The best packing cubes to help you survive your holiday travels

The ultimate utility player

A set of Thule compression cubes

$45 at Thule $45 at Backcountry

Dimensions: Small (10.2 x 7.1 x 4.3 inches); Medium (14.0 x 10.0 x 5.9 inches)

weight: 7 oz

I expected Thule products to be smartly designed, easy to use and expensive. Fortunately, only the best two of these three attributes proved true for this set of dice. In terms of performance, the two cubes did everything I could have asked for, providing solid compression for the two denim jackets and three pairs of jeans my daughter wanted to take on our trip. They also boast a nice, simple, clean look and light weight, with both watches coming in at just over seven ounces combined. The 100-denier nylon was plenty hearty for our stress test, as were the large zippers with secure, straight pulls. The nylon was also water resistant, making these cubes a great place to store slightly damp bathing suits. While the translucent material made it easy to see key items of clothing (namely, all of Josie’s denim), it wasn’t transparent enough to reveal small items like a floating toothbrush. Still a great option for the price, especially for someone who travels a lot on their own and only needs two simple cubes.

Best for families

NOMATIC Compression Packing Cubes

$80 (for three) at NOMATIC $20-$40 (each) on Amazon

Dimensions: Small (7.75 x 7.75 x 5 inches); Medium (11.5 x 7.75 x 5 inches); Large (11.5 x 11.5 x 5 inches)

weight: 15 oz

This set of three extra-durable cubes is perfect for organizing your carry-on luggage for family travel. A strip of mesh in the front of each makes it easy to see what’s inside, while the rest of the compartment is made from durable nylon. The result was a cube that could really take some crushing. I was able to capitalize on the breathability of the mesh without worrying about these things feeling flimsy. The large zippers and paracord zippers also felt strong. While all of this bodes well for a long life, it has resulted in weight reductions of almost a pound each. It wasn’t noticeable when I was walking with them from the parking lot to the hotel, but it would be too much to handle if I was trying to travel light on a long trip, or cram one of the cubes into my backcountry kit.

Best for long trips

Eagle Creek Isolate Keep shooting

$104 in Eagle Creek $104 at Backcountry

Dimensions: Small (10 x 7 x 3 inches); Medium (14 x 10 x 3 inches)

weight: 9 oz

I giggled out loud with delight when I realized how well this set of cubes had absorbed my and my daughter’s essential gear. The four simple and thoughtfully designed cubes not only fit all our clothes and toiletries in volume, but were waterproof enough to hold wet bathing suits and sweaty socks. The zippers were strong enough to compress piles of gear down to half their original size when I violently repacked the cubes, and the lightweight nylon construction made it tempting to turn one into a first aid kit for my next trip. It’s by far the most expensive set on this list, but it also has the most dice, which eases the sticker shock a little. Also, nine ounces per four cubes is pretty hard to beat.

Best for Wet Gear

Sea to Summit Hydraulic Cube Set

$90 sea to top $80 at Dicks Sporting Goods

Dimensions: Very small (5.7 x 3.7 x 2.4 inches); Small (8.3 x 4.3 x 2.8 inches); Medium (10.4 x 5.5 x 3.9 inches)

weight: 4 oz

These cubes are truly multi-taskers: they are both extremely waterproof and easy to pack, while keeping the weight very low. I came into the outdoor world as a water guide and then editor for a kayaking magazine, so I gravitate towards water-friendly gear. These three cubes were the best for keeping the wettest and roughest pieces of clothing separate from the clean, dry clothes. That’s thanks to the TPU laminate, a 70-denier ripstop material that absorbed a small but repellent amount of water like a lightweight dry bag when filled with fully wet bathing suits. I wouldn’t hesitate to add any (or all three) of these cubes to a white water rafting, expedition kayaking or ski mountaineering kit due to their incredibly light weight and fantastic water resistance. The only downside is that they didn’t have compression zippers like most of the cubes in this test, so it took a bit of manual compression to get them to the right size. It definitely didn’t add that much bulk to my carry-on.

The best value

GoRuck packing cubes

$15-$20 (each) at GoRuck

Dimensions: 5 L (10 x 8 x 3 inches); 10 L (15 x 10 x 3 inches)

weight: 6 oz

These sturdy packing cubes have a killer price ($15 for a 5L and $20 for a 10L) and definitely deliver on packing quality and durability. The full mesh front was a bonus in some ways, like making tiny socks easy to find, but didn’t make these cubes a great option for my smelly running shorts or wet swim trunks. The 200-den nylon linings were almost as thick as the fabric on the NOMATIC cubes, and the heavy-duty zippers took all our abuse with aplomb. If you’re looking for something simple, well-built, and very reasonably priced, these cubes will serve you well.

The easiest

Pack of Peak Designs Ultralight Cubes 3 pcs

$50 at Peak Designs $50 at Backcountry

Dimensions: XX-Small (7 x 3 x 2.3 inches); Very small (9 x 4.3 x 3.5 inches); Small: (11.8 x 6.7 x 5 inches)

weight: 3 oz

Like almost every Peak Designs product I’ve ever tested, these cubes are so damn clever. They were the lightest on the list and still handled moisture perfectly thanks to taped internal seams making the cubes waterproof. The strong #5 zippers were a huge bonus, but watching Josie do it during the load test was pretty stressful to tighten the elastic zipper. I have a really hard time faulting these cubes for being incredibly light. I would use them to organize any number of things in my backpack kit. The only downside to the lightweight construction is that the 40-denier nylon was the least abrasion-resistant material in the test.

As I tested

At first glance, it seemed that everyone who makes bags makes packing cubes. To help with the many options available, I researched packing cubes online and selected the ones with the most appealing designs and materials. I reached out to the brands with the most positive reviews on packing cubes and received 23 packing cubes to test. I weighed all the cubes together on a kitchen scale to double check the manufacturer numbers. It’s also worth noting that the GoRuck cubes don’t come in a set, but I tested the two size options as one for compatibility with the rest of these sets.

Packaging

Then I stuffed a ton of stuff into the cubes to test their packaging. I packed each cube in this test 15 times with my laundry at home and fake packed my 65 liter Sea to Summit duffel bag which was my hand luggage as I was lugging it behind the car material test in 2016. Constant repetition of this experiment allowed me to focus on the nuances of each cube and sniff out the cleverest design details.

Use in the real world

For a real-world test, I took these packing cubes on a family trip to Eugene and Portland, Oregon that we planned to celebrate my daughter Josie’s seventh birthday. It was a trip full of gear and outfits, as my daughter’s new favorite hobby is fashion, my wife and I prioritize exercise on these trips, and Josie and I are serious hotel pool lovers. We brought three bags of different sizes, which I filled with cubes. We packed and unpacked them four times during the trip with everything from toys to dirty clothes to wet bathing suits.

Durability

I spent way too much time thinking of fun ways to destroy these cubes. I was tempted to drag them behind my truck or set up a wild pulley system in my garage to tear them apart. While these tests would be fun for me, they wouldn’t really give you much useful information, so in the end I settled on a nice but very realistic stress test. I repackaged each one and zipped it 25 times as it was repackaged (a common cause of lightning failure). This was to simulate the most real stress test they would face. I also encouraged my six-year-old daughter to beat the hell out of them because it was fun, cute, and a real-world way to test the strength of things like handles, zippers, and buttonholes.