A well-packed bag is one that contains less than you think you need but everything you actually need. Former Wirecutter editor-in-chief Jacqui Cheng describes her approach to packing as “Sane and efficient—carrying just the right amount of stuff, at the right quality level, to keep yourself from going crazy while traveling.” If possible, fitting everything into one carry-on and personal item will give you more freedom compared to checking a bag or two. You’ll be glad you did if (and when) things don’t go according to plan. Consider this example from OneBag’s Doug Dyment: “I’ve been in situations where I’ve landed in Chicago on my way to New York and everything was snowed in, no flights were flying anywhere, but I was able to rent a car or take a train whereas everyone whose bags were being held hostage by the airlines were simply stuck.” While carry-on-only isn’t feasible (or advisable) for every trip—especially extended business trips or weddings where you need multiple outfits to maintain appearances—if in doubt, it’s better to cut. As Wirecutter strategy editor Ganda Suthivarakom says, “I always severely under-pack and I have never regretted it. Whenever I arrive, I think, ‘oh I have totally under-packed,’ but it always winds up being fine.”

Carry-on duffle/backpack hybrid (non-roller)

After researching 30 bags, testing seven, and flying across the country with two of them, we think the Tortuga Outbreaker is the best carry-on travel bag for travelers determined to never check luggage again. It’s easy to pack and cleverly organized, and it’s one of the most comfortable bags we’ve ever traveled with thanks to its highly adjustable, padded shoulder straps and waist harness. It has the easy packability of a suitcase with the comfort and support of a backpacking backpack, yet it avoids most of the shortcomings inherent to both luggage types.

On the outside, the Outbreaker’s tear-resistant sailcloth exterior and sealed zippers provide ample protection from sharp objects and the elements. Inside, the cavernous main compartment with a clamshell opening is a cinch to pack. And there are plenty of organizational features right where you want them—the front panel is a particular standout, great for keeping track of electronics and chargers. Just as important, the adjustable shoulder straps, torso length, and waist belt system—borrowed from hiking backpacks—made the Outbreaker the most comfortable bag we tested, despite its hefty 5.1-pound empty weight. It’s available in a 45-liter American-maximum carry-on configuration and a smaller, 35-liter version that’s intra-European carry-on compliant and also great for weekends or minimalist travelers. We would prefer if the straps stowed for better protection, but overall, the Outbreaker’s excellent build quality and ergonomics justify its premium price.

If the weight or cost of the Outbreaker is an issue, or if it’s unavailable, check out the other picks in our full review of the best carry-on travel bags.

Packable duffle bag



Over the years, we’ve hauled a bunch of awkward gear, clothes, and random bric-a-brac around in nine top-rated packable duffle bags to see which can handle those last-minute gifts that you shouldn’t have waited to buy at the airport. Unlike many packable or ultralight bags, which tend to behave like unruly sacks unless they’re filled to the hilt, the Osprey Ultralight Stuff Duffle manages to keep its shape whether it’s empty, partially packed, or stuffed like a sausage. And it’s just as durable as the updated version of our previous pick, the L.L.Bean Stowaway Duffle Bag.

The Osprey isn’t the smallest or lightest bag we tested; the Matador Transit30, for instance, packs down to the size of a deck of cards. But the Osprey is still small enough to fit in your hand when packed down, while also carrying better than any other bag we tested.

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The L.L.Bean duffle’s many straps and adjustments made switching between carrying light and heavy loads fiddly to do. But thanks to the Osprey’s more structured design, the bag better supported its load regardless of how much it was carrying. The bottom of the Osprey bag is thicker and more resistant to tears than the sides. This design means you can set it down in most places without having to be too careful and it also gives the bag more shape than other packable bags when empty or only partially full. In contrast, we found that the Matador tends to sag unevenly while half-packed.

Carry-on bag (rolling)

Over the past five years we’ve researched several dozen suitcases and went hands on with the 47 most promising candidates in a variety of tests—including having active Virgin America flight attendants test bags for us in a fake plane fuselage in their training facility. We determined that for most people the Travelpro Platinum Elite 21″ Expandable Spinner offers the best balance of features, durability, and price for most flyers who log less than 25,000 miles annually.

It’s relatively light—at 7.8 pounds empty, the Elite is about a half pound lighter than the previous model, the Magna 2—the wheels are built to last, and it’s big enough to easily fit five days’ worth of clothes. Though the Elite is similar to the Magna 2, it has a smaller stowed handle, an added second zippered exterior pocket, and a USB pass-through extension that lets you insert your own battery pack for charging your phone. Compared with other bags in this price range, you also get surprisingly high-end components and a warranty that covers anything (even airline damage) for the life of the bag.

