Pack Your Bags!

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Speaker 10 From the New York Times, you're listening to The Wire Cutter Show.

Speaker 10 Hey, everyone, it's The Wire Cutter Show. I'm Christine Sear-Clissette.
I'm Kyra Blackwell.

Speaker 11 And I'm Rosie Guerin, and we work at Wirecutter, the product recommendation site from the New York Times.

Speaker 10 Each week, we bring you expert advice from our newsroom of 140 journalists who review everyday products that will make your life better.

Speaker 10 This episode of The Wire Cutter Show is called Pack Your Bags.

Speaker 10 Hyra, Rosie. Hey, it is my turn to bring a question to you.
I love it this week. I am taking a big trip.
I'm so excited. I'm going to Japan.
I'm so jealous. This is going to be great.

Speaker 11 We're coming, actually.

Speaker 10 I forget if we told you. Yeah, Kyra and I are coming.
I will let my family know. We are your family now.
Yeah, we are your family now.

Speaker 10 Well, I do have a couple problems.

Speaker 10 So, the first thing is, I don't speak Japanese. Okay.
I think that's okay. Yeah, you think I'll get through it? That's okay.
I am in a fierce Duolingo battle with my 11-year-old right now.

Speaker 10 We are getting our streaks. On branding.
Yeah, learning things like water and sushi and bathroom. Bathroom.
I haven't gotten that far, but I'm hoping to. That's a good one to know.

Speaker 10 But beyond the language barrier, I don't really know if I have the right bags. I'm not sure.
That's a tricky one. I'm very minimalist when it comes to my luggage.
I have a backpack from college.

Speaker 10 Wow, Christine.

Speaker 10 And I have like a duffel bag that my family brings. And we just, I know Kyra's face is positively offended.
Yeah. I think it's totally fine.

Speaker 11 I just, I think this is a big trip. It's a big.
And you're going with your husband and your kids.

Speaker 11 And so 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 like sharing a suitcase with them now. Do we do the carry-on?

Speaker 11 How much do you bring? Do you check? Do you, you know, so I feel you on this conundrum.

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's like I, I don't have much room to store luggage in my home. And so that's why we use a duffel bag.
And it's worked well.

Speaker 10 Like we've gone to the Caribbean with it, we've gone to Mexico with it, but it is definitely not the easiest thing. So yeah, I'm looking for some advice here.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I'm sorry for giving you a hard time about the duffel because I actually have never bought myself luggage before.

Speaker 10 I stole my mom's carry-on from her set and she's just finding out about it right now.

Speaker 11 I knew there was a reason she shouldn't listen to the show.

Speaker 10 Exactly. We'll put a disclaimer at the beginning of the day.
Hira's mom just don't listen.

Speaker 10 She calls me every year, by the way, and she's like, hey, do you have this bag? And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. You are outrageous.

Speaker 10 But it's just a really big purchase.

Speaker 10 Whenever I've thought about maybe 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. Yeah.

Speaker 10 That's why we're we're going to bring on somebody who can help today. It's Kit Dylan.
And Kit is great. He's so well versed in this problem because he is Wirecutter's resident travel writer.

Speaker 10 Kit has been with Wirecutter for a really long time, like nearly a decade. He currently lives in Hawaii and we're all jealous of that.
Super jealous.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 10 I cannot wait. We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 Even buying your next property.

Speaker 8 Get started today with smarter tools and guidance from real mortgage experts.

Speaker 2 Find out how at rocketmortgage.com.

Speaker 9 Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states, NMLS Consumer Access.org, 3030.

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Speaker 13 Mont Blanc invites you to use life's quiet moments to pause, reflect, and put pen to paper.

Speaker 2 Chapter one. Oh, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Part one.

Speaker 14 Perfect. The mountains are impressive.
Oh, I wish you were here to see them. Dear Diary, meet my new writing companion, the Meister Stuck.

Speaker 13 For every journey, the perfect companion awaits, Mont Blanc. Let's write.
Visit Montblanc.com for exquisitely crafted crafted writing instruments, leather goods, and more.

