Travel Tuesdays: luggage
Let’s face it: it’s called luggage because you lug it around. So if you’re planning to do any travel at all, you want something that’s easy to lug. But if you share my preference for traveling with a carry-on only, that ups the ante.
Of course, I acknowledge that sometimes checking your bag is unavoidable — say, if you’re traveling with tools, a case of wine, or a wedding dress. But if I can avoid it, I do. Why? Lots of reasons. If my luggage is with me at all times, it’s less likely to get lost or stolen or accidentally taken by someone else. I can be on my way while everyone else is waiting at baggage claim for their stuff to show up. I don’t have to pay the extortionate fees some airlines are charging to check in a bag. Besides, when I travel, I prefer to be inconspicuous — and as Rick Steves likes to remind people, nothing turns on the blinking neon light reading “Tourist here! Scammers welcome!” like wrestling with a big suitcase or two.
I consider certain qualities necessary in a carry-on bag:
- It has to be large enough to hold a week’s worth of clothing. I pack light and will happily do laundry, or at least rinse stuff out in the sink, if I’m on the go for more than a week — but I need to know I can go for a week on what I have with me.
- And yet it still has to weigh 15 pounds or less when fully packed, because dude, I am not a weightlifter.
- It has to fit in an overhead compartment. Seriously. I am not willing to be forced to check it at the door when it turns out at the last minute to be an inch over the maximum in every direction.
- I have to be able to carry it on my back. A rolling suitcase just isn’t as maneuverable or convenient as something I can wear, but a big bag is cumbersome and uncomfortable when carried by a shoulder strap for more than a few minutes.
- It needs to be sturdy. Rip-resistant fabric. Heavy-duty zippers. Solidly stitched seams. I do not want my clothes suddenly falling out in some filthy subway station (or, indeed, anywhere else).
- It needs some kind of organizational features. I like useful pockets. Otherwise, I inevitably end up having to unpack everything to find a pair of socks.
- Ideally, it should have an easy-to-access place to store the stuff we must now carry in a little plastic baggie and whip out for TSA. I don’t want to have to pack, unpack, and repack at every security checkpoint.
You really don’t have to drop a ton of cash on a bag, either. For the last seven years, I’ve been traveling with a big black backpack bought at my local cheap-luggage-from-China store for the princely sum of $25.
Amortized over the time I’ve owned it, that works out to about $3.57 a year — and there’s no question I’ve gotten my money’s worth. I’ve schlepped it to Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Venice, London (thrice), Rome (twice), and a bunch of domestic destinations including New York (at least half a dozen times), New Orleans, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Las Vegas, and Portland, Oregon.
However, on its last outing, I cracked the buckle on the waist strap — so I’m looking at the Tom Bihn Aeronaut. This is essentially my dream bag; it meets all my requirements and then some.
I have been lusting after this marvelous creation since I first laid eyes on it several years ago. It’s light, sturdy, and capacious. It has handles, a shoulder strap, and a backpack harness that zips away in its own cunningly designed compartment. It has water-resistant zippers. It’s designed not to spill your crap all over the place when you open it. It has dividers and pockets. You can even buy little packing cubes that fit inside for even more organization. In short, it is awesome.
Sadly, it is also $220.
But here’s the thing about budget travel: sometimes, you have to pay a little more to get a lot more. (More on that later.) Although the frugal side of me balks at the idea of dropping $220 on a bag, even the bag of my dreams, it works out to $22 a year if I get ten years of use out of it. Given the amount I (don’t) travel, I could probably use it for 15 or 20 years, especially since Bihn bags come with a lifetime guarantee. Heck, I’ve been carrying a Bihn Small Cafe Shoulder Bag almost every day for almost five years and it’s still going strong.
So I’m tempted. Perhaps I’ll have a new bag to test for my next trip. Or perhaps I’ll give the big black backpack one final fling before I retire it.
What’s your favorite bag? Why do you like it? Would you recommend it to me?
6 Responses to “Travel Tuesdays: luggage”
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I love my old Eagle Creek carry-on backpack. I originally bought it (yikes – maybe 20 years ago..?) because it had a zip-offable day pack. But that makes it too big to carry on, and is bulkier than I need for touring during the day, so I use it without the day pack and throw in my Rick Steves day pack (very light and squishable) in its stead.
What I love about it: the high-quality padded waist/hip cinching mechanism keeps the weight off my shoulders. The shoulder straps stow away, but I never actually stow them, because I’m always using it as a backpack.
What I didn’t initially love about it, but now do: although it has one long zip pocket on the outside, it is one big compartment on the inside. I would prefer more pockets, BUT I now use mesh packing cubes, which allow me to separate out clothes from other stuff AND have a lot more flexibility about what goes where.
I actually have one of the bags Rick Steves sells in his store, and it’s been great for me. I don’t see my particular model on the site anymore, but it’s similar to this one: http://travelstore.ricksteves.com/catalog/index.cfm?fuseaction=product&theParentId=8&id=346
Not quite as nice as the one you linked to, but less than half the price, and it shows no signs of wear after 10 years.
I’ve been tempted to buy a new bag recently. I have a Tumi 22″ rolling case that I love, but it’s a smidge too big for the overhead bins in the older planes, even though technically it’s carry-on size. I actually don’t like bags with lots of pockets, because I’ll spend 10 minutes zipping and unzipping to figure out which damn pocket I packed something in. And then I feel like the dividers eat up precious space. So there has to be a good balance; maybe a couple of small pockets for papers and tiny things, and then a lot of open space.
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Great — now I have luggage envy. And I’m not a bag snob: I’ve usually gone with whatever freebie duffel or backpack has come my way. Of course, family trips are far more common for me in recent years than solo jaunts, which changes things. When our child was small, we figured one huge-ish suitcase, wrangled by me, would free my wife up for the tot. So we found a great deal on a big one… and literally days later, the size limits on checked bags were announced, rendering our new purchase worthless. Harumph.
All that said, I’m coveting that Aeronaut.
David, now that your child is self-propelled and responds well to voice commands, I think it makes sense to get 2 smaller bags, and maybe even a third wee bag for kid to carry her own stuff!
And now, for my thoughts about wheeled bags: they’re awesome in airports and places with good pavement, and I have one for just such destinations — but stairs, cobblestones, and dirt roads defeat them utterly.