Packing cubes- Easy and convenient packing!
What is a packing cube?
Packing cubes or bags are lightweight containers that you can use to organize your clothes and are a really useful tool when you are traveling. They make your suitcase look really neat and tidy and it stops suitcase mayhem when everyone’s clothes start getting mixed up. It also makes it easier and quicker to get dressed in the morning. Last but not least, if your suitcase is overweight it makes moving things between suitcases easier..
There are several packing bags on the market. Some are really expensive, but claim they are durable and will last a long time. However, as a family of 5, buying a set of packing bags was never going to happen unless I could find something really affordable.
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What packing cube did we use?
Hello, Ikea! Ikea sell a pack of four for $10 Australian. I bought each family member their own set.
It comes with a normal packing cube, a double sided cube, a small cube, and a shoe bag.
To give you an idea of how we did it. I used the double sided cube to store short sleeves on one side and long sleeves on the other. I used the normal cube for all short, leggings, pants. The small cube was filled with underwear and undershirts while the shoebag was filled swimsuits, pajamas, thermals, and spare clothes.
What if a suitcase goes missing?
As we always travel with two suitcases, I make sure that we all have some clothes in each suitcase. With the packing cubes, I would keep the spare clothes in the shoebag and made sure they were in the opposite suitcase to the other clothes.
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What about dirty clothes?
We kept all the dirty clothes in plastic or supermarket bags until we were able to wash them. Putting away the clothes after doing the laundry was super easy though
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Any issues?
Size
One problem was my husband’s shirts and pants took up too much space in the cubes, so we only used them for his undergarments and socks. We then took one of his spare cubes and used it to store the girls socks. While this may sound inconvenient, it wasn’t really because it wasn’t his clothes causing chaos in the suitcase. All my clothes all fit quite comfortably.
Color
Also, as there are only two colors in the Ikea packing cubes, I slipped short colored ribbons on the zippers, so we could quickly recognize our cubes..
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Were they durable?
We used our cubes daily while we traveled for eight months. They functioned like a closet in our suitcases and they lasted. No rips or tears or broken zips- which was surprising because by the end of the trip not only were they FULL, but they had been squished, sat on, and thrown around! They were fantastic and I won’t ever travel without them again. If you are unsure, I would take the plunge and give it a go!
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