The best packing cubes to help you survive your holiday travels

The ultimate utility player

A set of Thule compression cubes

$45 at Thule

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 incredibly well thought out, easy to use and expensive. Only the best two features of the three were true for this set of two compression cubes from Thule at a very reasonable $44.95. In terms of performance, the two cubes did everything we could have asked for—tight compression of my daughter’s two denim jackets and the three pairs of jeans she wanted to bring on our trip, a nice simple clean look, and a light weight of less than seven and a half ounces for two The 100-den nylon was plenty hearty for our stress testing, as were the large zippers with reliable straight pulls. Nylon was water resistant, making it a great place to land wet bathing suits after they were wrung out and hung up a bit. 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 needs two simple cubes.

Best for families

NOMATIC Compression Packing Cubes

$80 at NOMATIC

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-large cubes is perfect for organizing your carry-on when traveling as a family. NOMATIC made brilliant use of mesh by creating a strip of mesh in the front of each of these cubes, which they then backed with the strongest nylon of all the cubes in the test. The result was a cube that could really pack and capitalize on the breathability of the mesh, while still being damn strong. The powerful cutouts of these cubes have been reinforced with strong zips and premium corded zips. While all of this heartiness was nice for our family trip and promised a long life for these cubes, they did weigh almost a pound, which wasn’t noticeable when I carried them in my bag from the hotel parking lot to the hotel, but it would have been too much weight to bare if I were trying to travel light on a long trip, or perhaps absorb one of the cubes into my ski pack.

Best for long trips

Eagle Creek Isolate Keep shooting

$104 in Eagle Creek

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

weight: 9 oz

I giggled out loud when I realized how well this set of four cubes accommodated my daughters and my essential gear and they fit nice and snugly in my Sea to Summit Duffle. The four simple and thoughtfully designed cubes not only held all of our clothes and toiletries, but were also waterproof enough to hold wet bathing suits and smelly socks. The compression zipper was strong enough to cut these cubes’ pack size in half when they were brutally overloaded, and the lightweight nylon exterior (only nine ounces for four packs!) put these cubes in danger of becoming a first aid kit for my backpack. . It’s definitely the most expensive set on this list, but to be fair, it also has the most dice (four), which eases the sticker shock a little.

Best for Wet Gear

Sea to Summit Hydraulic Cube Set

$90 sea to top

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

I LOVE these cubes for how well they’ve been integrated as highly waterproof parts while still maintaining a very light weight and smart packaging features. I came into the outdoor world as a raft guide and later as an editor for a kayaking magazine, so I gravitate towards gear that works well on the water. These three cubes were the best at holding the wettest and roughest items of clothing in addition to clean, dry clothing thanks to the 70 denier Ripstop TPU laminate that was made of this packed as a cube, but repels water like a lightweight dry bag when full. fully wet bathing suits. With an incredibly light weight of 4.4 ounces and fantastic water resistance, I’d fit any or all of these three cubes in a white water rafting, expedition kayaking, or backcountry ski pack. They didn’t have compression zippers like most of the cubes in this test, so it took a bit of hand squeezing to compress them, which definitely didn’t add that much bulk to my carry-on.

The best value

GoRuck packing cubes

$89 at Outdoor Research

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

weight: 6 oz

These heavy-duty packing cubes have a killer price ($15 for the 5-liter and $20 for the 10-liter) and definitely deliver in terms of packing convenience and durability. The full mesh front was a bonus in some ways, like making tiny socks easy to find quickly, but didn’t make these cubes a great choice for my smelly running shorts or wet swim trunks. The 200 denier nylon they made from the outer mesh was almost as thick as the NOMATIC cubes, and the sturdy zippers took all our looks with aplomb. If you’re looking for something simple, well built, and at a very reasonable price, these cubes will serve you well.

The easiest

Pack of Peak Designs Ultralight Cubes 3 pcs

$50 at Peak Designs

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 all Peak Designs products I’ve tested, these cubes are pretty damn smart. These cubes somehow managed to be the lightest on the list, but they handled the wet admirably thanks to their ultra-lightweight Terra Shell fabric, which was extremely weather-resistant and had fully taped internal seams, making these ultra-lightweight cubes waterproof. The strong #5 zippers were a huge bonus, but the 40-denier nylon it’s made from was the least abrasion-resistant material in the test, and details like the stretchy zippers (which I had a blast using) made watching Josie quite a bit work hard on during a stress test. I have a really hard time faulting these cubes for being so light, I would use them to compartmentalize any number of items in my backpacking kit.

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 compelling design and material stories. I contacted the brands that had the most positive reviews about packing cubes and received 23 packing cubes to test. I weighed all the cubes together on a kitchen scale to verify the manufacturer’s 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

I, well, packed them a TON to test their packability. I packed every cube in this test 15 times with underwear at home and fake packed my 65 liter Duffel Sea to Summit which was my wish to continue since I towed it behind a car and it won the test I did for this speaker in 2016. This iteration allowed me to understand the nuances of each cube and find satisfaction in the most intelligent 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 seven-year-old (yay!). This trip was tough on gear and gear because my daughter’s new favorite hobby is fashion, my wife and I prefer to exercise on these trips, and Josie and I are serious hotel pool lovers. We brought three carry-on bags of various sizes, which I filled with cubes. We packed and unpacked them four times during the trip and dealt with toys, dirty clothes and 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 interesting to me, they wouldn’t really give you much useful information, so in the end I settled on a vanilla but very realistic stress test. I repackaged and zipped them 25 times after they were repackaged (a common cause of lightning failure) to create the most realistic stress test they will face. I also encouraged my six-year-old daughter, Josie, 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.