We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more›
We’re currently testing a few new candidates for this guide: an ultra-durable option from Patagonia, an “up-cycled” set from B-corp Cotopaxi, and a set of packing cubes for your bike pannier.
In your travels, as in life overall, a bit of organization up front can save you time and reduce frustration down the road. Enter the packing cube, a simple bag (usually fabric and mesh) that tidily zips away your clutter. After testing 18 sets of popular packing cubes over four years, we still think the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set is the best choice for most travelers, due to its simple yet functional design and excellent build quality.
Simple and solidly constructed, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set keeps your bag organized while you’re traveling.
May be out of stock
*At the time of publishing, the price was $28.
The three-piece Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set keeps a week’s worth of clothes organized and moves easily from suitcase to hotel dresser. The full-size cube is great for shirts, shorts, and insulating layers. The half-cube and quarter-cube are perfect for underwear, socks, and other thin fabrics, such as stockings or sleepwear. These cubes are made of 300-denier polyester (a strong fabric) and stay upright when empty, so they’re easy to pack. The Pack-It cubes’ windows are made of the tightest mesh link we tested—better for resisting snags—and the smooth zippers close easily around all corners, even when a cube is overstuffed. We also like that these cubes open all the way, so you can easily access everything inside if you place them in a drawer. Pack-It cubes are available in black, blue, red, and occasionally a few limited-edition prints. (A new owner bought Eagle Creek after it temporarily shut down; so far, we’ve seen no changes in the company’s products that would make us reconsider our recommendations.)
These cubes have the same shape as the Pack-It Original cubes, but they weigh half as much due to their lighter materials.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $40.
The Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech Cube Set is a good, ultralight packing-cubes set that weighs half as much as our other picks. Like Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Original Cube Set, the Specter Tech set includes three cubes—extra-small, small, and medium. A medium Specter Tech Cube weighs less than 2 ounces; the same-size Eagle Creek Pack-It cube weighs about 4 ounces. The Specter Tech set’s translucent, 30-denier ripstop nylon exterior looks fragile, but it holds up well over time. It’s both tear- and water-resistant, and we’ve used the original version of these cubes for four years now with no issues. Aside from these cubes’ higher price, the only trade-off is that the thin sides mean the cubes can’t stand up on their own, which makes them more difficult to pack.
These cubes hold the most of any set we tested—in the smallest amount of space. The zippered compression panel can be tricky to operate, though.
The REI Co-op Expandable Packing Cube Set (which includes three cubes: a large, a full-size, and a half-size) holds more than our other picks, but it takes up the least amount of space in your suitcase when fully compressed. This set’s compression system, however, can be a little fiddly to use. To compress the cube, you press down on it and then close the compression zipper. This squeezes the cube down to half its size, but it takes some practice to work smoothly. Like the Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech cubes, these cubes are made of lightweight, tear-resistant ripstop nylon. They’re a touch lighter than the Pack-It Original cubes, but not as lightweight as the Specter Techs. Unlike the Pack-It Original cubes, this REI set does not have a mesh window to let you see what’s inside.
Simple and solidly constructed, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set keeps your bag organized while you’re traveling.
May be out of stock
*At the time of publishing, the price was $28.
These cubes have the same shape as the Pack-It Original cubes, but they weigh half as much due to their lighter materials.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $40.
These cubes hold the most of any set we tested—in the smallest amount of space. The zippered compression panel can be tricky to operate, though.
Kit Dillon has covered luggage and travel gear for Wirecutter for over six years. In that time, he’s criss-crossed the country and three continents, and has held, tested, and compared hundreds of different bags over the years. Since he first traveled with packing cubes many years ago, he’s become obsessed with them, and they are the only packing essential he absolutely recommends to anyone who asks.
Jack Chance is a journalist and filmmaker who frequently travels with too much gear that needs to stay organized. Packing cubes have become one of those key items he doesn’t leave behind. In researching this guide, he also spoke with several regular business travelers about the features of their favorite packing cubes and why they use them.
Packing cubes are small bags that hold and organize your clothes within your luggage. If you imagine your suitcase as a dresser, you can think of packing cubes as individual drawers: All of your underwear and socks in one container, all of your shirts in another, and your workout clothes in yet another. Pull out only the cube you need so that the rest of your suitcase stays organized. Similarly, when airline security determines that there’s a situation among your socks that requires further scrutiny, it can pull out a couple of tidy packing cubes from your luggage, instead of creating heaps of textile carnage at the checkpoint.
