I am often sharing a suitcase with one or both of my children, so having that extra compression space does sound like a nice luxury.
KIT: It’s really nice. Then when you’re traveling with it, when you expand it, you can also live out of the bag more easily. It gives you more space to throw things in and pull things out of.
ROSIE: Music to my ears. Living out of a bag, throw things in, throw them out.
CHRISTINE: Kit, I have a similar issue to Rosie. I travel with my family, I’ve got a family of four. My kids are older. We have absolutely no storage for luggage. We usually travel with a duffel bag, an Eagle Creek duffel bag on wheels. We’re about to take a trip to Japan and I’m wondering if it’s going to be a total pain in the rear to have a duffel bag. Do you think I’m making a mistake by taking a duffel bag?
KIT: You know, if you don’t mind it. I don’t personally love them myself. I just find duffels really difficult to … You just end up lugging them around, even on wheels. They try and make them now into these hybrids, so they’re all better. They only come on two wheels. All your stuff is just jammed into this cavity. But they are really great for storage.
Eagle Creek is getting a lot better. Their warranties are quite good now. Patagonia has historically had an incredible warranty that’s an industry standard. I like the Patagonia Black Hole duffels a lot. They both have really good return-repair policies.
CHRISTINE: All right. I might risk it because it sounds like buying new luggage is going to be the same amount of money as my trip to Japan.
ROSIE: Kit, before we go, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask the travel pro what is your best advice for packing efficiently?
KIT: The only true hack I’ve ever come across are packing cubes.
CHRISTINE: For people who aren’t familiar with these, what do they look like?
KIT: They come in various sizes. The largest ones are about, I don’t know, the size of a laptop that’s about four-inches deep, say. They’re a zippered lid, and you put your stuff in it, and then you close this cube. Now all your socks and T-shirts are in a little packing cube. Then that cube goes into your larger cube, the luggage. You stack these things like Tetris inside there. It just makes packing so much easier, it makes unpacking easier. If there is a joy of traveling, it’s when you’ve actually gotten to your destination and you get to unpack. A packing cube lets you do that very easily.
The first time I ever unpacked into a hotel’s provided drawers was because I had packing cubes. I would never do that if I had to unload my entire bit of luggage.
ROSIE: That’s extraordinary. I’ve never done that.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. A cool parenting hack, too. I took my daughter for the first time for sleep-away camp this summer and we had packing cubes. She was the only one in her cabin that had organized clothing because she could just stack her packing cubes on her shelf. Everybody’s else’s clothes were just an explosion.
ROSIE: Do packing cubes enable you to actually pack more, or is it really an organizational tool?
KIT: They claim to help you pack a little bit more. We might be talking about an extra pair of socks or another two T-shirts here. It’s largely about organization. My fundamental belief around my increasing anxieties around these things around travel is that it’s organization that alleviates some of that stress. It’s really what I think the fantasy of all of this is, is that you will just be able to leave your home blissed out and arrive blissed out, knowing where everything is. And you’re not going to lose your passport halfway there, and something’s not going to break. Packing cubes are one of those incredible pieces of gear that actually do somewhat alleviate the panic around all this. At least for me.
ROSIE: Frankly, if it enables you to pack one more pair of underpants, that can be a game-changer on a trip.
KIT: Yeah. Yeah, truly.
CAIRA: Well, Kit, I’m going to throw you one more bonus question. What would you recommend for the chronic over-packer?
ROSIE: Therapy.
KIT: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Gosh, that one’s a hard one. My wife does seem to have … She’s very relaxed while traveling. She seems to panic beforehand. I’m fine when I’m packing because I feel like, “This is great, I’m doing it.” Then when I get to the airport, I’m a mess. She’s the exact opposite.
CAIRA: Balance.
KIT: Balance, right.
CAIRA: Yeah.
KIT: It’s pretty good. She tends to massively over-pack in the beginning, and then falls into a moment of despair where she feels like she’s not going to get everything into the bag that she needs.
To answer your question, I think the best strategy is honestly is to pull out everything you think you need, and then immediately just pull away 30%. Don’t even try and put it into a suitcase because you’ll just make yourself crazy. Just immediately try and get rid of a third of what you think you need. I think everyone does it. I don’t know, over-packing is such a tricky thing to break.
CAIRA: Yeah, I feel like I need five times more underwear than I would ever wear for some reason.
ROSIE: You never know.
