What the heck is a packing cube?

Have you ever heard of packing cubes? Are they really a thing? How come I haven’t even heard of them? They’re not even cubes. They’re just bags. 

I was going on vacation and of course, because I don’t want to pay for a carry-on, I am only allowed a personal item. With very specific measurements. I was worried about fitting all my stuff in my bag and a friend mentioned packing cubes. 

My friend told me packing cubes would save so much space. I looked into them, but I don’t understand. To me it looks like I’m just putting clothes in a bag to put in another bag. Adding an extra bag to a suitcase? And an extra step? Why would I pack all my clothes into small bags to put in my big bag instead of just putting all of them directly in my big bag. I asked all these questions, and my friend tried to explain that the packing cubes compress the clothes inside them so they actually take up less space. I still had a million questions since I don’t have a scientific brain, so he ended up just sending me a video about packing cubes. 

This video was over 12 minutes long! Who can talk for 12 minutes about packing cubes? After the first two minutes, I felt like I was doing everything wrong, and I didn’t know the first thing about packing. I don’t travel often, but I am 50 years old, and I have traveled plenty in my life and survived just fine without these packing cubes or whatever they are called. I even backpacked around Europe for four months with one backpack on my back. And I sure didn’t have any packing cubes back then. I’d never even heard of them. But to be fair, I’d never really even heard of them two weeks ago.

This guy in the video had national parks packing cubes. A different national park on each packing cube. (It’s pretty cute actually.  I mean who doesn’t love national parks?) Is that how you learn your national parks? What does it matter what’s on your packing cubes? Don’t they just go in your suitcase? Something pleasant for the inside of your suitcase to look at? Now I also need to worry about pretty packing cubes? Educational ones? That teach you something while you pack? Now I need my packing cubes to be prettier than everyone else’s packing cubes? Will my packing cubes be prettier than my sisters? Will they be educational enough to keep the inside of my suitcase entertained and busy? This is getting a little ridiculous and stressful. 

Hey, if one can learn the names of national parks from packing cubes, maybe I can learn a language? Do they have packing cubes that can teach you French while you pack? Oh, maybe packing cubes that can teach you different types of wine! A different type of wine on each packing cube with a little description. And a pretty picture of the wine. Hey, I think I’m onto something. Educational packing cubes. Do you think there’s a big market for that out there?

So to alleviate some of my stress, I decided to pack three days before my trip.  My bag was so full, I had to sit on it to close it. And even that was a struggle. And then I patted myself on the back for my successful packing job and promptly realized I forgot a few things. (More than a few things) I would have to unpack and repack. Good thing I started three days before my trip.

After complaining about this to my friend he decided to loan me his packing cubes so I could try repacking with packing cubes. I was willing to give it a try since my regular packing job did not go so well. His packing cubes are just plain. Black and gray. The gray ones actually have netting material on the top. Breathing holes? Is that so the clothes can breathe? The inside of my suitcase is going to be bored. My friend really needs to step up his packing cube game if he’s going to be a walking advertisement for packing cubes. The dude with a national parks packing cubes sure showed him up. 

My friend did have a super fancy packing cube. It had a hard bottom, and a folding board slips out of it. You know what I’m talking about, right? The kind they use at the Gap or the Limited to fold the shirts so perfectly? I used to work at Express, and I honestly loved folding all the T-shirts like that because they look so pretty. But I was getting paid for it. Nobody has time for that in real life. My friend was very excited about this and said if I use this one, I should definitely use this folding board to fold my clothes before I put them in because they fit perfectly that way. I told him to keep that one because I’m definitely not using a folding board to fold my clothes to put them in a packing cube to put that packing cube in my suitcase. Another ridiculous extra step. 

He gave me five packing cubes. One can be for underwear and socks, the next one can be for T-shirts and so on he explained. 

“Can my underwear and socks not touch the T-shirts? This is segregation! What if my T-shirts want to go in the same packing cube as my underwear? What if they are best friends?” I asked dramatically.

“So put them in the same packing cube,” my friend said. Huh! I won that argument. Which wasn’t even really an argument I realized.

I unpack my whole bag and spread everything out and look at the packing cubes. “OK, do your magic,” I say to the packing cubes. Nothing happened. Wouldn’t it be great if they invented packing gifts that would just actually pack for you? Like in cartoons where the clothes would hop up and fold themselves and jump right in the packing cube? That is definitely something I would use. If any inventors are reading my blog, they should really get on this. Are there even inventors anymore? Has everything already been invented?  Is that even still a profession? It’s probably called something else.

I picked out three packing cubes.  I’m going to put all my clothes in three of these packing cubes and then put these packing cubes in my bag? Isn’t that just adding three extra bags to my already stuffed suitcase and the same amount of clothing I had before? It just doesn’t make sense. But a lot of things don’t make sense and still work.  Like toilets. And airplanes. And life.