If you imagine your suitcase as a dresser, you can think of packing cubes as individual drawers.
Regular business travelers likely already own a few packing cubes. But these are also lightweight enough for backpackers, daytrippers, and weekend road warriors. If you’re the type who needs to repack frequently, wants to speed up an airline security search, or wants to keep groups of items separated, you’ll find packing cubes useful. Very organized packers will also appreciate the tidiness of these bags. Anyone traveling in groups (like parents who want to keep the kids’ and the adults’ clothes separated) will also appreciate that these color-coded bags will allow them to separate their clothes within shared luggage.
Over the past four years, we’ve traveled with multiple packing-cube sets. We paid close attention to construction, material quality, ease of use, and value to determine what you need from these while you’re on a trip. Those are the qualities we considered most important when we were choosing which of the dozens of available packing cubes (on Amazon and elsewhere) to test. And when we tested the 18 sets, we focused on:
Because most packing cubes have the same basic design, our testing process came down to assessing build quality and practical, real-world use. Over the years of testing, we’ve packed for overnight work trips, long-haul flights, and multi-tour city trips. In that time, we’ve made notes as zippers stuck or mesh snagged or when obstructed visibility slowed down the process of finding a particular item.
Though we’ve tested all of the sizes included in each set while traveling, most of our controlled tests were performed on the medium size (approximately 10 by 14 by 3 inches). Into each of these medium cubes we packed things that anyone might bring on a typical weekend away: a rain jacket, two T-shirts, two pairs each of socks and boxer shorts, two polo shirts, a thin fleece pullover, and a small travel towel. When overstuffing to test seams and zippers, we added a lightweight down jacket and a pair of jeans.
Simple and solidly constructed, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set keeps your bag organized while you’re traveling.
May be out of stock
*At the time of publishing, the price was $28.
Eagle Creek is the company that popularized packing cubes, and despite the recent proliferation of some more-affordable competition, the company still makes the best all-around cubes. The Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set doesn’t have any frills, but overall, every aspect of this set feels a bit nicer compared with the competition.
Solidly built from quality materials, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original cubes (a set includes a full bag, a half-bag, and a quarter-bag, roughly equivalent to a medium, small, and extra-small bag) are made to take years of abuse on the road. In particular, their mesh weave is finer than that of any of the other cubes we tested, and so it is less likely to snag or tear as the cubes get tossed around by an indifferent TSA agent. On the top panel, fabric is placed toward the sides, with mesh in the center, keeping contents visible and reducing zipper strain on the seams. This is especially beneficial at the corners, since it will prevent the zipper from getting stuck and should help these cubes last a long time.
The Pack-It Original cubes are made of 300-denier polyester micro-weave fabric (denier is a measure of the fiber thickness of individual strands in fabric; the higher the denier number, the stronger the fabric). The fabric is stiff enough to hold its shape, which makes these cubes easier to pack and to zip once they are full. A medium, 12-liter cube weighs 4 ounces empty—right in line with other cubes we tested. The zippers themselves felt solid and easily rounded the corners without getting hung up—even when we overstuffed the cubes.
We’ve owned previous generations of the Pack-It cube, with logos from decades past, and those cubes still look as good as new. But should anything go wrong, Eagle Creek offers a lifetime warranty.
We haven’t found any flaws with these cubes after several years of long-term testing, but if you notice any, please let us know in the comments.
Wirecutter editor Tracy Vence reported, “I’ve used the Eagle Creek packing cubes at least once a month for the last seven years. They’ve held up beautifully—no issues with the zippers, netting, etc. Really, they’re just great.” Another of our editors, Tim Barribeau, said, “We’ve had the Eagle Creeks for years, and they’re great. Use them all the time, and they’ve given us no drama, even when sometimes aggressively overstuffed.” Senior staff writer Chris Heinonen concurred: “I have a set of 15-year-old, or so, Eagle Creek cubes that are still great.”
Supervising editor Winnie Yang and her husband have been using both our main pick and our upgrade pick, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech Cube Set: “We had the Specter picks first and now also have the Original in the largest size. I use the Original cubes to separate stuff by person, because it’s easy enough to identify what I’m looking for through the window. The Specter I like for packing by item type, assuming I remember what I put where. I already know what’s going to be inside, and I can easily identify which cube I need to grab from a larger suitcase by what color it is (we have orange, white, blue, and yellow). The Originals are well constructed and zip easily because of the thicker-gauge material. I find that the Specter material can sometimes get caught in the zipper because it’s so lightweight. They get used about once a month and are all in great shape—even the Specters, which have been through the wash.”
