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After a new round of testing, the updated version of the Travelpro Platinum Elite continues to be our top pick. Heavy Duty Block And Tackle
We’ve also added the Away Bigger Carry-On, the Travelpro Maxlite 5 21″ Carry-On Spinner, the Carl Friedrik Carry-On, and the Yeti Crossroads 22″/35L Wheeled Luggage to our picks.
Traveling well is not always easy. Keeping your suitcase with you when you fly not only protects your belongings from loss or damage but may help you avoid extra fees as well.
If you decide to do so, you need a good carry-on bag.
Over the past 10 years, we’ve handled, tested, and traveled with 67 bags from more than 35 brands, and we remain convinced that the Travelpro Platinum Elite offers the best balance of value and quality for most travelers. It packs five days’ worth of clothes into standard US carry-on dimensions1 and has premium touches you might expect from a $600 bag at about half the price. It’s a bag that you can rely on for life, even if it’s damaged by airlines—a rarity at any price.
This spinner carry-on offers the best balance of size, value, reliability, and durability, plus high-end details. It’s backed by a lifetime warranty.
This two-wheeled carry-on bag isn’t as maneuverable, but it offers slightly more space, a garment folder, and larger, more durable wheels.
This great-looking and relatively resilient piece of hard-sided luggage has top-of-the-line components—including wheels as smooth-rolling as any we’ve tested.
With more capacity than Away’s standard carry-on, this suitcase is sized appropriately for most flights. On smaller planes, though, you may get gate-checked.
Remarkably well priced for a reputable brand, this is an ideal lightweight pick and provides many features of luggage costing nearly twice as much.
This carry-on bag offers superlative build quality, plenty of expandable room, and a uniquely effective compression system. It’s a buy-it-for-life suitcase.
If you’re willing to give up maneuverability for more space and bigger wheels, this is also a great option.
Luxury touches and a strong polycarbonate and aluminum design give this bag a standout look with exceptional feel and performance. It does cost nearly $200 more than the comparably sized Away bag, though.
A polycarbonate back and rugged wheels make this design suited for rougher travel over difficult surfaces. However, it has a limited warranty, and it’s somewhat unwieldy to handle.
Four-wheel bags, aka spinners, are easier to maneuver down tight airplane aisles, but two-wheel bags will always be more durable.
Hard-sided looks better to most people, but soft-sided luggage withstands the bumps and knocks of travel for longer.
Plenty of reputable brands offer lifetime warranties; it’s generally worth paying a little extra for the peace of mind.
Depending on where you travel, you might need to look for specialty luggage sizes.
We’ve also included picks that stood out for their form and individual functionality: an upgrade with best-in-class compression, a pick made of polycarbonate, an upgraded hard-sided case with latch closures and an aluminum frame, a rolling soft-top hybrid, and a budget pick that’s also the best ultra-light suitcase we can find.
This spinner carry-on offers the best balance of size, value, reliability, and durability, plus high-end details. It’s backed by a lifetime warranty.
This two-wheeled carry-on bag isn’t as maneuverable, but it offers slightly more space, a garment folder, and larger, more durable wheels.
Travelpro’s Platinum Elite line of luggage is still our top pick after 10 years of testing. It addresses the concerns of most travelers for an affordable price while offering the best warranty against potential airline damage in the industry (as long as you register the luggage within 120 days of purchase, which you can do in minutes).
The Platinum Elite features smooth-rolling, replaceable wheels, as well as solid and comfortable telescoping handles and a hard-wearing nylon exterior propped up by a solid internal chassis. Travelpro also provides a full catalog of other replaceable parts. Instead of chasing the smart-bag moment, Travelpro added an exterior pocket with a USB pass-through extension that lets you insert your own battery pack for charging your phone. And weighing less than 8 pounds when empty, the Platinum Elite is dead in the center of average weight for bags this size.
This great-looking and relatively resilient piece of hard-sided luggage has top-of-the-line components—including wheels as smooth-rolling as any we’ve tested.
With more capacity than Away’s standard carry-on, this suitcase is sized appropriately for most flights. On smaller planes, though, you may get gate-checked.
In our view, soft-sided luggage lasts longer and shows less wear, but if you prefer the look of a hard-sided bag, Away’s The Carry-On is our choice. Like our other picks, this bag stands out for its high-end components: YKK zippers, smooth-running wheels, and a well-braced handle. Its strong but flexible polycarbonate shell shows scratches—however, after seven years of using the Away Carry-On, our testers have found that it is capable of enduring most of the trials of travel with fewer knocks than other similar models we’ve tested.
Away also makes a slightly larger version of the same model: The Bigger Carry-On. It conforms to carry-on size for most major airliners, but you might be asked to gate-check it on smaller planes.