Speaker 10 Welcome back to the Wirecutter Show.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Kit has worn many hats over the years before joining us here at Wirecutter, from owning his own sandwich shop to inspecting oil derricks, which I didn't know that was a job, but it sounds really cool.

Speaker 10 Now he covers everything from camping tents to luggage. Kit, welcome to the Wirecutter Show.
Hi. It's great to have you.

Speaker 10 So Kit, you have lived a really adventurous life. You've traveled all over the world.
You have some really wild and amazing stories.

Speaker 10 And 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? Yeah, so I believe it was Equatorial Guinea.

Speaker 11 It was in my 20s.

Speaker 10 Yeah, one day we're all waiting for our bags to come out and out of the luggage carousel comes an alligator trussed up with electrical tape around its snout. And it was alive.

Speaker 10 I asked one of the security guards because I was standing there and watching this thing go by and I was like, what's this all about? And he said, oh, there's a wedding. And that was.

Speaker 10 So it could be anything. It could really be anything.
It could really be it. It could have been anything.
I was like, all right, great. We'll save that for another gift episode.

Speaker 10 But is that the weirdest thing you've seen come off of a luggage carousel?

Speaker 10 That's absolutely the weirdest thing you've seen come off of a luggage carousel. It's hard to top that.

Speaker 10 It really does stay in my memory. Yeah.

Speaker 10 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?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 10 Big sigh.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 So 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. Absolutely.
I mean, I'm 6'3.

Speaker 10 Getting on an airplane for me is a Zahar. And I guess course every year.

Speaker 10 There's a small little glimpse of a moment where when you're packing and you've got a really nice bag and it's everything's being packed really well, everything's in the right place where you feel like, oh, you know what?

Speaker 10 This is going to be the trip. Like this is the one that's going to really work.

Speaker 10 And then you get there and you're like, oh, no, it's just as bad as it was before. It's worse.
I'm back at the airport.

Speaker 10 I'm back at the airport and I'm sort of faced with my own mortality as I get onto this airplane. And I, you know, whoa.

Speaker 10 Well, even if it doesn't make the trip necessarily easy, you did say that it can take away some anxiety. So if you are shopping for a bag, there are so many options.

Speaker 10 There's hard-sided, there's soft-sided. You can get carry-on checked.

Speaker 10 You know, I think we want to talk through some of the most common scenarios people who are looking to buy luggage might find themselves in. And we want you to walk us through your guidance.

Speaker 10 So 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?

Speaker 10 I think what people usually ask themselves is what material they want the luggage made out of.

Speaker 11 How cute is the person going to look? Right.

Speaker 10 It becomes very much an aesthetic choice. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Largely, a lot of of luggage does what it's meant to do.

Speaker 10 I think the first thing people should ask themselves is how you travel and sort of how much you carry with you often.

Speaker 10 I think back to when I was in my 20s, I could largely travel, I think a lot of people can, with a sort of carry-on backpack.

Speaker 10 And they make these really great travel backpacks now that you can put in your overhead, you can throw on your back, very nimble.

Speaker 10 And for a solo traveler or even sort of very adventurous people with maybe small families, that's really great. I think it makes traveling just that much easier.

Speaker 10 Just sort of one less thing to run away from you on the wheels. They're a little less clunky than luggage.
Check bags now as they start charging fees and things become pretty onerous.

Speaker 10 I think most people are probably best served by a basic carry-on piece of luggage. And by being best served, do you mean that it's just like easier? It makes it easier for you to be in the airport?

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Yeah, they're just very functional. They're very functional objects.

Speaker 10 I'm the kind of traveler who will fight to pack everything in a carry-on so I don't have to check a bag because I want the bag with me at all times.

Speaker 10 But if someone is kind of 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? There's two things.

Speaker 10 There's how much do you pack? Then issues with lost luggage do exist.

