Best quality luggage that’s right for your type of trip

The best luggage 2020 is going to be the best luggage for YOUR trip. "Best" can mean a lot of things so in this video we dive in to:

Luggage Quality
The right luggage for your trip
The cost of Carry on vs. Checked Luggage

We also explore topics such as hard vs soft sided luggage and should you bring a backpack or a suitcase?

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Tim: 00:00 Best luggage 2019 did we get out there and test every single suitcase and backpack on the market? Absolutely.

Fin: 00:10 If you're new to our channel, welcome. We're Tim and Fin - why are you laughing at me? - We make travel videos for YouTube. We've been on the road for about three years now and that's why we know a thing or two about luggage, but the word best on the internet is just kind of like -we want to define what makes "best". So we're going to talk about luggage in three categories in today's video. The first category we're going to talk about quality. Second category we're going to talk about the right piece of luggage for your specific trip. And the last category we're going to talk about how much gear are you bringing in the cost associated with, you know checking it or carrying it on and those types of things. First off, we're going to talk about the best carry on luggage and we're going to replace Tim with that piece of luggage.

Tim: 00:52 It's like -wait, wait, wait. I'll be back to talk about the Osprey Porter,

Fin: 00:56 Hopefully that looked fancy in post editing because it doesn't feel fancy in real life. As most of my friends would agree, we basically live under a rock because we haven't owned a TV in five years and we're typically out of the country and we just did not know what Away suitcases are. But I think that anybody who owns a television has heard of this brand. Since we didn't know about them, I'll tell you later in the video how we did come to know about the Away brand. One of the things that would make luggage the best is the brand itself. And so if you go on the away luggage website, then you can find different things that I have written down in my notes. Like you can try any suitcase for a hundred days, you can return it for any reason. It's guaranteed for life. So essentially it's no risk purchasing the bag to try it. Why we were ecstatic to try it in the first place was because it has a charger on it. So right here under the handle there's a battery that pops in and out. You can charge any USB device on your suitcase right here. Wait, it's got other stuff too. What are all these things?

Tim: 02:06 They're USBs

Fin: 02:06 I know, but this one has, this one has two lighting bolts. That's two amps. This one has one lightning bolt, that's one amp. And this one says "NE".

Tim: 02:17 Look at me. I'm back. So it's got two USBs and then this is how you charge it with a micro USB. Oh, this is how you charge the battery. And I'm out.

Fin: 02:26 Another part of the beauty of having this is essentially now you as part of your purchase, you now own a battery pack. So you can bring this along with you in your purse. You can bring it out on your hike. It is just a rechargeable battery that happens to have a holder inside your luggage. So think of this as its own unique great product that you get to store right here and your luggage that Tim will tell you a little bit more about. Kind of like the backpacking lifestyle. When we did our trip around the world in our first series Tripped, we were backpacking. The reason why now we have hard suitcases is cause trying to traveling with our little dog and she rides on the travel kennel that goes on top of our carry on suitcase. To me, I think the biggest point that you're looking at when you're thinking about carry on luggage is what is going to fit on which airline, right?

Fin: 03:13 So Away sells two different bags, it sells the carry on and then the large carry on. So what I've done in the description below is I have the current dimensions of all the airline requirements in inches down there for for all the U S requirements on airlines like United American Southwest spirit. I even then did like Ryan air for Europe. So this right here is just the carry on. It's not the large, that's about 40 liters, which is then smaller than the backpack that you're going to see with Tim. The larger carry on then is similar more to that backpack size. The reason why I'm saying a hard-sided suitcase is the best for a carry on. It makes you very efficient packing and you can't overstuffed this. The size is what the size is. How many times have you overstuffed your soft sided carry on?

Fin: 04:07 And then of course every overhead compartment is just a slightly different size and the edge of your shoe is getting caught when you're trying to shove it in the top or you know, just that little tiny corner of a book that's sticking out. So this is just very sleek and it's easy to put up in the overhead and take down when nothing's getting jammed up there. Since you will have, let's say like your laptop bag or your backpack, your personal item that's going to go on here, that's where you're going to keep things like your electronics and your liquids that you need to take out during security. It is inconvenient to open up a hard suitcase like this that opens, you know, flat on the ground at security. So don't plan on taking anything out of here. Insecurity. Certainly your best option for things like your work trip, weekend trips, airline travel, that's not necessarily adventurous

Tim: 05:02 If you're going out there to be a backpacker, if you're staying more mobile, if you're doing kind of adventure travel, you're going to want to say goodbye to those rolly wheels on that carry on and go with the backpack. When we were going to do our first round the world trip, Fin I remember was looking at bringing a carry on with until I kind of like told her about you know, you're just walking down some dirty streets. Things are somehow wet all the time. Like you don't want to be dragging things on wheels down the street. You want to have it on your back and it's just that much easier to get around, throw things in, cabs, that sort of thing. Which leads us to the Osprey 46 liter Porter. I am a huge, huge fan of this backpack. We've been using these now like looking at Fin off camera and we've had these for years and have just beat the ever loving hell out them and they still look as good as the day we got them.