Similar to our soft-sided picks, this Away bag is backed by a limited lifetime warranty. And though the coverage doesn’t explicitly protect against airline damage, it does apply to any damage that an airline could possibly dish out—specifically, but not limited to, the shell cracking or wheels breaking off.
Remarkably well priced for a reputable brand, this is an ideal lightweight pick and provides many features of luggage costing nearly twice as much.
Some companies have tried to shave off a few pounds from their standard luggage designs to make so-called ultra-light luggage. The Travelpro Maxlite 5 21″ Carry-On Spinner is the best of these bags we’ve seen, and it comes with the pedigree of our top pick but not quite as strong a warranty.
The Maxlite 5 is just over 2 pounds lighter than our top pick—that’s the weight of two or three pairs of jeans. It’s not a huge difference, but if you have trouble lifting luggage over your head and prefer an easier-to-manage suitcase, the Maxlite 5 may be your choice. This bag is also the best one we’ve found under $200, with almost all the benefits of luggage nearly twice the price.
This carry-on bag offers superlative build quality, plenty of expandable room, and a uniquely effective compression system. It’s a buy-it-for-life suitcase.
If you’re willing to give up maneuverability for more space and bigger wheels, this is also a great option.
For the more frequent flyer who is willing to invest in a higher-quality bag, we recommend the Briggs & Riley Baseline Essential Carry-On. Every detail of this bag, from the zippers to the wheels to the wrinkle-resistant suit compartment, is made to the highest standards, and it has a higher proportion of usable space than any other spinner bag we tested.
Briggs & Riley boosts this extra capacity with a ratcheting compression system that easily presses an entire extra outfit (if not more) into the same external dimensions as most other carry-ons. It’s simple, impressive, and unmatched by any other brand’s compression system.
The Expandable Spinner version is also the only spinner luggage model we tested with a built-in garment folder, which helps shirts and pants stay wrinkle-free if you pack them well. If things go awry, Briggs & Riley has a catalog of replaceable parts and a global network of repair centers, as well as a reliable lifetime warranty covering repairs for airline damage.
Luxury touches and a strong polycarbonate and aluminum design give this bag a standout look with exceptional feel and performance. It does cost nearly $200 more than the comparably sized Away bag, though.
For some people, Carl Friedrik’s The Carry-On may be worth the extra cost. Behind the maturity of Italian leather accents and polish of higher-end Hinomoto wheels, the Carl Friedrik Carry-On bypasses the biggest compromise in most polycarbonate designs: the stitched-in zipper. Incorporating an aluminum frame around the center of the case and two latch locks, it feels comfortingly secure and well structured where other luggage tends to sag or bend away.
There’s a potential catch, however: The flex in a polycarbonate design (and most luggage, incidentally) is its strength. The more robust a piece of luggage becomes—by replacing, for instance, a zipper with an aluminum frame—the greater the chance that if something hits the case hard enough, the frame can bend or break. That said, you need to hit a frame like this with an extreme amount of focused force for that to happen. And Carl Friedrik provides a lifetime warranty that appears to cover airline damage in the event that an airline doesn’t compensate you within 14 days.
A polycarbonate back and rugged wheels make this design suited for rougher travel over difficult surfaces. However, it has a limited warranty, and it’s somewhat unwieldy to handle.
The Yeti Crossroads 22”/35L Wheeled Luggage represents the best of a relatively niche type of luggage design. Call it a hybrid model—a blend of a soft-sided luggage on top and hard-sided luggage on the back—that lends itself to fairly specific circumstances. It’s ideal for tough roads, broken streets, and slamming your luggage into uneven curbs with abandon. Do most people need this kind of luggage for their day-to-day travel? Absolutely not, and it can feel heavier than it really is. But if you do, this is the best there is—at least for the moment.
The Yeti Crossroads has everything you might expect from a brand that has built its reputation for over-the-top toughness and durability. The two heavy-duty wheels are among the largest and broadest that we’ve seen. Externally, Yeti blends a polycarbonate shell back with a water-resistant 700-denier nylon front and waterproof zippers. However, Yeti backs its luggage with only a three-year warranty and no mention of airline damage. That’s very limited protection, especially for the conditions this bag was designed for and definitely in comparison with the standards that our other picks set.
I’ve been covering luggage and travel bag design for Wirecutter for nearly a decade and have personally researched, tested, and compared hundreds of bags in that time. Over the years we’ve also spoken with plenty of experts: flight attendants for major airlines, product designers and creative directors for luggage and gear companies, and travel and gear writers. My conversations with these people have helped shape our coverage, and we owe much to their collective knowledge.