Speaker 10 I'm so torn because my personal theory is that you either check everything and you walk on with nothing or you carry on everything and you check nothing.

Speaker 10 I think once you've done both, that's when you've really kind of screwed yourself.

Speaker 10 When you check the bag and you're carrying on, it's like, well, now you've just, now you've got the worst of everything.

Speaker 10 So if I'm checking thing, I just want to check it all and then I just want to walk on with my wallet. Are there certain places that you're more likely to get your bag lost on a flight?

Speaker 10 Like some cheap airlines in Europe where it's like, oh, you better. 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.

Speaker 10 And so you're sometimes forced to check things that you, in America, we would think is absolutely a carry-on item or even a personal item.

Speaker 10 And then there's puddle hopping flights around the Caribbean and such where you're getting onto propeller planes and things.

Speaker 10 So if you're in those modes of travel, again, I kind of go back to a backpack as being probably the best. I actually had a bag.

Speaker 10 I went to the Caribbean this past year with some friends and they had carry-ons and my family had a check bag and our check bag didn't make it onto the plane.

Speaker 10 So our friends with the carry-ons had to wait for us and pray with us that our bag would come on the next flight, which it did, but we were like a total pain in the rear for them.

Speaker 10 Yeah, that's never fun. Yeah.

Speaker 11 Kit, what about soft versus hard-side luggage? Is hard-sided really more protective? Does any of it make a difference?

Speaker 10 Okay, so this is the whole debate of the internet over the last 20 years about luggage, it seems.

Speaker 10 And the short answer is no, hard-sided does not seem to protect anything that much more than soft-sided does.

Speaker 10 What it can do is break somewhat catastrophically in a way that soft-sided luggage does not. But, you know, the risk of that happening is also pretty low.

Speaker 10 It's just if it's going to break and it does shatter, then the whole bag can shatter in that regard. Right.
And then your whole vacation is ruined. And then your whole vacation is ruined.

Speaker 10 Whereas a soft-sided, it might tear a little or a wheel might break or a handle might break and that that's a that's a bummer but it doesn't mean that you can't use the luggage completely hard-sided luggage just has a few extra failure points it's sort of where all the energy can go so the zipper can break and then the bag doesn't work and that's pretty much it and then obviously the shells can break and they crack and that's that's not so good aesthetics yeah well then an 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.

Speaker 10 And 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 kind of like a,

Speaker 10 I don't know, mid-level business and then walking around. I mean, truly, truly, soft-sided luggage to me looks like pleated khaki pants.

Speaker 11 Like, that's what I sincere apologies to all mid-level businessmen who may be listening to the show.

Speaker 10 We see you.

Speaker 10 We love you.

Speaker 10 I mean, I walk around. I know it.
I know what I look like. You know,

Speaker 11 what about packing a soft-sided versus a hard-sided?

Speaker 10 Well, that's, I mean, the thing is that soft-sided just has more advantages ultimately. It is easier to pack usually the way it's designed.

Speaker 10 Externally, soft-sided always has usually extra pockets, which is great when you're traveling. They're just all these benefits, and yet we are just drawn to hard-sided luggage.

Speaker 10 The little secret there is that, you know, hard-sided luggage originally was designed, they thought it would be lighter because they could produce these polycarbonate shells in these sort of really light forms.

Speaker 10 And it was essentially lighter than soft-sided luggage when it first started. And then they broke more.

Speaker 10 So then they made the polycarbonate thicker, and then it broke less, but then it weighs the same amount as the soft-sided.

Speaker 10 So the original notion of why we built these things didn't make any sense, but now they're here

Speaker 10 and we like them. You know, ultimately, after doing this for about 10 years, I think it's probably just overthought.

Speaker 10 If you really are splitting hairs and we like to do that here, then yes, soft-sided is a little bit better than hard-sided luggage.

Speaker 10 Let's talk a little bit about price because bags can be really, really expensive. We recommend bags in a few price categories.
So we have like carry-on bags, for instance.

Speaker 10 We have the away bag, which is $275, the Travel Pro bag, it's $365.