Tim: 06:00 So to start off, they have the Osprey almighty guarantee. That's like their proprietary title for it, but it's basically workmanship and materials for your lifetime. That's how they weren't heated. And so like no cost to you if something needs to be repaired. So little things about this backpack that I really like. One, it's not a top loader. I've used those before and backpacked with them. They're okay until you get to experience actually using a backpack. What's the term for this? Just like, and it's an open face aside, back load, not a top load. It's just so much easier to plunk this down and get what you want rather than having to top load and have to go in that Boca de bag each time to get what you want down there. There's lots of great organization in here. Has a great laptop and like office area pocket in it for storage when you're walking around with it.

Tim: 06:58 Yeah, we keep our laptop in there, but a little packing tip when you're actually using it on carry on or if you have to end up checking it, go ahead and put your laptop in the middle of all your clothes so it's extra protected. You'll also notice these straps on the back here. These are great when you have this thing packed already and you just want to compress it as much as possible. Big on compressing things when we're packing around here. So you can just pull it taunts and I've literally like put my body weight behind this, getting it as tight as possible before. And then if you're like, sometimes we'll do grocery runs with backpacks and some countries on like a motorcycle or something. You can always, instead of going to this buckle here, go to the ones on the side and actually like make it even more compressed and smaller.

Tim: 07:49 You don't have to use a whole 46 liters. If you want something that's a little less bulky, less cumbersome easier to backpack around on. Yeah, there are these side buckles there. And the other great thing on this is that you can zip away the straps. So if you're checking it, if you're just going to store it and don't want straps hanging all over, I don't know what it is. With backpacks, there's always like, there's something straps just hanging out all over the place so you can use it. These just buckled down here. You can just use the shoulder straps. It's also got hip strap. If you're actually going out backpacking and need that extra support for that comfort you would not believe the difference in comfort. It makes to have the strap up here to just your shoulder strap when you're standing around at the airport or just backpack and walking around world of a difference. And then finally, once again, this is carry on luggage. Like sometimes every last centimeter or inch really matters. So where if you were on a budget airline, like Ryan air or something, sometimes just zipping those straps away, keeping it just really streamlined and everything that makes all the difference in the world. And being able to cram this thing up in the overhead bin on a airplane.

Fin: 09:07 This is the away large. This is certainly a checked bag. You'll notice we've used it cause it's pretty dirty and I think that is a fantastic honest representation of what it looks like. Cause I could've cleaned this for you, but I did not intentionally so that you could see what it looks like. This has only been on one plane. There's only one on one plane ever. The reason why I highlight that is because if you were to purchase like let's say this exact bag, you might have the same thing happened to you. Well Finn yeah. You idiot, you bought white luggage. Well yeah, it looks great in the pictures. Hello. But that's not necessarily the reason why it's so dirty. You know this, this would be on any color as well. Yes. Even if you got this in black, you would still see, you know, you're seeing this, the scuff colors from other luggage as well.

Fin: 10:01 So you know, any color is rubbing off on any color here. Why is that important and why is that potentially a pro? Well, I still think that this is going to go best luggage because the whole point is what this is, is it's protecting your stuff that's inside. That's the entire reason for this luggage. Look at how beat up this all gets when it goes off into the abyss of, you know, whatever happens to it behind the little rolly thing and it's not your stuff. So you really want good luggage to protect your gear and that's what a hard side suitcase is gonna do for you. So why a away of the hard sided suitcases? Well, I told you earlier, I was going to let you know how I found a way since we live under a rock and I hadn't seen any of the advertising, several, almost all airlines I can think of, have a size restriction for checked luggage there.

Fin: 10:54 Of course as a 50 pound weight limit before your you're overcharged. So that, that's a separate conversation we're going to have later. But when you actually talk about the size, what airlines are measuring is the linear inches. So they're measuring the height times the width times the depth. That would be the linear inches added up, not multiplied. And so you're getting 62 linear inches. It took me hours looking online. When we were adjusting from our RV trip across North America to moving down here in Mexico, obviously we want to maximize the 62 linear inches that were given, right? So you would just think that luggage companies would make their suitcases 62 linear inches, right? So wrong. I couldn't believe how many were like 64.5 inches. I'm like, well that's hardly bigger. So it's not like you bring so much more stuff when you're getting charged a hundred more dollars to bring that oversized bag or it was like 54 inches and I'm like 54 that's too big.

