I Was a Checked-Bag Person Until Packing Cubes Changed My Mind

For thirty-seven years I ran long-haul trucking routes from the Gulf Coast up into the Midwest. You would think a man who spent that much time living out of a single overnight bag behind a cab would know something about packing light. I thought so too. Then I retired in 2022, my wife Sandra and I booked our first real leisure trip to Portugal, and I realized I had been doing it all wrong.

The problem was not that I packed too much. The problem was that everything I packed turned into a single compressed brick the moment I closed the bag. Socks rolled under dress shirts. A belt coiled around a shaving kit. Three days in, I was pulling the whole thing apart every morning just to find a clean undershirt. At a truck stop you live out of the same two shirts for a week and nobody cares. At a hotel in Lisbon with your wife watching, it feels different.

Sandra had been using packing cubes for a couple of years already. She kept telling me to try them. I kept saying I did not need small fabric boxes to organize my clothes. That is the kind of thing you say before you actually try them.

Before that Portugal trip I finally picked up a set of Amazon Essentials packing cubes, the 4-piece set in black. They run around fifteen bucks. I figured if they were useless I was out the price of a decent lunch. I packed them the night before our flight: t-shirts in the large, pants rolled tight in the medium, socks and underwear in one small, toiletries bag separate. The whole thing clicked into my carry-on like a Tetris board. First time in my life I zipped a carry-on without having to kneel on it.

I zipped a carry-on without having to kneel on it. First time in my life.

What I did not expect was how much easier the whole trip became after that. Not just the packing. The unpacking at each hotel. The repacking after four days in Porto when we moved down to Algarve. The security line at the airport where I unzipped one cube, confirmed everything was in order, and zipped it back in about fifteen seconds. That was a thing I had never done at a security line in my life.

There are things I would tell you honestly about these cubes. The zipper pulls are narrow, and if your fingers are stiff in the morning, the first zip of the day takes a little patience. The mesh top panel is useful for seeing what is inside without opening the whole thing, but the fabric is not going to survive a decade of hard use. I have had mine for about four trips now and they still look fine, but I would not call them bombproof. At fifteen dollars I am not complaining.

The medium size is the one I use most. It holds four days of rolled t-shirts without any fight. The large is almost too big for a standard domestic carry-on, but if you are going checked bag it is excellent. The two smalls are where I put the stuff that used to rattle loose in my bag for years: phone charger, extra socks, the little reading glasses I deny needing.

Sandra and I have done seven trips since Portugal. We have not checked a bag once. For two people who were both chronic checked-bag travelers, that is a genuine change in how we travel. Less time at baggage claim. No $35 fee each way. No waiting at the carousel watching everyone else grab their bags while ours takes another four minutes.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

Packing cubes are not magic. They do not give you more space in a bag that is already too small. What they do is make the space you have usable instead of chaotic. If you are someone who over-packs regardless of how organized your bag is, cubes are not going to fix that. But if you are a decent packer who just ends up with everything jumbled by day two, they will genuinely help. The Amazon Essentials set is a smart way to find out. You are not making a big bet at fifteen dollars. I would buy them again. I did buy a second set for our checked bags when we went to Ireland last fall, and that is probably the clearest endorsement I can give. If you want the longer breakdown of how they hold up over time, read the full review I put together at Amazon Essentials Packing Cubes Review. If you just want to see what the fuss is about, the 10 reasons packing cubes change how you travel piece lays it out plainly.