These cubes have the same shape as the Pack-It Original cubes, but they weigh half as much due to their lighter materials.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $40.
If you want the organizational benefits of packing cubes, but you also want to add the least possible weight to your suitcase, the Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech Cube Set is a great choice. These weigh about half as much as regular Pack-It cubes of the same capacity (1.8 ounces, versus 4 ounces for a medium, 12-liter cube) because they’re made of a 30-denier ripstop nylon material that’s tear- and water-resistant. Similar to the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original set, these bags come as a set of three bags, in medium, small, and extra-small sizes. Whereas our other picks take up about the same packing volume as a balled-up pair of boxers, these compress down to the size of a single ankle sock. There’s no mesh, but the exterior is translucent enough to see what’s inside. However, they are a little trickier to use than our top pick since they’re unable to stand up on their own while you’re packing them.
We’ve used the original Specter cubes on dozens of trips over the past two years now, so we know the fabrics hold up over time. But the new Specter Tech line is a huge improvement over the older design, because you no longer have to choose between saving weight and easy packability. The old design had a half-length zipper that kept the cube from opening all the way. Packing them felt more like loading a stuff sack than a packing cube, and they were a poor choice for folded clothes. The new Specter Tech cubes open all the way—just like the Pack-It Original cubes—because the zipper extends across three sides.
However, they’re at about a 50 percent–per–cube price premium over the cost of the Pack-It Original cubes, so you have to really want the weight savings to justify the cost. Also, the material is light, but it doesn’t stand up on its own, which gets a little irritating while packing. Specter Tech cubes can stand up well enough with a few shirts layered in, but the Original cubes’ walls allow those cubes to stand up while empty.
These cubes hold the most of any set we tested—in the smallest amount of space. The zippered compression panel can be tricky to operate, though.
The REI Co-op Expandable Packing Cube Set (which includes three cubes: large, medium, and small) has the most capacity of any set of packing cubes we tested, but it can compress down to take up the least amount of space in a suitcase. The compression system, which squeezes down the cube, can be a little awkward to operate, though.
Unlike regular packing cubes, which have a single zipper around the lid, the REI Co-op set has two sets of zippers: one around the lid and one around the middle of the bag itself. Unzipping this middle zipper expands the walls of the cube. Once the cube is packed, you can compress the bag down by closing the middle zipper.
Although this compression system does work, figuring out how to pack these cubes without overstuffing them takes a bit of practice. If you overpack or pack these unevenly, after you zip the compression panel shut, you may end up with something shaped more like a football than a traditional cube. When they’re properly packed, though, you’ll see that you can pack about a third more in the compressed REI Co-op cube set than in the Eagle Creek Pack-It Original Cube Set.
During testing, I found that I often stopped using the compression zipper unless I really needed to. For the most part, the feature seemed like a nice extra for when I was running out of space in my luggage, rather than something I always relied on.
The REI Co-op cubes are well built. Like the Specter Tech cubes, the REI cubes are made of ripstop nylon. The ripstop fabric is a little thinner, a little lighter, and a little more resistant to tears than the Eagle Creek polyester (although Eagle Creek’s 300-denier polyester is also strong enough for most people’s needs).
These cubes weigh a little bit less than the Eagle Creek Pack-It cubes, but the difference in weight is negligible. A large REI cube (14 by 10 by 6.25 inches) weighs about an ounce less than the nearly equivalently sized Eagle Creek Medium Pack-It cube (14 by 10 by 3 inches), but it weighs nearly 2 ounces more than our ultralight pick. Similar to Eagle Creek, REI backs its gear with a lifetime guarantee, which we’ve found is well honored.
Sometimes the luggage brands we recommend (including Away, Topo, Travelpro, GoRuck, and Peak Design) make their own packing cubes. Is it necessary to match your packing cubes to your bag? No. We think that the packing cubes we chose will fit well in a variety of bags and transfer easily between them. However, if you’re dedicated to a specific brand or design, you may prefer to have cubes that are sized to fit perfectly within the relevant brand’s bags. You can read more about the packing cubes from the brands that make our carry-on luggage and travel pack picks in the Competition section, below.