Speaker 10 And on the higher end, we have Briggs and Riley, which comes in at about $6.99.

Speaker 10 I'm sure some listeners are hearing this and saying, wait a minute, couldn't I just go to Marshalls or TJ Maxx and get something cheaper? But Kit, why are our picks so pricey?

Speaker 10 And how much should people expect to spend to get a good bag?

Speaker 10 After a long time of doing this, I really pretty easily say, don't spend less than $200.

Speaker 10 You're just risking things going catastrophically awry when you first use the bag, you know, your first trip. Like the bag breaks.
The bag breaks. It didn't work in the first place.

Speaker 10 The handle gets stuck the first time you use it. Not really worth it.

Speaker 10 This is the part of the job that I always, I don't like the most is when you're sort of telling people, like, you need to spend this much money. There are absolutely reasons.

Speaker 10 There are moments when you might need just a spare bit of luggage for one flight and walking into Marshalls and grabbing a bag is going to be fine.

Speaker 10 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 of materials have gotten better and cheaper.

Speaker 10 So what you're paying for in higher end things will often be like, you know, smoother rolling wheels or a really nice zipper, you know, these sort of things. And they do matter.

Speaker 10 You do notice it, but how much are you going to notice it? I'm not sure.

Speaker 10 It's really ultimately the customer service and warranty of a more expensive bag is just you're going to get more use out of it over your lifetime.

Speaker 10 And if you spend over $200, you start to get access to those things.

Speaker 10 So on the other hand, a lot of the wirecutter picks do come with warranties. What does that actually get you? Right now, there's three big players, and they're also our picks, right?

Speaker 10 We have Away, Travel Pro, Briggs and Riley. Travel Pro, it's on the less expensive range, but they have excellent warranties that protects against airline damage, which is what we really look for.

Speaker 10 And they have a really good reputation. So you've got a company that will repair your bag if it comes off the airplane and, you know, all the wheels have snapped off and it's not your fault.

Speaker 10 The only problem is that sometimes getting that warranty claimed, you have to send the bag into Travel Pro. You have to get it repaired.

Speaker 10 So 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.

Speaker 10 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 and Riley.

Speaker 10 So if you spend, this is in the upper range, like $600, $800,

Speaker 10 you can bring your Briggs and Riley in anywhere where they have a repair center and there's tons of them all over the country and around the globe.

Speaker 10 get your bag fixed right in front of you for about 30 bucks for a rush and 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 sort of a testament to how much Briggs and Riley stands behind what they produce.

Speaker 10 And the bag itself is warrantied. It's not warrantied against the purchaser or anything else.
So the object itself is under warranty.

Speaker 10 If I picked up a broken Briggs and Riley off the curb and I brought it in, they'll fix it for free. That's nice.
Yeah, pretty good.

Speaker 10 And then there's Away, and Away has sort of the opposite model, which is just we're going to produce a million of these things and we'll warranty them.

Speaker 10 And so when yours breaks, you just walk into an Away store.

Speaker 10 And more often than not, like Patagonia and these other companies, they will just replace it for for you not very environmentally friendly but you do walk away with a new bag

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 The most unsexy unsexy thing, but

Speaker 11 helpful in a lot of ways. And definitely in the case of suitcases.

Speaker 11 I think the other thing that's a highlight here is the idea that actually soft-sided is slightly better bet than hard, even though hard-sided is like, you know,

Speaker 10 trendy and cool.

Speaker 11 And the real takeaway is don't overthink it.

Speaker 10 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're going to get his personal recommendations.

Speaker 10 I'm super excited about this. For the right bags that all of us should have for upcoming travel.
Yeah, I'm really interested to hear what he's going to say for you, Christine. About my duffel bag.

Speaker 10 Yeah, about your duffel bag. Somebody needs to talk to you.

Speaker 10 I'm going to get a talking too. All right, so we'll be right back.

Speaker 1 The Wirecutter Show is supported by Rocket Mortgage.

