Amazon Basics 4 Piece Packing Cube Set: 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 Amazon Basics bags are made from a nylon that feels cheap, and we weren’t satisfied with the stitching quality, either.
Away The Insider Packing Cubes: Having deeper walls than most packing cubes, these Away bags resemble very minimalist bricks. Each one has one large viewing window, made of a fine weave mesh, and YKK zippers. Although they used to be more expensive than the Eagle Creek Pack-it Reveal set we recommend, they are now cheaper, and you get four cubes in the Away set instead of three. We plan to test them again against the new version of the Eagle Creek cubes.
Bagail 6 Set Packing Cubes (and the nearly identical Veken 6 Set Packing Cubes, Bago 4 Set Packing Cubes for Travel, TravelWise 5-Piece Packing Cube Set, and Shacke Pak 5 Set Packing Cubes): 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 all have similar problems: 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 Isolate Compression Cube Set: Like all Eagle Creek gear, this pair of cubes are well constructed, but we prefer the fully zippered design of our REI compression pick, which are also a little more rigid and easy to pack.
GoRuck Packing Cubes: This packing cube splits down the middle and reveals two sides, both of which have mesh panels for viewing and keeping things separated. Like all of these brand-specific designs, this one fits very snugly in the bag it’s made for. However, at the time we tested it, a single medium-size cube cost $45, and you’d need about four to fill the basic GoRuck GR1. It’s since dropped in price to $25 (a smaller size costs $15), and we plan to test it again soon.
Peak Design 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. It’s not a bad cube per se, but it’s heavy, overly fussy, and expensive compared with our current picks.
PKG Union Compression Packing Cubes: These compression cubes are more expensive than our top-pick compression cubes for a set of three.
Topo Designs Pack Bag 10L Cube: This cube is made of the same high-denier nylon as most of Topo Design’s gear, so if you already have a bag from the company, this cube would nicely match. It’s well made and very strong, but it lacks a mesh viewing panel.
Trakke Foulden Packing Cubes: If you aren’t worried about price and need a very strong and waterproof packing cube, these are a great option. But at $95, plus shipping costs from the UK, these packing cubes are a stretch for most travelers.
Travelpro Essentials Packing Cube Set: For about $35, 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 similarly lightweight Eagle Creek Isolate set.
Yeti Crossroads Packing Cubes: These well-made, expandable cubes are surprisingly inexpensive for a famously “premium” company, but they’re quite a bit more expensive than the REI Co-op Expandable Packing Cube Set (a single large Yeti cube costs $35, compared with about $45 for the entire REI Co-op set).