KIT: I do the same thing. I’ll be there and it’s like, “Oh, what, we’re going away for four days.” I’m like, “Okay, well I need eight T-shirts, I need three jeans.” You’re like, “What am I talking …” It’s like, “If I work out on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday-“
ROSIE: LOL.
CAIRA: Yeah, right.
KIT: Which obviously I’m going to do.
CAIRA: Duh.
KIT: I need workout shirts, plus I need workout underwear.
CAIRA: Right.
KIT: Yeah. You start to create this fantasy of yourself. It’s like why, when you travel with four novels in your backpack for some reason. You’re like, “Well, this is 30 pounds I needed to carry around with me.”
ROSIE: It’s true.
KIT: Yeah.
ROSIE: When I am on vacation, my ideal self is so incredibly well-read, I’m exercised. I have clean underpants. I’m the ideal, the David version of Rosie.
CAIRA: Okay, Kit, before we wrap, we usually ask all of our guests one final question. What’s the last thing you bought that you really loved?
KIT: Okay so, you know I surf. And as waves get bigger, you need a progressively larger board. In the surfing world, these are called guns, and they’re over nine feet long, and they’re made for riding bigger waves. I am not claiming to ride very big waves at all. But for some surfers, I’m riding relatively larger waves. I treated myself to a hand-shaped board from a famous surfboard shaper out here on the North Short named Pat Rossen. It is … Can I curse on this thing?
CAIRA: We’re going to bleep it out or cut it.
KIT: Okay, well it’s [BLEEP] sick. It’s so much fun. I feel like a child when I’m on it, and that’s riding very feeble waves compared to how big this thing probably could go, and what very good surfers can actually push it into. But for me, I feel fantastic. That’s been a real love of mine.
CAIRA: That is awesome.
CHRISTINE: I’m jealous.
ROSIE: Our listeners can’t see this, but your face is just joy, pure joy.
CHRISTINE: Pure joy.
ROSIE: And delight.
CHRISTINE: Love it.
KIT: It’s pretty fun.
CAIRA: Christine, do you feel ready for your trip?
CHRISTINE: I absolutely do not feel ready for my trip. But I think that I am clearer on what I’m going to use for my luggage.
CAIRA: What are you doing? I’m actually not excited to hear this.
ROSIE: She’s going to duct tape the holes on her duffel.
CHRISTINE: If I were to really commit and buy luggage right now, I would absolutely want to get soft-sided Briggs & Riley suitcases.
CAIRA: Right.
CHRISTINE: I think I know the thing that I should buy. I am not going to ante up right now for that because I just bought tickets to Japan.
CAIRA: To be expected.
CHRISTINE: I’m taking four other people to Japan. I will be sticking with my duffel. But I feel like I’m not going to carry it, I’m going to make my husband carry it. But at some point, I want to get a Briggs & Riley because it sounds like a pretty awesome bag.
ROSIE: It is aspirational.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
ROSIE: My aspirational desire is a trunk for all of my transcontinental travel.
CHRISTINE: Yes.
CAIRA: And a person to carry said trunk?
ROSIE: I know I do have to get somebody.
CAIRA: With the bag.
ROSIE: Yeah.
CAIRA: Yeah.
ROSIE: Well, I’ll circle back.
CAIRA: Okay.
ROSIE: My real takeaway is that if I’m in the market for another suitcase, hard-sided or soft-sided, probably it’s going to be over $200.
CAIRA: Yeah.
ROSIE: That’s where the baseline is. That’s good to know, especially if you are going to go into a Target, or a Marshall’s, or a TJ Maxx. The quality is commensurate with the price.
CAIRA: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think when I’m finally ready to be an adult and buy my own bag and return my mom’s, I’m definitely going to look for a bag that is also over $200 but has a warranty. Again, the Briggs & Riley, so aspirational, would love that. But I’m not paying $800 for luggage right now. Maybe I’ll go dumpster diving for one. For right now, I think I’m just going to look for a bag with a good warranty in case it breaks.
CHRISTINE: The warranty is king.
ROSIE: Well, if you want to find out more about Kit’s travel gear reporting or Wirecutter’s coverage in general, or if you want to check out any of the products like the Briggs & Riley bag, go to nytimes.com/wirecutter. Or you can find a link, as ever, in the show notes. My friends, see you next week.
The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Kiel. Editing by Abigail Kiel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s Deputy Publisher and Interim General Manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.
CHRISTINE: Thanks for listening.