Speaker 3 Your home is an active investment, not a passive one.

Speaker 5 And with Rocket Mortgage, you can put your home equity to work right away. When you unlock your home equity, you unlock new doors for your family.

Speaker 7 Renovations, extensions, even buying your next property.

Speaker 8 Get started today with smarter tools and guidance from real mortgage experts.

Speaker 2 Find out how at rocketmortgage.com.

Speaker 4 Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states, NMLS ConsumerAccess.org, 3030.

Speaker 12 Huge savings on Dell AI PCs with Intel Core Ultra processors are here, and they are newly designed to help you do more faster.

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Speaker 13 Mont Blanc invites you to use life's quiet moments to pause, reflect, and put pen to paper.

Speaker 2 Chapter one. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Part one.

Speaker 2 Perfect.

Speaker 14 The mountains are impressive. Oh, I wish you were here to see them.
Dear Diary, meet my new writing companion, the Meister Stuck.

Speaker 13 For every journey, the perfect companion awaits. Mont Blanc.
Let's write. Visit Montblanc.com for exquisitely crafted writing instruments, leather goods, and more.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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. Kit, you are in Hawaii.
How are you testing these bags?

Speaker 10 Really, I travel with them a lot. I mean, so when you live in Hawaii, you've you've got a 3,000-mile flight no matter where you're going.

Speaker 10 So you're always long-hauling, which is a curse for someone like me. And a blessing.
And a blessing. It is a blessing.
It's also a curse.

Speaker 10 Kit, are you afraid of flying? Absolutely. No, 100%.
It gets worse every year. Wow.
This is a tough job. It's a really tough gig.

Speaker 10 Who's forcing you to do this?

Speaker 10 Yeah. No, I have to face myself every time.
And it just gets worse.

Speaker 10 Oh, it gets worse and worse. I just think of all the things I haven't done yet.
Okay, so your testing process for the bags. What are you doing?

Speaker 10 So there's three avenues that we try and really look at. A, it's sort of usability.
And that would be everything from like packing it, storing it, moving it through airports.

Speaker 10 The major part of that really is just packing. It's just sort of how does it feel to pack this bag? And you'd be amazed how many bits of luggage.

Speaker 10 And I mean, at this point, I've looked at maybe not quite a thousand, but certainly over 500 pieces of luggage, I I would say. Wow.
You'd be amazed how many bags just don't feel good to pack.

Speaker 10 One of my complaints about hard-sided luggage is that it has to generally open as a clamshell, which means that it sort of has two equal sides.

Speaker 10 It just means that you have sort of a shallow tray to put things in. And then

Speaker 10 they compensate for this by sort of building straps or...

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Certain brands have kind of made this a little bit better, a little bit easier. A lot of brands haven't.
Soft-sided luggage, by and large, has a sort of more lid design.

Speaker 10 So you have a large container to pack and then you close the lid on top of, which is, you know, really exceptional.

Speaker 10 And then we look at durability and how well it rolls through the airports or over surfaces, you know, carpets, linoleum, et cetera. And then...

Speaker 10 We look for longevity. So how well will this bag travel over the years? And we expect everything that we recommend to last, you know, at least five plus years.
Hopefully it's going into a decade.

Speaker 10 Some of our bags, I believe, like the Briggs and Riley, I think you can actually probably pass on generationally if you take care of them. Wow.

Speaker 10 Well, I do want to mention that for anybody who hasn't seen it, Kit, you have this amazing video on our Instagram where they blindfold you and then put a bag in your hand.

Speaker 10 And you scored, what was it, seven out of eight times? You were able to tell which bag it was just by touch alone. I know my disappointment in missing that last one, too, is actually palpable.

Speaker 10 It's so impressive. Like you've really gotten your hands on all of these bags and tested each one of them.
Yes, I've held a lot of luggage in my life.

Speaker 10 It's a weird thing to sort of find yourself suddenly with this rain man-like ability to

Speaker 10 identify.

