I spent 28 years teaching middle school geography, and for most of that time I packed for trips the way my students did their backpacks: everything loose, everything wrinkled, and one desperate sit on the suitcase to get the zipper closed. Since retiring, I fly five or six times a year out of Denver, and my husband Mark and I have gotten the carry-on routine down to a science. The single biggest change was a set of BAGAIL packing cubes, the 8-piece set I bought before a ten-day trip to Portugal. This is the list of reasons I keep reaching for them, in the order they matter to me.
The 8-piece set that turned my carry-on into a filing cabinet
BAGAIL's packing cube set comes in eight sizes, so there is a cube for shirts, a cube for socks, and a flat one for the things you do not want wrinkled. It is the set I have used for a year and counting.
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Before cubes, finding a single pair of socks meant unfolding every shirt I owned. Now each cube has a job. The small cube on the left is socks and underwear, the medium one is shirts, the big one is pants. I can pull out the sock cube, grab a pair, and put it back without touching anything else. On a 6 a.m. flight out of Denver, that is worth more than the cubes cost. The first time I used the system, I found a missing pair of reading glasses in under a minute, which had never happened in thirty years of loose packing.
Your suitcase stops being a black hole
A carry-on without cubes is a deep, dark pit where things migrate. My phone charger would end up under the hotel bathrobe. With BAGAIL cubes, the suitcase has actual structure. I know the charger is in the flat cube in the lid pocket, because that is where it always goes. The system works even at midnight in a dark hotel room. On our last trip to Portland, I unpacked the charger, the adapter, and the cable from that one flat cube without turning on a single light.
You can live out of the cubes instead of the suitcase
The trick that changed our trips: I do not unpack at the hotel. I lift the cubes out of the suitcase and set them in the dresser drawers. Mark thought I was being odd the first time, then he started doing it too. The cubes keep everything sorted, and packing to leave takes five minutes instead of an hour of refolding. On a three-night stay in Seattle, we went from checking in to sitting at the waterfront with fish and chips in under twenty minutes, because there was nothing to unpack.
They keep wrinkles down without an iron
I am not going to claim cubes make clothes perfectly crisp. But folding shirts to fit a cube, then stacking the cubes so nothing shifts, means my blouses arrive noticeably less wrinkled than they did in the loose-pile days. The compression zipper on the larger BAGAIL cubes helps too, because it holds everything snug so clothes do not slide around. On a recent trip, I wore a linen blouse to dinner the first night and did not need the hotel iron, which has never happened before.
You can pack more without breaking the weight limit
The cubes do not make things lighter, but they pack tighter. I fit a week of clothes in a carry-on that used to hold four days, because there is no wasted air between loose items. For someone with a bad left knee who does not want to haul a heavy bag, fitting everything in a smaller, lighter suitcase is the whole point. On a ten-day trip to the Oregon coast, I kept everything in one carry-on and a personal item, and I still had room to bring home a stack of paperback books.
They make the TSA line less stressful
I have learned to keep the electronics cube near the top. When the agent asks for the laptop, I unzip the cube, slide it out, and zip it back. No digging, no holding up the line, no trying to remember which pocket holds the tablet. It is a small thing until you are the person holding up the line. At security in Denver last spring, I was through in under four minutes while the man behind me was still pulling shoes out of his bag.
Dirty laundry gets its own home
The mesh cubes are see-through, which is great for finding things and terrible for hiding dirty socks. So I use one of the smaller BAGAIL cubes as the dirty laundry bag. It zips shut, keeps smells away from clean clothes, and at home I can toss the whole cube into the wash. No more plastic grocery bag rattling around the suitcase. On the last day of a trip, I just zip the laundry cube, and it is the last thing to go in the bag.
You can repack in the dark, in a hurry, or both
The last morning of a trip is chaos. Mark is trying to find his other shoe, the rental car is due back, and I am packing with one hand while holding a coffee in the other. Because every cube has a job, I can repack without thinking. Shirts cube, pants cube, sock cube, done. The system does the thinking for me. On our last morning in Astoria, we were out the door nine minutes after the alarm, and the suitcase was already closed.
They work in a duffel, a backpack, or a dresser
BAGAIL cubes are not just for suitcases. I have used them in a duffel for a weekend cabin trip, in Mark's backpack for a hiking trip, and in the hotel dresser as drawer dividers. The set has eight pieces in different sizes, so there is always one that fits whatever bag I am carrying. The smallest cube is the perfect size for a first aid kit, and the largest one fits a week of jeans and sweaters.
They make coming home easier too
The best part of packing cubes is unpacking. I lift the cubes out of the suitcase, put the dirty laundry cube in the hamper, and put the clean cubes back in the closet for the next trip. The suitcase sits empty in the hall instead of becoming a pile of clothes on the guest bed. That alone is worth the price. After our last trip, the suitcase was unpacked and back in the closet before Mark had even finished checking the mail.
What I'd Skip
If you only travel once a year with a checked bag and you do not mind living out of a suitcase, you do not need packing cubes. They are a convenience, not a necessity. I would also skip the very cheap no-name sets that use thin fabric and flimsy zippers; after a few trips the zippers start catching and the mesh tears. The BAGAIL set has held up for a year of regular use, which is why I keep recommending it, but I would not expect a five-dollar set to do the same.
The single biggest change to my carry-on routine was a set of BAGAIL packing cubes. A year later, they are still the first thing I pack.
Start with the set that has a cube for everything
Eight cubes, a year of trips, and a carry-on that finally closes without a wrestling match. If you are ready to try the system, the BAGAIL set is the one I keep buying for friends.
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