Packing light has never been a skill of mine, but when it is the difference between spending an extra £50 on baggage allowance, then waiting for it to appear on that carousel at the end of a flight it’s something I can manage! My task has been made even easier too with the arrival of my new Cabin Zero on Facebook bag.
Available in a range of sizes – all fitting in cabin bag allowances- these super sturdy bags are well designed, well made and make packing a lot of stuff a breeze! I used mine when I went to Israel in October and it made life so much easier! Normally when I travel with cabin baggage only I take a wheeled suitcase, but of course then the wheels and handle mechanism take up a lot of the space, and adds to the weight before you’ve even packed it! Not the case with this bag – I managed to fit everything I needed into it for a week away:
Laptop, Camera, GoPro, chargers and spare batteries, toiletries,a book, a pair of trainers, clothes for me for a week, including 2 swimming costumes plus a notepad & pen! Impressive no?
I used packing cubes (I already had some of my own but CabinZero do sell them too) to keep everything organised, then packed the larger ones at the bottom and filled up from there! My laptop went in the pocket at the back to keep it safe and secure, and all my small bits and bobs went in the front zipped section. I tell you what – when the Israeli airport security pulled apart my bags to investigate everything in my bag, swab it and scan it a few times it made life so much easier knowing it wasn’t going to be a struggle to repack in a hurry! Not sure why they flagged me as a suspicious person though!
I love this design, it’s a bright mustard colour (officially called orange chill) with lots of flags stitched on the front, as well as the Cabin Zero logo. You can carry it on your back or using the top or side handles, which are nice and padded just like the shoulder straps. The shoulder straps are shaped for comfort, though hopefully in future additions they will add a chest strap that can be clicked together at the front for extra security/comfort on your shoulders. There are two straps you can use to to compress your bag if you need to make it even smaller. I won’t lie and say the bag was weightless once it was full up, but I didn’t have any problems lugging it around the airport terminals on my back, and I’m a fairly short person, at 5’2!
The zip pocket on the front is great for keeping things like your phone, passport and travel paperwork to hand, and on the inside there is a pocket at the back to fit a laptop, and a smaller mesh pocket for anything else you need to keep handy. All the zippers are lockable with a padlock too.
Other features that come as standard are the Okoban luggage tags, which mean once you register your bag with Okoban if it gets lost or stolen you should be able to track it down, pretty awesome! Another great feature is the 10 year warranty, which is automatically upgraded to 25 years if you like Cabin Zero on Facebook! Oh, it’s also water resistant too, so no worrying about getting caught in a shower and arriving with damp clothes!
We used it last weekend when we went away for two night, and both the kids clothes, my clothes and all our toiletries for a whole weekend fit inside! I am a firm believer of rolling clothes too, it means they’re less creased and I am convinced they take up less space when they’re rolled too!
I’m so impressed with the design of the bag and of the huge range of styles and colours it’s available in. Definitely a better alternative to a wheely suitcase, and useful for so much more than flying, though I will be taking it to Scotland with me in January as it meets the easyjet hand luggage restrictions! Take a look at the full range on the Cabin Zero website.