After years of unsatisfactory tradeoffs, the luggage manufacturers may finally have found the right mix of features, at least for me: softsided bags, with sturdy wheels on a wide base, fitted with rigid handles that mount along the bag bases and telescope out to about two feet in the pulling mode. I can’t recommend any individual brand until the Consumer Reports labs do a thorough test and run some current samples through their durability paces. But my last trip showed me that the basic design principle works.
I’ve been traveling on my own since I first left home for college, more than 50 years ago, and have tried just about everything: softside, hardside; lightweight, heavy; wheeled or not; backpacks; the works. Until now, nothing has really solved all the problems.
For a while, I used a set of hardsided suitcases made of reinforced plastic. They were built by a manufacturer that made military-supply boxes designed to withstand low-level airdrops without parachutes. Those cases were surely sturdy. But I also often worried that they’d exceed the weight limit even before I put any of my stuff into them.
More recently, I tried out a set of softsided bags with wheels, of an earlier design. Some bags in that set had short pull-up handles, while others used the shoulder strap as a pull; the wheel bases were narrow. Although those bags were lightweight, I found that pulling them by their short handles or straps was clumsy and difficult, and the narrow wheel base made them tippy.
I’ve also tried hardsided bags with telescoping handles. That design solved the handling problem: The wheeling was easy. But hardsided means heavy, and it also means that you can’t easily cram that “just one more” item into a full case. The newer designs–combining good handling in the wheeling mode, light weight, and flexibility–seem to provide the best compromise.
But even the best current designs of wheeled bags have one problem: While you can wheel them through most situations, you still occasionally have to lift them. And it’s all too easy to forget that a good set of wheels can’t always compensate for the weight. You can load even a lightweight softsided bag so heavily that those lifts can tax your physical strength to the limit.
On that recent trip (to France), I used my biggest wheeled bag (I have several sizes), filled with about 30 pounds of stuff. Pulling it along was easy–through the airport, into our rented apartment, along train platforms. But getting on the TGV high-speed train, I first had to lift the bag from the platform onto the train vestibule–a lift of a foot or so–then lift it again to a baggage rack at least three feet off the floor. Fortunately, I’m still agile enough to lift a 30-pound bag, but I’ve seen plenty of travelers who obviously couldn’t manage that much weight.
And lifting can often be even more strenuous. On some trains, the only available baggage space is an overhead rack–and I’ve watched many travelers struggling to stash a really hefty bag in one of those racks. I also passed through several stations with no ramps or escalators, where I had to carry my bag up or down a long flight of stairs.
Clearly, the best solution for any trip is to minimize the total size and weight of my baggage. Just about any luggage design works in a small-enough size, with a light-enough load. But when I have to carry enough clothing for a trip of a week or two–with a mix of formal and casual, through substantially different climates, with extra shoes in case of snow or slush–plus a load of books and papers, weight is a reality I have to accept. In those circumstances, I’ve found that the softsided bag with wide-base wheels and a rigid, extensible handle is the best solution so far.