In the 10 years we’ve been covering this category, luggage has evolved, and so has our thinking about what makes the best carry-on for most people. After spending well over 200 hours doing research and interviews and easily twice that time conducting hands-on testing, we’ve seen a few truths become clear. First, at a certain threshold—roughly over $200—most luggage is fine. It will more than likely get you from point A to point B without incident many times a year for many years. What distinguishes great luggage from everything else is mostly an attention to detail—the quality of a bag’s handle, its wheels, the frame, and stitching—and a company’s guarantee that it will stand behind its product.
Every year we try to refine our testing and find new ways to consider what it means to be the best luggage. We’ve weighed and measured suitcases, comparing our results with company claims. We’ve calculated true internal capacity with hundreds of Ping-Pong balls2 and some decently complex math for a writer to scratch out. We’ve packed and unpacked more bags than I care to remember. We’ve studied and compared wheel bearings, wheel sizes, pocket counts, pocket quality, the curious subtleties of garment bags that will (or more often won’t) keep your clothes wrinkle-free, the strength of warranties, and repairability.
We believe that any maximally sized carry-on should be capable of holding enough clothes to last you five days with room to spare for miscellaneous necessities. Most years we aim to have two testers, one male and one female, pack two bags individually as if headed to the same wedding.3 What we included isn’t representative of a family traveling or a couple splitting a bag, but we erred on the side of bulky, and we hope it gives you a clear idea of how much of your own stuff these bags will hold.
We looked at how each bag loaded. Was there an easy way to keep smaller items (such as socks and underwear) organized? Did it have compression straps to keep things in place? Were the straps thick enough to avoid creasing the clothes? Just how much would the bag compress? How much room was left over? Once packed, was the bag prone to tipping over?
Over the years I’ve torn bags apart to see how the frames were put together, taken apart wheels, dismantled handles, and more or less treated luggage as poorly as one person could. I’ve wheeled loaded bags around many neighborhoods, looking at how well each bag rolled and how well it handled broken sidewalks, uneven pavement, grass, bricks, dirt, and curbs. I’ve dragged bags up and down two flights of concrete stairs, noting how easy this task was and how much damage the bags sustained. For our finalists, I’ve repeated the torture test along a second, even rougher route because I like the sound that polycarbonate luggage makes when it bounces down cavernous stairwells.
In fall 2023, we asked a panel of paid testers with a wide range of body types, dexterities, and mobilities to examine our picks and share their perspectives. We’ve incorporated their feedback in this review.
This spinner carry-on offers the best balance of size, value, reliability, and durability, plus high-end details. It’s backed by a lifetime warranty.
This two-wheeled carry-on bag isn’t as maneuverable, but it offers slightly more space, a garment folder, and larger, more durable wheels.
The Travelpro Platinum Elite 21″ Carry-On Spinner is our pick for a soft-sided carry-on; if you need a little more room, we also recommend the Travelpro Platinum Elite 22″ Carry-On Rollaboard.
It has a history of great performance. Travelpro’s Platinum Elite line has been our top pick for almost every iteration of this guide because it addresses the concerns of most travelers for an affordable price: In addition to smooth-rolling, replaceable wheels, it features solid and comfortable telescoping handles and a hard-wearing nylon exterior propped up by a solid 7.8-pound internal chassis. Travelpro backs it all with a lifetime warranty that covers airline damage and shipping to the repair facility (as long as you register the luggage within 120 days of purchase). Additionally, Travelpro supplies a full catalog of other replaceable parts.
It moves well across most surfaces and through most situations. The spinner bag’s configuration stands out in particular because of its MagnaTrac wheels, which magnetically snap into a forward position when the bag is moving. The small tracking assistance makes a large difference when you’re navigating the Platinum Elite through a crowded airport or down a busy street. It also has an easy-to-use, removable garment bag. After years of testing, we think the superior maneuverability of spinner luggage, along with improvements in manufacturing processes, makes four-wheel bags a better choice for most people. However, if you prefer slightly more packing capacity (the equivalent of squeezing in two more sweatshirts), larger wheels that run more smoothly over rough terrain, and a more protective built-in garment folder,4 you may appreciate the two-wheeled 22-inch version of the Platinum Elite. One of our paid testers, who’s 6-foot-6, told us that although he could see the appeal of a spinner, “I would still choose the two-wheeler. It has a little more space, and when you’re my size, packing is just so horrible.”