Speaker 10 It happens to me when I'm getting on and off airplanes now at airports too, you know, like things will be coming off the conveyor belt and my brain is just sort of clocking which brands are coming off at night.

Speaker 10 I can't turn it off. It just sort of happens now.

Speaker 11 Kate, you obviously have held, handled, tested tons of bags. What is the most interesting bag you've seen?

Speaker 10 Right now, the ones that I find the most interesting are travel trunks.

Speaker 10 They're these.

Speaker 11 Like from yesteryear?

Speaker 10 Yeah, like from the Titanic? From the Titanic. Yeah, they're the.
Yeah, exactly. No, I've always loved steamer trunks anyway.

Speaker 10 And there are a bunch of brands remaking, at least in form.

Speaker 10 they're not as sort of beautiful as we might imagine these old trunks to be with the drawers and the you know etc etc but we also don't have like stevedors carrying these things around anymore so there is something slightly romantic about the shape of this luggage I don't know why I'm drawn to it

Speaker 10 Okay, kit, we're gonna 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.

Speaker 10 I am a last-minute traveler and 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.

Speaker 10 So what would you recommend I get?

Speaker 10 So for you, definitely

Speaker 10 it's a carry-on and I would say like a travel backpack, a backpack built specifically for traveling. What brands would you recommend? For us, that would be a Travel Pro Platinum Elite.

Speaker 10 21 inch and then the Codopaxi Alpa or Codopachy Alpa 35 liter travel pack i think they're great it's like having a piece of luggage on your on your back it's perfect you can pack it easily they're amazing i love them i travel with them all the time that is my favorite thing i actually currently have a low in suns 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 try the alpa okay it carries way more than i think even they advertise i got to take the alpa on a trip this this past winter i got to borrow it from your editor kit actually and it was great it was really yeah I would buy it.

Speaker 10 It was good.

Speaker 11 So my turn, in my merchant ivory fantasy, obviously I'm traveling with a trunk. Obviously, in my reality,

Speaker 11 I am usually traveling with my family. So two little kids means usually my wife and I are toting around our toddlers' stuff and try not to lose anything.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 Need to pack a lot of stuff, but don't have a ton of space when my luggage is not in use.

Speaker 10 Yeah. So for that, you're looking definitely at like luggage sets.

Speaker 10 If you buy checked luggage and your carry-on luggage separately from two different brands, you're not always guaranteed that they'll nest within each other.

Speaker 10 And part of the sort 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.

Speaker 10 So as they produce these things, they've got their very small carry-on. It fits into the next size and next size and next size.
There's a Russian dolls, it's way up.

Speaker 10 And then they can ship them all over together. And that is true also in your closet.

Speaker 10 So if you buy a checked luggage and a carry-on from the same brand at the same time, they will nest together and sit very nicely stored away.

Speaker 11 What are a couple of brands you might recommend?

Speaker 10 Yeah. So again, it's Travel Pro.
I mean, they keep coming to the top of our list. Travel Pro Platinum Elite and or Briggs and Riley Baseline, but it's expensive.
Briggs and Riley is expensive.

Speaker 10 It also, though, Briggs and Riley feels like a magic trick.

Speaker 10 I don't think we mentioned this, but they have this compression system that when in use is, 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.

Speaker 10 It just means you can carry that much more. It feels more secure.
An incredible piece of luggage.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 10 It's really nice. And then when you're traveling with it, when you expand it, you can also kind of live out of the bag more easily.

Speaker 10 It gives you more space to kind of throw things in and pull things out of.

Speaker 11 Music to my ears, living out of a bag, throw things in, throw them out.

Speaker 10 So, kid, 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Do you think I'm making a mistake by taking a duffel bag?

Speaker 10 You know, if you don't mind it, I don't personally love them myself. I just find duffles really difficult to, you just end up lugging them around, even on wheels.

Speaker 10 And they try and make them down to these sort of hybrids. So they're a little better.
They only come on two wheels, and all your stuff is just sort of jammed into this cavity.

