Packing has become one of our universal triggers for anxiety. All to often we have all had to pack a bag for a trip and really struggled with getting things to fit correctly or being organized in a way which can be easily accessed without having to repack each time you need a simple shirt.
Whether flying or road tripping this is a common struggle which applies to all travel styles. But where should we even start in the packing struggle???
While I have found that several techniques do free up space such as the roll or the group pack, it still seldom solves the issues which come from having to then unpack items. Unless you pack with these methods also thinking chronologically as to how you will wear the items many times you still might find yourself with a suitcase that looks tossed.
When it comes to road trips where every inch of your car matters, it becomes even more menacing trying to pack as you add individuals to the mix. Duffles can become cumbersome, totes can be to floppy and things can fall out throughout the travel and suitcases sometimes just aren’t an option when it comes to multiple people in a single car.
I think back to a couple of summers ago when I traveled with a group to a new city every 2 weeks for a work. In doing this, we were all packed for an entire summer of work, that is a lot of clothes for 8 people. All of us had large suitcases and many times that meant a lot of work trying to wedge our luggage into midsized rentals. Then came the airport itself where managing a large suitcase and a carry on seemed to be the ever changing struggle of pack and repack to fit size and weight requirements.
But recently I was able to find something which could have made much of that a more simplistic process. Something that could have kept all of the shuffle and bustle of my bags to a minimum. This same item could then in turn be used for road trips while I travel solo to lessen my luggage footprint in my vehicle and free up much needed space.
What was it? PACKING CUBES!
Sure we have all seen those vacuum bags which can be used at home, while they advertise them for travel as well, how much sense does it make to need a vacuum to repack when traveling? It doesn’t! In fact, when I first saw packing cubes I thought they might have been the same and that was a complete turn off for my mind in way of use.
But then I actually saw one for myself, the Bagail Packing Cube. It was much different than the picture I had in my head based on the vacuum bag forerunners. Instead a small bag, which didn’t look like it could hold anything hardly, expanded to a perfectly sized storage container with flexible walls and an expanding zipper which allowed me to pack away so much of my things into a small contained packaging, neat and tidy for travel alone or being put into my suitcase to keep things organized.
I received 3 of the cubes and found that the items which normally would consume an entire tote could be stored away in these three cubes neatly and tightly. Just curious to see how much space the items actually took up in the tote when in the containers, I placed the 3 uses into the same duffle, and I was amazed at how much space actually remained. It was almost mind-blowing to see the difference.
I could see now how I could use cubes to itemize clothing in my suitcase before a flight to make for easier transitions from day to night or day to day. I also liked that I could pack my personal items, toiletries and makeup in smaller ones and use them for my bathroom bag when staying at a campground where I needed to walk to the restrooms. Additionally, if I didn’t want to store them in a tote or suitcase I could easily hide away the cubes in my vehicle when traveling to make the most of my space, even fitting under the seat in many cases to leave all the room in the world for me to use my trunk to store my other gear.
Other benefits I noticed with the cubes was it limited some of the wrinkling when I flat folded items, though I did still find that using the roll technique did allow me to store even more items in each pack. Something else I really liked about the cubes is I can store them and items I don’t need immediately under the bed when at home, they make a great storage device for home with was transition for my next travel, for this reason I have been storing some of my small travel gear them for easy access when it is time to hit the road.
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