It’s sized to maximize your space, but you have options. Measuring 23 by 13.5 by 9 inches, the Platinum Elite carry-on bag (in either wheel configuration) hits the upper margins of actual carry-on size limits and could get you gate-checked by an overzealous agent. However, it fits into most standard-size baggage caddies at check-in, including that of American Airlines and United Airlines. I’ve personally traveled with Travelpro carry-ons this size for more than 45,000 miles spread across 50 flights, from regional to long-haul to international routes, and I’ve never had an issue fitting within gate-side luggage sizers. If you’re nervous about getting caught at the gate or often fly in very small regional planes, Travelpro makes a 20-inch Platinum Elite as well as a slimmer international size, but they hold less (naturally) and lack a suiter insert.
It keeps clothes compacted but not creased. Inside, the Platinum Elite has a pair of tie-down straps and two broad panels with pockets that cinch down, similar in design and function to what you’d find in much more expensive Briggs & Riley luggage. Compared with the simple tie-down straps you often find in cheaper luggage, the panels do a great job of keeping things compacted without creasing clothes—a problem we’ve encountered in numerous other bags we’ve tested. Beyond that, the Platinum Elite’s internal organization system is about average. It will be familiar to anyone who has used a suitcase before, which means there’s no learning curve for optimizing the storage capacity. One long mesh pocket sits on one of the bag’s sides, and a smaller removable transparent plastic bag sits on the other side for easy TSA inspection of toiletries.
It’s tough yet flexible. The exterior is made of a hard-wearing nylon fabric, a key feature of all the bags we’ve tested. It hides scuffs and scratches, and it’s much more versatile than hard-sided bags. An expansion zipper lets you increase storage by about 30% in a pinch—although the bag is no longer carry-on compliant at that point. We prefer to use the expansion zipper as something of an ad-hoc compression system: We unzip the expansion zipper while packing the bag and then zip it at the end, tamping everything down tight. The Platinum Elite carry-on also has a variety of convenient exterior pockets, including two in the front, suitable for a sleep mask and other small miscellaneous items, and one on the side for a battery, though it can fit a bit more if necessary. It also has an accordion pocket on the front for magazines and electronic tablets.
It’s well balanced and spacious. This luggage has an 1,856-cubic-inch interior, which we measured using hundreds of Ping-Pong balls. In real-world terms (the needs of Ping-Pong champions notwithstanding), the Platinum Elite swallowed up five days’ worth of clothes with no problem and had a good deal of room to spare—and that’s without our resorting to the expansion zipper.
It has an excellent warranty. Should anything go wrong, you can take advantage of Travelpro’s generous lifetime warranty, which covers airline damage. The sole other company we’ve seen offering this extensive a warranty is Briggs & Riley, whose carry-on suitcases start at about $500. Travelpro bags have owner-serviceable parts and multiple repair centers. To get repair service, you can either drop the bag off at a repair center or ship the bag to Travelpro, the cost of which the company will cover. Keep in mind that the warranty doesn’t cover cosmetic wear.
Travelpro has a history of fixing production errors remarkably quickly. In 2019, we noticed a small uptick in Wirecutter reader complaints about zipper tabs breaking. We reached out to Travelpro, and a representative told us that a production error expanded the capacity of the front pocket of the Platinum Elite; this allowed travelers to overpack the pocket, which put excessive strain on the zipper. Travelpro identified and fixed the issue before it had reached the threshold of more than a few comments online.
Dimensions: 23.5 by 14.5 by 9 inches (HWD) Weight: 7.8 pounds Volume: 46 liters
After nearly a decade of testing the Platinum Elite line of bags from Travelpro, we have yet to encounter a single serious issue. The fabric exterior brushes off scrapes and is easy enough to clean. Simply, it is a remarkably built bag that continues to travel well, year after year.
This great-looking and relatively resilient piece of hard-sided luggage has top-of-the-line components—including wheels as smooth-rolling as any we’ve tested.
With more capacity than Away’s standard carry-on, this suitcase is sized appropriately for most flights. On smaller planes, though, you may get gate-checked.
If you prefer the look of hard-sided luggage or the security of knowing that you can’t overpack your suitcase, Away’s The Carry-On is the carry-on we recommend. If you want to maximize your available carry-on space, it also comes in a slightly larger size: The Bigger Carry-On.
It can take wear and tear. Most travelers are still better off with one of our soft-sided picks than a hard-sided carry-on; soft-sided luggage shows less wear and typically lasts longer than hard-sided luggage. But the Away Carry-On’s wheels and zipper are as well made as those of our soft-sided picks, and its polycarbonate showed fewer scratches than that of hard-sided competitors.
We’ve tested the Away Carry-On for six years, traveling with it ourselves across the country and lending several units to testers and frequent travelers to see how they enjoyed using the bag. Its polycarbonate feels similar to that used on more high-end (and significantly pricier) suitcases such as the Rimowa Essential Cabin, which is more than three times as expensive.