If you fly more than 25,000 miles annually and you’re willing to invest in a higher-quality product, we recommend the Briggs & Riley Baseline 22-Inch Domestic. It can fit more clothing than any bag we tested, thanks to a cavernous interior and clever expansion and compression system that can adjust to variable levels beyond open and shut. The Wirecutter’s founder, Brian Lam, has put more than 75,000 miles on his so far, and it’s held up great. His only complaint is that longer pants will need an extra fold, or to be rolled. In taller bags, pants will only need to be folded over once.

Checked luggage

If you need to pack more stuff than a carry-on and a personal item can hold, our first piece of advice would be to reconsider whether you need that extra outfit “just in case.” But you’ll have times when you need to travel with several pairs of shoes, formalwear, a winter coat, special equipment (like diving or camping gear), or all of the above. In these cases, there’s no way to avoid checking a bag.

If you’re going someplace where you’ll need to walk a lot (or if there’s dirt or cobblestone roads), we recommend a travel backpack. Specifically, the REI Co-op Ruckpack 65 - Men’s for men (and tall women) and the REI Co-op Ruckpack 65 - Women’s for those with shorter torsos. The Ruckpack’s thickly padded, stowable straps are fully height-adjustable. The bag is made from rugged, ripstop nylon and is guaranteed for up to a year. And it holds about 63 liters (despite the number in the name), which gives you noticeably more space than our other picks while still keeping the overall dimensions manageable. You can read all about why we like the Ruckpack in our review of the best travel backpacks.

If you don’t plan on walking around while carrying all your stuff, the 25-inch Travelpro Platinum Elite Expandable Spinner Suiter is our favorite piece of checked luggage for all of the same reasons we loved the carry-on size: It has excellent organizational features, it’s especially durable, and it has a better warranty than anything in its price range. —MZ

Luggage tags

A good luggage tag should be durable, simple to use, and discreet. Ultimately, a tag should allow someone to get your luggage back to you quickly and easily, and it should withstand the wear and tear of being thrown onto conveyor belts time and again. After researching the top-rated and best-selling models, reading existing luggage-tag reviews, and comparing four tags, we recommend the Ovener Silicone Luggage Tag for most travelers because it’s the only one we’d trust to survive being smashed by other bags, jammed into walls, and generally abused by baggage handlers. It’s the most durable tag we tested, and it comes in a wide selection of colors to help any bag stand out from the rest.

The Ovener tag’s silicone body seems nearly indestructible and is available in four bright colors (you get two tags per pack). Whereas other tags also feature metal cables, this tag has a metal grommet to keep the cable from eventually wearing through the silicone case. Meanwhile, the Travelambo Genuine Leather Luggage Bag Tag broke when we pulled it, and the cheap hard plastic of the Travelon Luggage Tag easily snapped in two.

Should you lose your bag, the Ovener makes it easy for a Good Samaritan to find your contact information. To fully access the info card, you have to unscrew and remove the metal strap; this lets the card slide out of the case. Most luggage tags we tested secure their info card in this way. It isn’t a difficult or time-consuming process, but it is an extra step compared with using a tag that displays all of your information openly. Still, for anyone who wants to keep their contact information out of view, the extra step is worth it.

Another approach to increasing privacy is to hide information in a QR code, as the Dynotag Smart Deluxe Steel Luggage Tag does, or to provide a user ID number, as the Okoban UID Luggage Tags do. But these seem like overly complex solutions to a problem that doesn’t really exist. The Dynotag requires a scanner app that many phone owners don’t want to bother with, and the Okoban requires going online and entering a code, which might deter otherwise-willing Good Samaritans.

Compression sacks

Originally designed for reducing the bulk of lofty sleeping bags, compression sacks are stuff sacks modified with additional nylon end caps that can be pulled together by strings or straps to remove air and create a smaller, denser package that’s easier to pack. Most travelers use compression sacks to condense socks, underwear, and other stuff you don’t mind getting wrinkled into a package with half as much overall volume. For example, an 8- to 12-liter sack can compress a fleece jacket and a long-weekend’s worth of socks and underwear into something that fits in one hand. They also make a decent pillow in a pinch.

After testing nine top contenders, we think the Outdoor Research Ultralight Compression Sack is the best compression sack for most travelers. The Outdoor Research Ultralight stood out for its lightweight yet sturdy construction (2½ ounces for the small 8-liter size) and thoughtful finishing touches that set it apart from its otherwise nearly identical competition. It’s the only sack we tested that can be cinched with one hand because the cord lock is held in place by a fabric flap. And it’s easy to unpack too because two of the four compression straps are fastex buckles, which means you can just undo them to fully decompress the sack. For comparison, Sea to Summit’s Ultra-Sil Compression Sack has neither buckles, nor a cord-lock holder, but is otherwise very similar and would make a great alternative if the Outdoor Research is unavailable.