I had never used packing cubes, but as I started packing, it seemed like I could always fit one more thing in the packing cube. It’s like my mom and her fridge. She always says there’s room in the fridge for one more thing. Even though her fridge is so stuffed you think there can’t possibly be room for one more thing, my mom makes it fit. I feel like it was like that with these packing cubes. 

Because you don’t want any extra space, right? Aren’t they supposed to compress your clothes? How are they going to do that if there’s all this extra space there? Doesn’t it need to be packed really tight in order for them to do their job? If not, isn’t it just taking up more space with all that space in the packing cube? 

So I stuffed three packing cubes, and I had to sit on all three of them to get them to zip. Then I put those three packing cubes into my bigger bag which I also had to sit on to get it to zip.  I’m a sweaty mess when I finish wrestling with three packing cubes and my bag, but it’s done and it’s all in there. But the question is, when I unpack it in Florida will I be able to get it all back in there? That’s a worry for another day.

I sure hope that I don’t have to open it to get something out of it at the airport because that’ll be really embarrassing to have a whole airport watch as I’m sitting on my bag, sweating and fighting with it just to get it to zip.

Also, it weighs a ton!!! Probably more than me but somehow, I managed to swing it onto my back. My next worry, of course is will the little airline man tell me my carry on is just too big? Hopefully we’ll get a laid-back airline person who won’t look at it too hard and pull out a measuring tape. Luckily though, I put on a big smile and just walked right onto the plane.

My next worry, of course, is will it fit under the seat in front of me? (as you can tell with me, there is always something to worry about) It’s hard to picture exactly how big the area is under the seat in front of you is, so I just cross my fingers and hope for the best. When we get to the seats, they are so much closer together than I remember them being! I can barely fit in between them, so how is my bag going to so I can get it under the seat?!?!  I literally stand on top of it with both feet and jump to push it down until I smush it down in between the seats and under the little area, but it fits! Of course, I smile sweetly at people who are watching me jump on my bag just so they know that I’m friendly. Success! I breathe a huge sigh of relief.  Now I can enjoy my flight. Which would be more enjoyable if only I had a little bit more leg room.

I get to the little house we rented in Florida and I unpack my things and hang them up nicely in the closet. They are very wrinkled from being stuffed in the packing cube like that but it’s a good thing that I wear wrinkled clothing. I don’t even own an iron.  My ex took it with him 4 years ago and I have not needed it once since. It’s just my style. Wrinkled.

Do you want to guess what percentage of the clothes that I brought I actually wore? Less than 50%! I didn’t wear half the clothes I brought. And also, I did laundry twice because my poor kid only has two pairs of pants. Why did I pack so much? Did I think there would be an impromptu fashion show during vacation, and I would need these three extra dresses that I packed to show up my sisters who didn’t overpack? Why do we do that? Why do we always think that we will need so much more than we actually do? 

We stayed in the rental house for three days and then everyone else left and I was spending the last night with my dad. I was worried the whole trip about how everything would fit back in the bag. As I said, I always need something to worry about. I kept telling myself it all got in there so it all can get back in there again somehow, right? Wrong.

I tried to repack before moving out of the house, but it didn’t work. One full packing cube would not fit in the bag! I did my sitting on it trick and everything, but it still did not work. I carried a bag of clothes to my dad’s house. I was thinking that the packing cubes were getting back at me for talking crap about them at the beginning. I had a day to figure out how to make it up to the packing cubes so they will like me and work for me again. I spent the rest of the day praising the packing cubes. I was telling them how smart they were and how well they worked. 

By some miracle, after three tries and a lot of sweat and tears I managed to put everything back in that bag. It was honestly a miracle. I don’t know how it fit. I have all the same worries flying back home. Except my new worry was that my bag was surely going to explode because there was so much stuff in it. I imagine the zippers just giving way and the bag flying open and all my clothes flying all over the airport. I imagine some poor old man waiting for his plane, reading his book when suddenly a pair of my underwear lands on his head. Oh wait, that won’t happen because everything is packed tightly in packing cubes. Thank you, packing cubes. For saving that poor stranger at the airport from having my underwear land on his head. Does anyone else worry excessively or is it only me?

I will tell you, everything looks so nice and neat while using packing cubes. And despite my messy life, I do like things neat and organized. 

I was just exhausted when I got home from my trip after all the stress with the packing and the packing cubes. Did the packing cubes help? I don’t know. Did the packing cubes make things worse? I don’t know. I think the solution here is really just to pack less. Or just go ahead and pay for a carry-on! I think I have learned my lesson.

I have a wedding to go to in Wisconsin in September, so I’ll let you know how packing for that goes. I have a feeling it will be exactly the same. Do we ever really learn? I know I usually don’t.  I’ll keep you updated though. I’ll hold onto these packing cubes just in case. Packing miracles can happen.