Fin: 11:53 Carry on. And you're leaving so much room on the table to bring. So that's where a way came into play for us is it was just the right size for an airline. I mean it was just, it was the most simple idea that you would just think that everybody would make and they did not when you're considering checked luggage. Now I know especially on our channel, we're always advocating for, you know, carry on friendly, carry on, friendly, you know, we make our compression cubes and all this travel gear to, to be as minimal as possible. The games are changing a little bit, isn't it? You've, you're seeing on airlines like United, they're now charging you for carry on bags. So there is a little bit more strategy now of is it worth paying $25 to carry on a bag if it's only 30 or $45 to bring so much more gear.

Fin: 12:45 Now, if you're going to be staying at four different hotels on your trip, you're not going to want to haul all of this around. You know, something like the other two bags are more appropriate. But if you're just getting on one flight and going to one hotel room, you might enjoy having so much more space or a very small incremental change in price. One quick last note on check bags really is the weight. I'll link below a little. What are those things called? The like weigher thing. There is a mobile luggage scale you can get on Amazon for pretty inexpensive. I'll link it below to test the weight. Cause I incorrectly tested the weight thinking I had it right while trying to like weigh myself and then get off and then like hold our luggage on the bathroom scale and like look over my toes and try to see and, and I was wrong.

Tim: 13:36 That's right. Even two experienced travelers totally get it wrong. Get hit with that $100 surcharge at the airport and you got to get to your plane so you're kind of thing.

Fin: 13:46 Okay. So we had to pay a hundred extra dollars and cause it was like 62 pounds and should be 50 pounds and we didn't have enough space elsewhere with like the dog and all this other things to have 12 extra pounds somewhere and even the lady of the checking counter was like, what are you having here? Books. I was able to pack so many clothes in here using our compression cubes to take the air out where you can pack more clothes that we didn't have any liquids, we didn't have any shoes, we had nothing in here except clothes and I shoved 62 pounds of cotton. In this bag we can fit about two to three six piece compression cube sets in the large we can fit one six piece compression cube set in the Osprey Porter, a 46 liter backpack. That's essentially what we made that set for us to be the ideal carry on size. And because our smaller away luggage is the smaller of the two carry ons, that one takes maybe about five filled compression cubes in there. So that kind of gives you an idea if you all knows how much stuff you can pack in each one of these bags.

Tim: 15:01 So there was more than you ever want to know about luggage. Right?

Fin: 15:07 And when you talk about best, it's just going to be the best for your trip. So really think about what carrying this stuff around with you is going to look like and then make the right choice for you. Because I know we were getting a lot of questions on Instagram when it was like, Oh, you guys changed from backpacks to hard, you know, carry on suitcases. So then it was like, we're going to New Zealand, like should we get those suitcases? And it was like, you know, we're going to one location staying for two months with a dog. That's why you know, he made that choice. So just make sure you're getting the right thing for your trip and that's why it's going to be the best for you.

Tim: 15:43 Absolutely. We're still changing what we're doing when we do our little Vietnam Asia trip for a month coming up here, we're going to be [inaudible].

Fin: 15:49 That's an announcement on YouTube. You know that who you're following us on on Instagram. But we are going back to Vietnam in May, 2019 here in a lot more places, a lot more places

Tim: 16:01 Mobile. So we're going to be in backpacks and be back, pack us again.

Fin: 16:05 Pepper staying at my parents were going to be really sad to miss her for five weeks in Asia, but I think thanks to the parents. So we're going to be doing that for us. And others.

Tim: 16:14 You get the stars every night and we'd look at the same ones.

Fin: 16:17 Other fun and not, Oh, other fun ounces is Tim cut his hair. Since you guys have seen what I just said, that's going to be like the first comment below. My mom's happy. Yeah. So this is our Airbnb here in Mexico for February. We're going to go back to the vlogs, which are, you know, a few weeks behind. So you'll, you'll see Tim back with long hair on, on Sunday for a trip to Mexico. Oh, if this was the first video and you found us here, feel free to subscribe because then you can come along with our adventures on us with us, on us on Sunday. And

Tim: 16:52 It's going to get, it's going to be nonsense. And we are moving like crazy.

Fin: 16:58 We were like crazy and I feel like we're caring less what, how we do on camera. And it's just, it's getting a little bit sillier. This is getting a little bit silly.

Speaker 4: 17:09 Happy travels. He'll be fine in the best language for you guys.