Packing Cubes

I mentioned in an earlier post that we've been using packing cubes during our past travels. The cubes help to keep clothes and even electronic cords/rechargers organized. They can ease unpacking into hotel dressers or cruise ship room closets. The cubes can also be convenient if a TSA agent decides that your carryon roller needs closer inspection and you essentially have to unpack and repack your luggage prior to entering the airport terminal.

There's a variety of online stores where you can find packing cubes, including Rick Steves' store, ebags.com, and Amazon. I typically use one color set of cubes and my wife another. As we pack, we'll swap a couple clothes cubes between us. The idea is that should one piece of luggage be lost during air travel, we can recover somewhat. The separate packing cube color makes retrieval in the hotel room a bit more convenient.

There's not too many options with it comes to purchasing the packing cubes. The cubes come in a variety of sizes and colors. Some have a mesh siding on one side, others have the mesh on both sides. The mesh helps you to identify the contents of a particular bag and could save you a few ounces off your luggage weight. You can also find cubes with water resistant solid nylon panels - which are 'intended' to keep wet items separate from the dry.

Speaking of options, my wife decided to try a packing folder for our next trip. These folders are meant for packing shirts, sweaters, blouses and slacks into a flat 15x10, 18x12 or 20x14 inch bundle. The idea is that the folder reduces the amount of wrinkles for clothes placed in the folder. Given my travel experience with packing, I'm skeptical that the clothing in the folder will actually exit in a wrinkle reduced condition. We'll see how this works.