Luggage packing cubes are mentioned a lot on travel sites. I wondered if they live up to the hype. Supposedly they save more space and make it easier to find what you need. I bought a large set of them with all kinds of sizes including a shoe bag and clear toiletry bags. See YAMIU Packing Cubes 7-Pcs Travel Organizer Accessories with Shoe Bag and 2 Toiletry Bags(Blue) Notice: There are affiliate links in this article used to help fund this site. This review does include my own opinion after actually using the item(s) linked to.
For the test, I used them on a flying trip to Oregon. Here are the results:
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- I don’t believe they actually saved me any space in my suitcase but they did help me limit what I was taking so I didn’t have to sit on my suitcase to close it this time but still had plenty of clothes with me. I tend to over pack. If space is that big an issue, the kind of bags where you vacuum out the excess air might help though I would go with the ones you roll the air out instead so you don’t have to hope a vacuum is available or bug anyone for it.
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- They did make it easy for me to separate types of clothing such as shirts in one bag, pants in another, under garments in another. Each morning it was very easy to find what I needed to change clothes. I really liked that! No digging needed and my suitcase always looked neat rather than like a teenager’s bedroom.
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- My shoes had their own bag so they didn’t soil my clothes and the bag looked a lot nicer than the grocery bag I usually use.
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- The clear bags for the toiletries made it easy to see what I had with me. Again, no digging to find what I needed and I could see what I brought.
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- For the dirty clothes, I kept them in a separate laundry bag I brought until it was time to go home then I shifted items around to empty out some cubes, rolled the dirty items again, and fit them back into the cubes which I placed at the top of my luggage so they would come out first and immediately go into the laundry hamper at home. Unpacking my suitcase actually took very little time since I just had to yank cubes out of it then could put it away immediately to get it out of my way.
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- When not in use, the packing cubes flatten and fold up into almost nothing so they take up very little storage space.
Conclusion: Two thumbs up for packing cubes! I will be using them from now on. They may not necessarily save space but they sure do make packing, daily travel life, and unpacking much easier. I recommend them.
For my new Class B RV, I used the packing cube concept to buy clear shoe boxes that I keep in the RV in all my cabinets. Some hold items that stay in there permanently to organize them and keep them from rolling around. Other boxes I pull out to pack them in the house then carry them back out when loading. Actual packing cubes would work too but I prefer the open tops of shoe boxes for quickly grabbing items. If your cabinets won’t hold the plastic boxes due to size or contour, give packing cubes a try and leave them unzippered during the trip. You could also combine the two items to fit your space as needed.
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