You have options if you need extra space. Away makes a similar model of suitcase with an expandable zipper, The Carry-On Flex. The Flex is the same bag as the standard Carry-On except for the expanding center zipper and the price (it’s about $50 more). Personally, I’m not a fan of expanding zippers on suitcases. It feels like just one more thing to break. But some people may prefer having the extra flexibility.
It feels great to use. The bag itself feels good in the hands, and the wheels are noticeably better than those on any of the hard-sided competitors we tried. Away also uses YKK zippers, outclassing our top pick in that regard (Travelpro moved to Supra zippers in 2015). At this point, we’re pretty comfortable saying that years of debate over the best zipper are largely redundant, but YKK still sets the standard.
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Away has sparked more imitators and outright duplicates than any other brand in the past decade, in part due to its appeal with younger travelers. I’ve thought about why, and as best as I can guess, a simple polycarbonate cube dripped in limited-edition soft hues does exude a certain calm; the fact that some of those same colors also coat the exteriors of pills ending in suffixes -ax and -il is not, one assumes, accidental.
It has a great warranty. The Away Carry-On is backed by a limited lifetime warranty that protects against defects and parts breaking. Though the warranty doesn’t specifically mention airline damage, the damages it does list—cracks or breaks in the shell, wheels or handles becoming unusable, zippers that don’t work, fabric tears that render any pocket unusable—basically outline anything an airline could possibly dish out.
Dimensions (for The Carry-On): 21.7 by 14.4 by 9 inches (HWD) Weight: 7.5 pounds Volume: 40 liters
Remarkably well priced for a reputable brand, this is an ideal lightweight pick and provides many features of luggage costing nearly twice as much.
The Travelpro Maxlite 5 21″ Carry-On Spinner is one of the lightest pieces of luggage we’ve tested, at a great price.
It’s lightweight. We have a hard time imagining how anyone could make a suitcase much lighter than this without breaking certain laws of physics. A few years ago, I took apart a Maxlite suitcase to see how the internal frame was built. What I found beneath the fabric was a clever lattice of plastic supporting the frame, which offered the best balance between weight-saving and structure.
For some people, especially those with limited upper-body strength, a lighter bag—even by just a few pounds—may be easier to lift or manage. That said, most people don’t need extremely light luggage, but just to pack less. For all the innovative design, the Maxlite 5 shaves only 2.4 pounds off the weight of our top pick. That’s the equivalent of a couple of pairs of jeans.
It’s inexpensive. My general advice to friends is to spend more than $200 but less than $500 to get good, if not great, luggage. The Maxlite 5 is the one piece of luggage I’ve found that breaks that rule. You can usually find it for about $150 or less, which is a remarkable price considering the bag’s quality.
Simple is good. This model doesn’t have any real bells or whistles—no battery pass-throughs or magnetically tracked wheels, as with our other Travelpro picks. Instead you’ll find two simple front pockets, a few well-placed handles, and a cavernous main compartment with a couple of pockets and two light straps to hold your stuff in place.
It comes from a trusted brand. We haven’t covered, examined, and interrogated a single luggage brand at Wirecutter for as long as we have Travelpro. For a decade, Travelpro has done a premier job of maintaining trust with its customers and with us—we’ve watched the company make small changes in design, catch flaws quickly, and address warranty concerns promptly. This is not something we say lightly: Travelpro is a name you can trust.
Dimensions: 23 by 14.5 by 9 inches (HWD) Weight: 5.4 pounds Volume: 46 liters
This carry-on bag offers superlative build quality, plenty of expandable room, and a uniquely effective compression system. It’s a buy-it-for-life suitcase.
If you’re willing to give up maneuverability for more space and bigger wheels, this is also a great option.
If you’re a frequent flyer and willing to invest in higher-quality gear, we recommend the Briggs & Riley Baseline Essential 22″ Carry-On Expandable Spinner (also available in a two-wheeled version with more capacity).
It’s the best of the best. Every detail of this top-rated bag, from the zippers to the wheels to the wrinkle-resistant suit compartment, is made to the highest standards, and we found that it had a higher proportion of usable space than any other spinner bag we tested. Briggs & Riley keeps its design consistent, adding, at most, small improvements such as this year’s upgraded lifting handle. Our 6-foot-6 paid tester pointed out that the Baseline Essential’s handle extended an inch and a half farther than that of the Travelpro Platinum Elite, which made it less likely to hit his heels as he pulled it.
Although the wheels don’t snap into alignment, they are exceptionally smooth-rolling and easy to maneuver. If you fly more than 25,000 miles per year, it’s worthwhile to invest in luggage that goes beyond merely being sturdy and actually improves your overall travel experience. That’s why we’ve been recommending it since we first covered this topic in 2014. The Baseline Essential is one of the best carry-on luggage options available today.
