Packing Cubes for Suitcases and Backpacks: A Travel Gear Review
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Photo by Matheus Bertell of Pexels
There can certainly seem no better way to compartmentalise and separate your holiday luggage into smaller, more manageable compressions than with packing cubes. Packing cubes are
well recommended by travel journalists and present advantages to the traveller that is often overlooked when compared to their low cost and durability. An invention of some sort, why is packing luggage into smaller luggage so popular, and what can be achieved by purchasing packing cubes?
What are Packing Cubes?
Packing cubes are zipped travel bags in a particular shape and often in a set. The set of packing cubes is usually of varying sizes of the same shape. Each packing cube has varying compartmentalisation, from including zero to being entirely composed of compartments. To use a packing cube, pack luggage into them, and unlike suitcases or backpacks, you place them inside a larger luggage bag. In that sense, packing cubes are designed for internal use rather than transporting your luggage. They become more external if your bags get searched in airports or opened for various reasons. Then they become very presentable, whereas normally they are not really a presentable item. In theory, if luggage was only opened very rarely, packing cubes would only need to be designed for compressing and organising purposes; however, based on the need for travellers to open luggage, packing cubes are designed quite nicely, although not necessarily aesthetic, but usually in bright colours and regular shapes. It would be very rare to see packing cubes in weird shapes; even if they compress luggage better, they still have to look orderly in case they get removed from the luggage.
Photo by Timur Weber of Pexels
Advantages against the Alternatives
There are clearly alternatives to packing cubes, such as disposable bags, but compared to packing cubes, they don't look great. If your luggage gets exposed, then packing cubes are good at concealing personal items. But they have a hidden function aside from keeping your luggage looking good. Packing cubes protect luggage, mainly because of their design. By being designed in various sizes, it is possible to protect items of various sizes, especially by placing breakables in the middle of clothes, perhaps in an even smaller casing so they don't get in contact with your clothes but can be padded better.
Internal cases, including packing cubes, organise luggage, and that is why they often get sold in sets of three different sizes. Inevitably, they prioritise your packing and memorise where things are easy without ruining the portability and use of space in your suitcases and backpacks.
The ultimate purpose for packing into zipped cubes is that by compressing luggage, they conserve space, and the way that gets conserved means that what you pay in initial outlay has better value. The zips allow the luggage to be compressed in shapes securely and tightly, which overall conserves space compared to unzipped, looser plastic shopping bags.
After stating all of the above, I thought it might be worth asking (especially for Australian shoppers) if is it better to buy packing cubes at
Strandbags or
Kmart ? In Australia, these two stores as potential places to buy packing cubes are representational of an older question to basically buy generic or branded. Relevant to the information in this article, less generic brands of packing cubes suit bigger budgets and are more durable. If you buy less generically, you'll get less wear and tear, and less breakage, but you'll get better compartments and safer zips. However, better travel packing cubes suit very frequent travel, so I believe that Kmart is offering a really good deal overall. I couldn't help but think the Kmart packing cubes look nice and certainly suit those wanting to cut costs. In fact, they slightly discourage travel, and is that really such a bad thing? In today's living costs problem, people can benefit from travelling closer to home and more economically. I feel that such a fact at least requires consideration. Another generic option worth exploring for Australian shoppers is
Big W .
Experientially
I bought a set of three packing cubes a few years ago and benefitted from their use. It turned out that the recommendations for them were mainly correct. I became critical of them. I'm very keen to let them wear out and not replace them. The main reason was environmental; they were a little bit wrong. Using plastic bags to organise luggage is a wonderful way to recycle, and so they should theoretically be used instead of packing cubes.
There is an interesting scenario of getting too dependent on packing cubes, in that your luggage looks good every time you travel, and that doesn't reflect the reality of travel. In theory, going back to the other ways to organise luggage might feel a bit depressing. I have a theory that using plastic bags encourages recycling and thrift and sets a moral example, but teaches me to endure life's little moments. I mean that they are indirectly encouraging patience; the plastic bag option could be worth exploring over packing cubes because being patient is linked to health benefits! Packing cubes for what they are worth could be encouraging snobbery, even bullying, and feelings of vanity, and cost valuable resources yet likely encourage people in a terrible way!
So, I found the benefit of my one-off purchase of a set of packing cubes was to get me to think more constructively about using plastic bags for organising luggage and to just enjoy the experience. Packing cubes have several purposes, and my concern is that using them a bit unnecessarily is mentally unhealthy, but using them for proper reasons protects luggage and conserves your valuable luggage space. I think while it seems I am running them down a bit, packing cubes aren't, at least to me, a clear-cut winner in luggage compression and are primarily a personal freedom with various advantages that aren't universally applicable. They don't excessively damage the environment either, but they definitely aren't a great recycler's choice compared to reusing sturdy or strong shopping bags.
Conclusively
Packing cubes offer small amounts of comfort and compression but cost synthetic fibres and metals for zips. Hence I found them to be luxurious but had an aspect to them that I personally didn't agree with. In the future, I am likely to revert to plastic bags and try to be a bit more thoughtful and mindful of their use. However, packing cubes are trendy, present luggage well, save some space, and make travel fun, and clearly, it is a free and liberal choice to purchase and enjoy. I hope to have made their pros and cons clear and allow for some imagination into the use of packing cubes without overly being persuasive as to whether to buy or not, as clearly both packing cubes and the plastic shopping bag alternatives have their fair use.
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#holiday 299532 - 2024-12-16 16:16:26