What's your travel suitcase?

I have a love hate relationship with my Air Boss. It is great to pack/fold for the trip out but on the trip home I just want to stuff the dirty clothes in the bag and head home and I find I can't really do that. Sometimes I want to sell it but then I remember how much I saved to get it.

I really love the LLBean guarantee (mentioned earlier) as well.

The Doug Dyment at onebag.com sold me on going w/o wheels. He has a great argument against wheels and rounded luggage. Tons of great stuff on packing light especially if you do short trips or like to do laundry in the sink.

knox said:

I have a love hate relationship with my Air Boss. It is great to pack/fold for the trip out but on the trip home I just want to stuff the dirty clothes in the bag and head home and I find I can't really do that. Sometimes I want to sell it but then I remember how much I saved to get it.

I really love the LLBean guarantee (mentioned earlier) as well.

The Doug Dyment at onebag.com sold me on going w/o wheels. He has a great argument against wheels and rounded luggage. Tons of great stuff on packing light especially if you do short trips or like to do laundry in the sink.

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I've run into the same thing with my other carry on bags, but started using the dry cleaning bags in the hotel room as a poor man's packing cube for dirty clothes. It tends to allow the clothes to spread out a bit while cramming them into the bag and makes them easier to stuff. It seemed to solve the problem (for me, anway).

I haven't yet tried it with the Air Boss I recently purchased, but don't see why it won't work in this bag as well.

And I figured that's why the air boss has two main sides anyway.

knox said:

I have a love hate relationship with my Air Boss. It is great to pack/fold for the trip out but on the trip home I just want to stuff the dirty clothes in the bag and head home and I find I can't really do that.

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I find I usually pack the two side compartments more neatly (even with 'dirty' laundry) so that they form two even "padding layers" and then stuff the middle compartment. I put hard and/or breakable stuff in the middle compartment, so it has some padding protection.

knox said:

I have a love hate relationship with my Air Boss. It is great to pack/fold for the trip out but on the trip home I just want to stuff the dirty clothes in the bag and head home and I find I can't really do that. Sometimes I want to sell it but then I remember how much I saved to get it.

I really love the LLBean guarantee (mentioned earlier) as well.

The Doug Dyment at onebag.com sold me on going w/o wheels. He has a great argument against wheels and rounded luggage. Tons of great stuff on packing light especially if you do short trips or like to do laundry in the sink.

Click to expand...

Not sure if this is the same point; I was considering an Air Boss but I first bought some packing cubes and I realized that I like using that packing system better. Where rather than use a case with built in dividers, an open rectangular space is best for packing and organizing when using packing cubes.

On a similar note, I recently ditched my worn out 10 year backpack that had dividers meant to carry a laptop + looseleaf notebook + books. To replace it I got a very basic and cheap backpack that had one large open space compartment and very minimal laptop/tablet sleeve slot. It had room for 3-4 slim packing cubes stacked in parallel, and a small cube on riding on top (a small laptop would still fit behind all this into the sleeve). Besides being a cheap pack, it was better suited to this packing cube style of travel.

I travel with IT suitcases good build light weight and 10 yr warranty
http://www.itluggage.com/products/view/World's Lightest - 2 Wheel-60

I have a travel pro that I use for light travel. It only has two wheels though. Seems like the four roller wheels would be nice to have

I got a Longchamp Boxford travel bag with wheels at an estate sale for $12 last year. It was a deal for that, I'm not sure what sort of deal it is at full price.

http://us.longchamp.com/luggage/boxford/travel-bag-wheels-1443080?sku=26738

Here is my travel bag:


I use this one for those fancy occasions;

After the last decrease is international carry on size, I retired my Tumi and bought a Briggs and Riley BRW roller and a Red Oxx backpack. These with my everyday Tumi briefcase seem to work for most travel situations. The Briggs and the Red Oxx seem to be holding up very well - worth the cost since luggage failure is not a good thing to have to deal with.

I just bought a Samsonite Cruisair Bold but in the 26" size (for checking wine purchased during travel). Here's the 21" version.