Its compression system is truly a marvel. The most ingenious part of the Baseline Essential bag is its CX expansion and compression system. Pull upward on two plastic handles inside the bag, and you can extend its depth a full 2.5 inches. Load the bag as full as you need to, and zip it closed. Then you push down on the bag, which compresses it as a clip mechanism secures it in place. Unlike other expansion systems, which are either open or closed, this one locks into incremental positions. It’s a unique design and very satisfying to use.
It’s the easiest to pack. Briggs & Riley placed the tracks for the Baseline Essential handles on the outside of the bag, which allows for a flat surface in the interior of the bag, with no small crevices to work around for simple packing. And in our tests, after packing 10 bags and trying to figure out strategies for each nook and cranny, packing on a broad flat surface felt like a luxury. According to our measurements, the bag, unexpanded, offers 1,905 cubic inches of storage room (and that accounts for the space occupied by the wheel wells and such). Expanded, it can stow 2,110 cubic inches. That’s remarkably efficient for a bag that does so much. All of these features add up to a carry-on that is easier to pack than any other bag we tested.
The Baseline Essential spinner is also the only spinner luggage model we tested with a built-in garment folder. It’s similar to the folder in Travelpro’s two-wheeled Platinum Elite bag, and that’s a good thing. It’s easy to pack and has an anchor point for hangers. Each of the three folds has a bit of padding that helps to keep a suit from pinching onto itself and creasing, though much of that depends on how well you pack. You can fit a week’s worth of clothes in the Baseline Essential, including some puffy gear for colder weather. A wide, wrinkle-free tie-down system completes the package.
It’s understated. On the outside, the Baseline Essential is pretty unremarkable. There’s nothing eye-grabbing about the bag, which is good if you’re trying to avoid being gate-checked (or having it stolen). Its outer, nylon fabric seems to be of a tighter weave than that used on the other bags we’ve tested. We also noticed a robust feel to the zippers, which are a self-repairing type made by YKK.
Similar to our top pick, the Baseline Essential includes a charging pocket. However, Briggs & Riley skipped the internal USB wiring, instead opting for a simple pocket arrangement (video) on the back of the bag for discreetly storing a charge pack and your phone. It’s an elegant solution.
It comes with an excellent warranty. All Briggs & Riley bags come with a lifetime warranty that covers any damage to the “functional aspects” of the bag, even if caused by an airline (like Travelpro, Briggs & Riley does not cover cosmetic wear or cleaning). Although Briggs & Riley handles warranty-covered repairs at no extra cost, you do have to pay to ship the bag to the company to carry out any repairs; it will ship your bag back to you for free. Or you can drop off the bag at one of the many repair centers. Briggs & Riley emphasizes that returning your bag to you in its original condition, even after repairs, is not always possible. The bags are easy to service and repair, so you can also order the parts you need and replace them yourself at home.
We’ve put in the miles, and the Baseline Essential is in a separate league. Over a five-year period before the pandemic, Wirecutter founder Brian Lam carried a two-wheeled Baseline Essential carry-on while traveling 150,000 miles and farther. After considering all the bags in our test and logging an additional 40,000 miles with a similarly priced bag by Tumi, he was convinced that this model is the best for anyone who’s always on the move. “I love this bag. It carries so much,” Brian said. “Sometimes I check it. Sometimes I carry it. It always fits.”
Dimensions: 22 by 14 by 9 (expands to 11.5) inches (HWD) Weight: 10 pounds Volume: 37 liters (expands to 48 liters)
Luxury touches and a strong polycarbonate and aluminum design give this bag a standout look with exceptional feel and performance. It does cost nearly $200 more than the comparably sized Away bag, though.
Carl Friedrik’s The Carry-On is an impressive polycarbonate case that improves in areas where most other companies tend to cut corners.
It’s robust and durable. It improves the usual hard-case design primarily by replacing the zipper with an aluminum frame sealed with two metal latches incorporating TSA locks. This trim makes the case feel far more robust, which is a very satisfying feeling when you’re wheeling luggage around an airport.
Clasping shut an aluminum frame with a metal lock is pleasing—it feels like closing a safe and locking it tight. The polycarbonate shell has an equally rigid feeling but exhibits plenty of flexibility under strain. Although it’s difficult to compare polycarbonates between brands, higher-end polycarbonate feels dense to the touch even as the material flexes; in this piece of luggage, Carl Friedrik offers impressive quality.
Additionally, the Carl Friedrik Carry-On has YKK zippers internally and Hinomoto spinner wheels from Japan—both considered the top of their class.
