My One Travel Essential: Packing Cubes

Since coming back from spring break, I’ve been thinking about travel and my 1 must-have travel item …

The world is really made up of 2 types of people: 1) those who already use packing cubes for traveling and 2) those who haven’t yet discovered how wonderful packing cubes are. 

Packing cubes were probably originally made for the anal retentive (another group that I am a proud member of) but I really feel like their benefits could be enjoyed by anyone. Like, if TSA had to search your luggage, wouldn’t you love for them to find all the contents inside neatly organized into packing cubes instead of having your much-too-old underpants tumble out in front of strangers? Let life be messy, let travel be messy (it inevitably is) but let’s not let our travel contents be messy! 👏👏👏

I use these organizers for keeping clothing categories separated (duh). I usually have a bag for day clothes and then another for items like workout clothes, undergarments, and socks. Now that so much of my travel is with the kids, they each get one before a trip to fill up with what they’ll need, and then it’s easy to just hand them their cube of stuff when we’ve arrived at our destination.

Neko recently had to pack for a 2-night school camping trip, and she asked if she could use our packing cubes for the trip. I can now rest my parenting efforts knowing that I’ve at least passed on my organizational habits to my daughter.

Not only do I think packing cubes are a must though, I also think there is 1 clear winner. Now I haven’t tried all of the packing cubes out there but I have tried a lot and REI’s Expandable Packing Cubes are my favorite. They have 2 sets of zippers, which I haven’t found in any other packing cube. Basically there is 1 zipper to close the bag and then another zipper to really compress all the contents inside so you end up being able to pack much more than you would without them. 

They really make packing just a bit more fun and a whole lot more organized for me, and I never take a trip without them.

Are you a packing cube enthusiast? Do you have a travel essential to recommend? Let me know in the comments (they’ll send a login link to your email — sorry it’s a bit of a pain!) or just hit reply if you’re reading this in your email.

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