duffle bags vs soft sided suitcases

[ProudGrandma]

Just curious to your preference when I comes to car/van/SUV traveling. (Not plane).  And why do you prefer one or the other?  The reason I am asking is we might be taking a trip with  college age students and adults in an Suburban (7 bodies total..all boys except 2...me and my daughter) and space will be tight.  We do have access to a car top carrier and a cargo carrier for the back of our vehicle.  We all currently have smaller soft sided suitcases (the size that is acceptable for carry on in an airplane), which we normally use on our trips...but we are adding 2 college kids on this trip so I didn't know if getting  duffle bags might buy us some space or not. Or maybe it won't matter....

thoughts on this please!

Thanks. 

[Miss Tick]

I like duffle bags for car camping and suitcases for hotel stops. If the car top carrier is soft, duffles would be better and easier to cinch down. If it is a hard carrier I think suitcases would be easier to retrieve store and retrieve.

The suitcases are easier to haul through an airport, but the handles and wheels can make them tricky to pack into a car or carrier.

[Ali in OR]

As our kids were growing up, the only suitcases they had were LLBean duffles. Great for camping, nice to smoosh and cram into weird spaces around a wheelchair in the car. Then as teens they started majorly complaining when they had to carry them through airports (not a frequent event here), and they got rolling carry-on suitcases for Christmas a couple of years ago. Much better for airports. But when college kid came home at the beginning of shelter-in-place in March, her university told students to "not pack light" for spring break. She took her backpack and old LLBean duffle because she could cram more in it.

[J-rap]

We generally had duffle bags for car trips, and rolling suitcases for plane rides.  We were 7 too, and space was always very tight!

[Arcadia]

Duffle bags are more versatile than soft sided suitcases for road trips for us. If we run out of space in our car trunk, we can squash our duffle bags easily between rows of seats and just put our socked feet on the duffle bags if necessary.

[kirstenhill]

Duffle bags for car travel and especially for car camping - you can smoosh them into weird spaces if you are short on space (under back seat in minivan, etc). We bought cheap ones at ikea for this purpose, and have nice rolling suitcases for air travel. 

[PeterPan]

Target has rolling duffles. And yes, agree that for a car trip I'd want duffles. Much easier to squish. And tell people to pack light. People almost always overpack. Give lists or they pack and then reduce by ⅓. Turn it into a contest, challenging each other to see how low they can go. You can find videos about packing on youtube. 

Just for your trivia, packing cubes win in packing contests on youtube. Sometimes you can find a deal on amazon. LOVE packing cubes.

[Miss Tick]

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Just for your trivia, packing cubes win in packing contests on youtube. Sometimes you can find a deal on amazon. LOVE packing cubes.

Is this because it is easier to compress each cube than to compress the entire bag in one go?

[PeterPan]

3 minutes ago, SusanC said:

Is this because it is easier to compress each cube than to compress the entire bag in one go?

Check out the video. Same stuff, three ways. Packing cubes reign.  Besides, they make it SO much easier when you actually get there. You can have people's stuff packed by day, by use (overnight hotel, at the lodge, whatever) and it makes it so easy to get at what you need, unpack, repack, move on to the next stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACHIVqpef6U

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by PeterPan

[ProudGrandma]

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Target has rolling duffles. And yes, agree that for a car trip I'd want duffles. Much easier to squish. And tell people to pack light. People almost always overpack. Give lists or they pack and then reduce by ⅓. Turn it into a contest, challenging each other to see how low they can go. You can find videos about packing on youtube. 

Just for your trivia, packing cubes win in packing contests on youtube. Sometimes you can find a deal on amazon. LOVE packing cubes.

we have packing cubes....but sort of forget to use them...I will drag those out again.  Good idea. 

[PeterPan]

7 minutes ago, kfeusse said:

we have packing cubes....but sort of forget to use them...I will drag those out again.  Good idea. 

I use them every time I travel with ds. All his bedtime stuff in a cube. Swim stuff in a cube. Clothes in a cube. Then you don't have things flying all over. Just pull out the cube you need in the hotel, get the stuff out, and it all goes back. I've used cubes for short trips (1-2 nights) with a small bag and I've used them for long trips. 

So it can take a little teaching, but the tidying effect of them alone is worth it. 

I also take along collapsible hampers (dollar tree), collapsible bins for toiletries and personal items (dollar tree), and a large foldable laundry bag. I *fold* my laundry before putting it back in the bag, so as my cubes empty the laundry bag fills, leaving me plenty of room for stuff I find on my adventures.

Can't imagine all that X7. 

PS. My dd is a walking disaster when she travels, exploding her duffle everywhere. Good luck. 

Edited September 8, 2020 by PeterPan