It’s thoughtfully styled. The soft leather accents and bolted frame all have a certain maturity that’s often lacking in other, competing cases. This look carries to the inside of the luggage as well. A simple gray polyester lining accompanies two sets of compression straps and a removable compression pad, which has a zippered pocket.
It has an excellent warranty. As you might expect for the price, Carl Friedrik backs up its luggage with a lifetime warranty that protects against airline damage (assuming the airline hasn’t responded to your request for compensation within 14 days).
Dimensions: 21.6 by 14.5 by 9 inches (HWD) Weight: 8.6 pounds Volume: 40 liters
A polycarbonate back and rugged wheels make this design suited for rougher travel over difficult surfaces. However, it has a limited warranty, and it’s somewhat unwieldy to handle.
Hybrid designs like the Yeti Crossroads 22″/35L Wheeled Luggage aren’t for everyone, but if you like the flexibility of a soft-sided luggage with the hard-hitting ruggedness of a polycarbonate back and two large fixed wheels, then this bag is just right.
It’s made from tough materials and easy-to-repair parts. Yeti has a reputation for using tough, sometimes cutting-edge, materials in all its gear. The Crossroads is no exception. The 700-denier nylon is one of the better nylons we’ve tested—tightly woven and exceptionally durable. (Denier is a measure of the fiber thickness in a fabric.)
The Crossroads comes in only a two-wheeled design, which is usually able to withstand more damage than a four-wheeled design. The wheels are also easier to service on the road and often replaceable.5
It’s well organized. It includes a front panel organizer, similar to that of modern laptop backpacks, with two slots for your laptop and tablet plus a mesh pocket for spare gear. Fully packed, it still has room for a few magazines as well, if you like. Internally, the soft top has a zippered main compartment with a decent amount of packing space, as well as two mesh organizing pockets.
It’s a pleasure to pack. As the Crossroads is built around a molded polycarbonate base, the entire suitcase becomes, in essence, a large tray to pack and then zip shut. It’s a very satisfying design—easier to manage than many of the clamshell designs that are currently popular. Yeti’s packing cubes are designed to fit snugly in the Crossroads’s main compartment, and the bag does come with one small cube. But if you choose these, you’re spending a premium for additional packing cubes when almost any packing cube will work.
Dimensions: 22 by 14 by 9 inches (HWD) Weight: 8 pounds Volume: 40 liters
If you need a hard-sided budget bag: Look at the Gregory Quadro Hardcase 22″, an unexpectedly high-quality suitcase from an outdoor-gear company. Gregory offers a lifetime warranty with service and repair. Although the warranty doesn’t explicitly mention airline damage, Gregory’s good reputation speaks for itself in this matter. However, the Quadro Hardcase is a pound heavier (at 6.5 pounds) and about $60 more than our budget pick.
If the Away Carry-On is sold out: Consider the Monos Carry-On Plus. Picking between these two models came down to splitting some very fine hairs. Both use YKK zippers. Both have lifetime warranties. The handles and interiors are almost identical. Monos even hides the stitching that attaches the zipper to the polycarbonate frame, which is a nice aesthetic touch. The difference came down to the Away Carry-On’s wheels, which spun just that much more freely in our testing, and the underside handle, which made it easier to pull out of overhead bins. And we’ve tested the Away Carry-On for longer. However, if it’s unavailable, the Monos model is a good, nearly identical substitute.
If you want a bag made of recycled materials: We suggest the Paravel Aviator Carry-On. Paravel is attempting to design luggage with recycled materials and some environmentally minded transparency to the company’s production methods. However, you pay a premium for the effort. Quality-wise, the bag is similar to our other hard-sided picks, for about a hundred more dollars. And much of the Paravel branding is built on carbon offsets, which we are deeply skeptical of (though we wish they worked).
If you’re an infrequent adventurer: Try the Topo Designs Global Travel Bag Roller, which could almost be an also-great pick under our hybrid pick. It’s cheaper, has a better warranty (but no explicit coverage for airline damage), and is made from recycled materials. However, the overall build quality is wanting. For example, the polycarbonate shell doesn’t fully cover the tubes for the extendable handle as it does with our hybrid pick. It seems an oversight for bags that are built to knock around.
If the best possible suit-packing experience is all you want, and money is no object: The Vocier C38 Carry-On Luggage is worth a look, despite a few flaws and an $800 price tag. The C38 takes a unique, fold-free approach to packing clothes. Rather than folding garments in on themselves to fit in the bag, it bends the suit around the outside of the luggage frame in a U shape. This packing method creates no creases and therefore no wrinkles. The case is protected by a limited lifetime warranty that doesn’t cover airline damage.