Speaker 10 But, you know, they are really great for storage. And, you know, my personal, I mean, Eagle Creek is getting a lot better.
Their warranties are quite good now.

Speaker 10 Patagonia has historically had an incredible warranty that's sort of an industry standard. So I like the Patagonia black hole duffles a lot and they both have really good return repair policy.

Speaker 10 So all right. I might, 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.
So

Speaker 11 kit, before we go, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask the Travel Pro, what is your best advice for packing efficiently?

Speaker 10 The only true hack I've ever come across are packing cubes. For people who aren't familiar with these, what do they look like? So they come in various sizes.

Speaker 10 They're about, you know, the largest ones are about, I don't know, the size of a laptop that's about four inches deep, say.

Speaker 10 And they're a zippered lid and you put your stuff in it and then you close this cube. And now your, all your socks and t-shirts are in a, in a little packing cube.

Speaker 10 And then that cube goes into your larger cube, the luggage. And you, you sort of stack these things like Tetris inside there.
And it just makes packing so much easier. It makes unpacking easier.

Speaker 10 If there is a joy of traveling, it's when you've actually gotten to your destination and you get to unpack. And a packing cube lets you do that very easily.

Speaker 10 Like if, you know, 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.

Speaker 11 That's extraordinary. I've never done that.

Speaker 10 Yeah. A cool parenting hack too.

Speaker 10 I took my daughter for the first time for sleepaway camp this summer and we had packing cubes and she was the only one in her cabin that had organized clothing because she could just stack her packing cubes on her shelf and everybody else's clothes were just like, you know, an explosion.

Speaker 11 Do packing cubes enable you to actually pack more or is it really an organizational tool?

Speaker 10 They claim to help you pack a little bit more. We might be talking talking about like an extra pair of socks or like another two t-shirts here.
It's largely about organization.

Speaker 10 And, you know, my fundamental belief around my increasing anxieties around these things, around travel, is that it's organization that sort of alleviates some of that stress.

Speaker 10 And 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 sort of blissed out, knowing where everything is, and you're not going to lose your passport halfway there, and something's not going to break.

Speaker 10 And packing cubes are sort of one of those incredible pieces of gear that actually do somewhat alleviate the panic around all this, at least for me.

Speaker 11 And frankly, if it enables you to pack one more pair of underpants, that can be a game changer on a trip.

Speaker 10 Yeah, truly. Well, kit, I'm going to throw you one more bonus question.

Speaker 10 What would you recommend for the chronic overpacker? Therapy. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it's, gosh, that one's a hard one.
My wife does seem to have,

Speaker 10 she's very relaxed while traveling. She seems to panic beforehand.
So I'm fine when I'm packing because I feel like, this is great. I'm, you know, I'm doing it.

Speaker 10 And then when I get to the airport, I'm a mess. And she's the exact opposite, which I guess is balanced, right? It's pretty good.
And she tends to massively overpack

Speaker 10 in the beginning and then sort of falls into a moment of despair where she feels like she's not going to get everything into the bag that she needs.

Speaker 10 So 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%.

Speaker 10 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.
And I, I'm, I think everyone does it.

Speaker 10 I don't know. Overpacking is such a tricky thing to break.
Yeah, I feel like I need like five times more underwear than I would ever wear. For some reason, never know.
I do the same thing.

Speaker 10 I, you know, I'll be there. It's like, oh, what, we're going away for four days.
So I'm like, okay, well, I need, I need eight t-shirts. I need three jeans.

Speaker 10 You know, and you're like, what am I talking about? You know, like, it's like, well, if I work out on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which obviously I'm going to do, right?

Speaker 10 You know, I need workout shirts, plus I need workout underwear. Plus,

Speaker 10 yeah, you start to sort of create this fantasy of yourself.

Speaker 10 It's like why when you travel with four novels in your backpack for some reason, and you're like, well, this is 30 pounds I needed to carry around with myself.

