Topics
Shortlists and guides for travelling light: packing cubes and suitcase organisers, backpacks that fit airline cabin limits, and how to choose the size and layout that suits the way you actually pack.
Comparison · Travel
A 30-litre backpack cut to easyJet's free-bag size, or a 40-litre soft duffle at half a kilo with a 30-year warranty. On a train or in a car the holdall is the nicer bag. On a budget airline the backpack is the one that flies free — and the holdall, at 24 to 26 cm on its smallest side, is a sizer gamble even as a paid bag. How you travel decides it.
Shortlist · Travel
A cabin backpack is bought by the centimetre, not the litre. Ryanair and Wizz Air give you 40 × 30 × 20 cm for nothing, easyJet 45 × 36 × 20, and anything bigger is a paid bag on all of them. Six backpacks that map onto those numbers — from a 0.38 kg rucksack to a 40-litre pack with a hip belt — and which trip length each one honestly covers.
Review · Travel
The Metz 20L was cut to Ryanair's old free-bag size, 40 × 20 × 25 cm, and hundreds of thousands of them have gone under seats. Ryanair's free size is now 40 × 30 × 20. The bag still passes — on its side — but a 24-litre bag now flies free for the same nothing. This review is about what the Metz 20L still does well, what it gives up, and who should buy the newer shape instead.
Guide · Travel
Cabin backpacks are bought by the centimetre. Ryanair and Wizz Air give you 40 × 30 × 20 cm for nothing, easyJet 45 × 36 × 20, and everything above that is a paid bag on all of them. This guide explains the rules, why the Ryanair bag changed shape, whether handles count, and how a clamshell opening differs from a top-loader — so the bag you buy is the one your airline lets on.
Shortlist · Travel
Packing cubes are mostly the same idea in different fabric: a zipped rectangle that turns a heap of clothes into a brick. The differences that matter are whether the cube has a second zip that compresses the brick, whether you can see into it, and whether its largest size fits flat in a 40 × 30 × 20 cabin bag. Four sets compared on exactly those things.