Most compression sacks require you to empty out the stuff at the top to get to the stuff below it, but the side-zipper design on the Osprey StraightJacket allows access to the entire contents of the bag at once. The compression straps attach sideways, and are less likely to get tangled and twisted like on most compression sacks with lengthwise straps. It can also sit up on its own, and the handle design lets you break it out as a last minute carry-on to avoid an overweight-baggage fee. However, it doesn’t compress down as compactly as the traditional designs we tested so it’s not the best option if compression is your top priority.

GobiGear’s SegSac takes a different approach to solving the same access issue: It has four inner dividers that run the length of the sack in order to keep your socks separate from your underwear, winter accessories, towel, what have you. This means you don’t have to take out your T-shirts to get to your socks. Unlike the Osprey, it compresses just as much as a normal compression sack, but it loses points for versatility because the segmentation prevents it from handling large items like a down jacket or sleeping bag. —Jack Chance



Luggage scale

A digital luggage scale allows you to better plan your packing and keeps you from having to shuffle belongings between bags at the check-in desk to avoid a hefty overweight baggage fee. After four hours of research and testing five top contenders head to head, we found that the Balanzza Rechargeable Luggage Scale is the best luggage scale. While most scales we tested gave accurate readings, the Balanzza’s ergonomics, compact size, and simplicity of operation set it apart from the competition. And it charges its battery via Micro-USB cable, something many travelers already have on hand, rather than making you track down AAA or CR2032 batteries on the road like the others we tested.

Using the Balanzza is easy: Press the power button, strap the fastex buckle onto your bag’s handle, lift the bag from the scale’s handle, and wait a few seconds for the beep, at which point you can set it back down. Like all the scales we tested, the backlit LED holds your reading for 15 seconds or until you press any button (it will power down automatically after a minute). It’s easy to read under any lighting conditions, unlike the Tarriss Jetsetter’s unlit display. When you’re done, a short press of the power button resets the tare. It defaults to reading in kilograms, but switches units to pounds with a press of a dedicated button. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t save this setting once you turn it off, unlike the Dunheger Digital Luggage Scale.) The Balanzza scale provided consistent and accurate readings to within 50 grams across an array of luggage—including roller bags, backpacks, ski bags, weighing up to 100 pounds or 45 kilograms. It comes in bright colors instead of the typical mock-steel or gray, which makes it easy to find in your bag. —JC

Packing cubes

Packing cubes could change your life. (Okay, maybe just your traveling life.) Packing cubes are basically bags to hold your clothes that you organize within your luggage. Though seemingly superfluous, they’re brilliant in action. If you imagine your suitcase as a dresser, you can think of these cubes as individual drawers. All your underwear and socks in one container, all your shirts in another, and another for workout clothes. Pull out only the cube you want. They make packing and re-packing wonderfully simple.

The three-piece Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set keeps a week’s worth of clothes organized and moves easily from suitcase to hotel dresser. The full-size cube is great for shirts, shorts, and insulating layers. The half-cube and quarter-cube are perfect for underwear, socks, and other thin fabrics, such as stockings or sleepwear. These cubes are made of 300-denier polyester (a strong fabric) and stay upright when empty, so they’re easy to pack. The Pack-It cubes’ windows are made of the tightest mesh link we tested—better for resisting snags—and the smooth zippers close easily around all corners, even when a cube is overstuffed. We also like that these cubes open all the way, so you can easily access everything inside if you place them in a drawer. The Pack-It cubes are available in black, blue, red, and occasionally a few limited-edition prints.

One change that Eagle Creek has made since we started evaluating packing cubes affects the zippers. The company no longer uses YKK zippers, which are widely accepted as the best around. That said, we couldn’t tell any difference between the Eagle Creek zippers and other brands’ YKK zippers, even with a magnifying glass, and their performance was indistinguishable. (For what it’s worth, an Eagle Creek product manager assured us that the proportion of zipper-related warranty claims hasn’t changed since the company made the switch from YKK.)

The Eagle Creek cubes have the ability to unzip fully to allow full access to their contents while sitting in a dresser drawer. That means your clean clothes stay protected against some potentially dicey motel dressers. But if you value lightness above all, the more expensive Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech Cube Set is about 50 percent lighter than similar-size competitors (1.8 ounces for a medium cube, whereas the Eagle Creek classic style weighs about 4 ounces). Although the thin sides—which don’t allow the cubes to stand up on their own—make them a bit more challenging to pack, the set is tear resistant and water resistant, and it holds up well over time.

If you’re often finding yourself running out of space while packing for the trip home, you might consider compressible packing cubes. The REI Co-op Expandable Packing Cube Set (which includes three cubes: large, full-size, and half-size) holds more than our other picks, but it takes up the least amount of space in your suitcase when fully compressed. Like the Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech cubes, these cubes are made of lightweight, tear-resistant ripstop nylon. They’re a touch lighter than the Pack-It Original cubes but not as lightweight as the Specter Tech set.