Speaker 11 It's true. When I'm on vacation,

Speaker 11 my ideal self is so incredibly well-read. I'm exercised.
I have clean underpants. Like I'm just the ideal, the David version of Rosie.

Speaker 10 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?

Speaker 10 Okay, so,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 I am not claiming to ride very big waves at all, but

Speaker 10 for some surfers, I'm riding relatively larger waves. But I treated myself to a hand-shaped board from a famous surfboard shaper out here on the North Shore named Pat Rawson.
And it is...

Speaker 10 Can I curse on this thing? We're going to bleep it out. Okay, well, it's

Speaker 10 sick. It's such,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 But for me, I feel fantastic. So that's been a real love of mine.
That is awesome. I'm jealous.

Speaker 11 Our listeners can't see this, but your face is

Speaker 11 just joy, pure joy.

Speaker 10 Pure delight. I love it.
It's pretty fun.

Speaker 10 Christine, do you feel ready for your trip? I absolutely do not feel ready for my trip, but I think that I am clear on what I'm going to use for my luggage. What are you doing?

Speaker 10 I'm like not actually excited to hear this.

Speaker 10 She's going to duct tape the holes on her duffel.

Speaker 10 If I were

Speaker 10 to really commit and buy luggage right now, I would absolutely want to get soft-sided Briggs and Riley. suitcases.
I think I know the thing that I should buy.

Speaker 10 I am not going to ante up right now for that because I just bought tickets to Japan to be expected taking four other people to Japan. So I

Speaker 10 will be sticking with my duffel, but I feel like, you know, I'm not going to carry it. I'm going to make my husband carry it.

Speaker 10 But at some point, I want to get a Briggs and Riley because it sounds like a pretty awesome bag.

Speaker 11 It is aspirational. My aspirational desire is a trunk

Speaker 11 for all of my transcontinental travel.

Speaker 10 And a person to carry said trunk.

Speaker 11 I know I do have to get some of that.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Well, I'll circle back.

Speaker 11 My real takeaway is that, you know, if I'm in the market for another suitcase, hard-sided or soft-sided, probably it's going to be over $200. I mean, that's kind of where the baseline is.

Speaker 11 And that's kind of good to know, especially if you are going to go into a Target or a Marshalls or a TJ Maxx. It's like the quality is commensurate with the price.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I think that's fair.

Speaker 10 I think when I'm finally ready to be an adult and buy my own bag and return my mom's, I'm definitely definitely going to look for a bag that is over $200, but has a warranty.

Speaker 10 Again, the Briggs and Riley, so aspirational, would love that. I'm not paying $800 for luggage right now.

Speaker 10 Maybe I'll go dumpster diving for one, but for right now, I think I'm going to just look for a bag with a good warranty in case it breaks. The warranty is king.

Speaker 11 Well, if you want to find out more about Kits travel gear reporting or wire cutters coverage in general, or if you want to check out any of the products like the Briggs and Riley bag, go to nytimes.com slash wirecutter or you can find a link as ever in the show notes.

Speaker 11 My friends, see you next week.

Speaker 10 Here's what's coming up next week on the wirecutter show. You can go online and different sex toy retailers will have like sample packs with a bunch of different lubes in them.
I like that.

Speaker 10 It's like when you go to a bar and they're like, do you want to buy a flight? And it's just a

Speaker 10 lube flight.

Speaker 10 Make sure you're following the show on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss it. The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel.
Editing by Abigail Keel.

Speaker 10 Engineering support from Maddie Mazziello and Nick Pittman. Today's episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson.
Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Ba Itoup, and Diane Wong.

Speaker 10 Wirecutter's deputy publisher and interim general manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief.
I'm Christine Sear Clissette. I'm Kyra Blackwell.

Speaker 11 And I'm Rosie Guerin.

Speaker 9 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 10 Do people use that term anymore? Is it a suitcase?

Speaker 11 What do you, some kind of mid-level businessman?

Speaker 10 Wearing pleated khaki pants right now. Well, no one can see me, so yes.

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