We hope to take a look at the European brand Floyd, which is currently popular on Instagram. At first glance, it’s another piece of luggage looking to appeal to a younger mass audience. But the easy-to-replace polyurethane wheels and bearings—similar to skateboard wheels—do have “user-serviceable parts inside” curb appeal.
We’re currently testing Level8’s Voyageur series of luggage, which features an extra-wide handle. It’s a design trend we’re starting to track with a few lesser-known brands (and, incidentally, a Louis Vuitton case costing several thousand dollars). A wide handle should do two things: It should free up a little more space inside the luggage, and it should improve handling.
Lastly, we’re considering expanding our coverage to include equipment cases like those made by Pelican. Though their appropriate use is very specific, when you need to travel with high-end gear or fragile valuables, Pelican cases more or less set the standard.
Cotopaxi Allpa 38L Roller Bag: We’re generally fans of Cotopaxi’s Allpa line, but this two-wheeled bag falls short. Specifically, the bottom of the bag is split by the zipper, which gives the bag an unstable feeling when it’s standing upright.
Eagle Creek Tarmac XE 4-Wheel 22″ Carry On Luggage: If this bag were about $150 cheaper, it would be a good price for the quality. We like the recycled materials, but the bag lacks framing.
Solo Re:Treat Carry-On Spinner: I appreciate any bag made entirely out of recycled materials, but this model (from a brand owned by the same company that manages Briggs & Riley) felt awfully flimsy. Even with its five-year warranty, I just don’t trust that this bag can go the distance.
Thule Subterra: The clamshell design—similar to the ones you find on hard-sided bags—makes this bag difficult to close if you’re trying to fill it to its full capacity. It just isn’t as easy to use as our soft-sided picks.
Timbuk2 Copilot Luggage Roller: The balance on this bag was decent, and it stood up well unloaded or loaded. Its wheels had a cheap ball-bearing rhythmic chatter, though, and the abundance of zippers and internal compartments made it tedious to pack.
Tumi Aerotour International Expandable 4 Wheeled Carry-On: At about half the price, this would be a great bag. But paying nearly $700 for a five-year warranty and a bag that doesn’t do nearly as much as a Briggs & Riley suitcase seems a bit silly.
Amazon Basics 24-Inch Hardside Spinner: This bag is a surprisingly good carry-on for about $90. However, its ABS plastic shell is not as tough as a polycarbonate shell. It’s worth investing more in your luggage—the bag you choose will last longer and work better.
Arlo Skye The Frame Carry-On: The Arlo Skye carry-on is a decent piece of luggage, but it’s hard to square the bag with its cost: $200 more than our pick from Away.
Away The Carry-On: Aluminum Edition: 10 pounds! At this weight, you’ve lost a quarter of your allowable luggage weight to the suitcase alone, unpacked. And it’s nearly as expensive as our upgrade pick, with a much less satisfying compression system.
Briggs & Riley Torq and Sympatico: Though these collections seek to solve a different problem, neither is as impressive as the Baseline series.
Calpak Ambeur Carry-On Luggage: We preferred sturdier polycarbonate shells over Calpak’s blended ABS polycarbonate shell. Also, the bag’s handling felt jittery against normal airport floor surfaces.
Delsey Rempart Expandable Spinner Carry-On: At just around $200, the Rempart is a decent budget option. However, the external styling (like layers of pressed sheet pans) is an odd choice. It has some practicality, but only if you’re stacking identical Delsey cases one on top of another, which might happen, I suppose, at some point … maybe.
July Carry On: In the lineup between July, Monos, and Away, July falls just short. We appreciate the lifetime warranty, YKK zippers, and flexible but dense-feeling polycarbonate. But the overall design doesn’t do much to improve on the category (as the Monos bag subtly does).
Level8 Road Runner Pro Carry-On 20″: This is potentially a decent budget pick at just around $200. But the one-year warranty and the somewhat fiddly TSA lock and front latching panel give us pause.
Lojel Cubo Medium: Although we liked the uncommon top-loading design, the internal organization of the lid made packing this carry-on difficult. We also weren’t impressed by the zippered expansion system, which made the suitcase feel bulkier than our picks.
Lojel Voja Medium: An odd suitcase, this would be a great children’s suitcase or a budget pick—especially if it were under $200. But its current price is steep for a polypropylene blend with a couple of latches.
This article was edited by Ria Misra and Chris Ryan.
Kit Dillon is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. He was previously an app developer, oil derrick inspector, public-radio archivist, and sandwich shop owner. He has written for Popular Science, The Awl, and the New York Observer, among others. When called on, he can still make a mean sandwich.
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