I went with this particular model because I'm tired of dealing with broken zippers and zipper pulls. It looks pretty bomb proof.

-Andy

A crappy hard-shell Samsonite which I have been using for... twenty years? One of my friends spent $1200 for a new Rimowa suitcase for a vacation to Rome. When he arrived in Rome, the suitcase had disappeared, along with everything in it. The contents were worth many times the cost of the suitcase (two pairs of John Lobb shoes, a couple Kiton suits, Brioni ties, Borrelli shirts, etc.) No one would steal my suitcase (knock on wood), I don't plan to buy another soon.

After over 3 million miles of traveling (that's just American) - mostly without checking luggage - I swear by TUMI. They replace anything that wears out!

Funny story - I had a favorite overnight small leather Tumi bag that was 25 years old - just big enough for toiletries and a change of underwear and a shirt or two - ideal for an overnight business trip - my briefcase AND this bag would easily go under the seat on plane. MY WIFE THREW IT OUT WITHOUT TELLING ME BECAUSE IT WAS TOO WORN LOOKING! Oh my favorite small leather bag that is no longer a style being made!! I told her it was just getting broken in after 25 years! I bought two new Tumi bags, but I don't like the designs as much for that same purpose.

But mainly I use the Tumi roll on for overhead rack as my primary travel bag. I've owned a number of other brands, but nothing lasts (or the wheels make ridiculous noise, or the design is inefficient, etc.). So I always come back to Tumi.

Doraemon said:

A crappy hard-shell Samsonite which I have been using for... twenty years?

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A colleague of mine also uses a twenty something years old Samsonite (possibly even older). It might easily outlive him.

I travel probably 4 out of 5 weeks. Sometime just an over nighter, sometimes 3-4 nights. I have had (and still have) some of the following : Travel Pro (older stuff seemed better but the new stuff is OK, Tumi (Great stuff but expensive), Brigs & Riely (Probably one of the better values for the $/quality). What I use now is a cheap Costco Spinner/Roller. I would not expect the Costco to hold up well if I checked the bag, but because I carry on it's fine. It is half hard half soft, has suiter capability and has a front zipper which makes the liquids bag storage convenient (Even though I have TSA, some airports don't). It fits easily on all planes that do not require vallet check. AND, it's light. If you think you will be checking the bag, then higher quality item is better, and maybe a traditional roller vs. a spinner.

The Red Oxx Air Boss is packed for DFW-BOS early tomorrow morning. 'Nuff said...

Most of my travels are ocean voyages these days, you know, real journeys. I figure, when you're out there alone in the world all you've got to depend on is yourself and your luggage. I picked up four of these steamer trunks to carry my life around in and they've literally saved me a number of times. They even float which is always a bonus. Best purchase I ever made I say. The salesman even wished me to live to be 1000 years old when I bought them way back in... oh must have been 25 years ago. Guess it was good luck.

I fly quite a bit and use a JC Penney special. Your suitcase is either going to get beat up or stolen, so why drop a fortune on it?

yamaha0343 said:

I fly quite a bit and use a JC Penney special. Your suitcase is either going to get beat up or stolen, so why drop a fortune on it?

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I fly quite a bit, and regretted buying a budget suitcase a while ago (I wanted to have a smaller size, and bought a budget brand that looked good enough in the shop). I think it didn't even last ten flights before the shell had cracked.

yamaha0343 said:

I fly quite a bit and use a JC Penney special. Your suitcase is either going to get beat up or stolen, so why drop a fortune on it?

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Simple. Buy quality, buy once. The things that break or wear out on travel bags are much higher quality on the higher end bags, and their warranty will cover items that do fail. Working with a system that allows you to avoid checking bags prevents theft. I had a nice Samsonite roller that was an older bag when Samsonite seemed to care a bit more about quality and the wheels finally crapped out. I took that opportunity to change my methods, and went with Red Oxx Air Boss carry on bag. No wheels, lifetime warranty, and absolutely bulletproof. I travel weekly, and it's perfect for me.