AmazonBasics Packing Cubes: These cubes stand out most for their inexpensive price, but the amount you save isn’t worth the drop in quality compared with our other picks. The AmazonBasics bags are made from a nylon that feels cheap, and we weren’t satisfied with the poor stitching quality, either. You do, however, get four cubes in this set, instead of three.
Away Packing Cubes: Having deeper walls than most packing cubes, these Away bags resemble very minimalist bricks. They have one large viewing window, made of a fine weave mesh, and YKK zippers. They’re quite nice, if a bit expensive—about $20 more per set than our top pick. But you do get four cubes in the Away set, instead of three, as in the Eagle Creek sets. However, if you already have Away luggage, these could be worth buying; they fit into Away’s suitcases exceptionally well, like a fun bento puzzle.
Bagail 6 Set Packing Cubes and the nearly identical Veken 6 Set Packing Cubes, Bago 4 Piece Packing Cube Set, TravelWise Packing Cube System, Shacke Pak: All of these sets, found on Amazon, are made from similarly cheap-feeling panels of thick nylon or ripstop and ornately separated strips of mesh. They come in sets of four to six bags, but even though you get more bags than you do with our picks, they’re not as well made. They all have similar issues: Their zippers tend to snag, they come with no trustworthy warranty, the fabric feels chintzy in your hands, and the panel stitching seems rushed and uneven. There are much better sets available.
Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Specter Compression Cubes: Unlike our compression pick from REI, these unzip only about halfway, so packing each bag is difficult, and that means you end up pushing clothes into your bag rather than carefully erecting the bag around your clothes. Like all Eagle Creek gear, these cubes are well made, but we prefer the fully zippered design of our compression pick.
eBags Classic Packing Cubes: We found these bags, a former runner-up pick, difficult to pack during repeated use over our long-term testing. The combination of reinforced seams and ultralight material is a strange mix: Although the reinforcement makes the ultralight material stand up, so it’s easier to pack, this set wasn’t as easy to pack as our top pick, nor as pliable as our ultralight pick.
GoRuck Packing Cube: This packing cube is very well made, but it comes at a premium price—$45 for a single medium-size cube. The cube itself splits down the middle and reveals two sides, both of which have mesh panels for viewing and keeping things separated. Like all of these bespoke designs, this one fits very snugly in the bag it’s made for, though you need about four to fill the basic GoRuck GR1.
IKEA Förfina: These ultralight bags from IKEA are some of the least expensive we tested, but the construction and materials of the bags felt flimsy.
Peak Design’s Packing Cube: This stylish choice has unusual “tear away” dual zippers, for one-handed opening (like peeling back the lid on a can of sardines), and compression zippers. Each cube has four separate YKK zippers, plus extra compression netting and a barrier between the two compartments, pushing the weight of the medium version to just over 5 ounces. The price for that size is $40—about what you’d pay for the whole Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Tech Cube Set. (The Peak Design’s smaller size costs $30.) Similar to the Specter set, this ultralight cube can sometimes be a struggle to pack because it lacks the stability and rigidity of more-standard cube designs. That said, the small and medium cubes fit together snugly into the 45-liter Peak Design Travel Backpack (for more information, see our guide to carry-on travel backpacks), so if you’re already committed to the Peak Design ecosystem, you may be very happy with these cubes.
Topo Pack Bag Cube: The Topo cube, made of the same high-denier nylon of most of Topo’s gear, fits the aesthetic of all of Topo’s gear. It’s well made and very strong, but it lacks a mesh viewing panel, if you like that feature. It’s also expensive. A single cube costs $20 for a small, 5-liter bag and $25 for a medium, 10-liter bag.
Travelpro Essentials Packing Cube Set: These cubes are made of lightweight polyester, with a small strip of mesh paneling, so you can see what’s inside. For $40 you get a set of three, and they fit well inside Travelpro’s carry-on suitcase. However, for the price and build quality, we found that these didn’t compare as well as our top pick. The trim around the zippers tended to catch, and the lightweight material made them slightly more difficult to pack than the Specter Tech set.
Kit Dillon is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. He was previously an app developer, oil derrick inspector, public-radio archivist, and sandwich shop owner. He has written for Popular Science, The Awl, and the New York Observer, among others. When called on, he can still make a mean sandwich.
by Nick Guy and Ganda Suthivarakom
You can send us a note too.
© 2022 Wirecutter, Inc., A New York Times Company