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By Claire Wilcox and Kit Dillon meat bags for hunting
After a new round of testing, we continue to recommend the updated version of Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Reveal Cube Set for most travelers.
In your travels, as in life overall, a bit of organization up front can save you time and reduce frustration down the road.
Enter the packing cube: a simple bag, usually made of fabric and mesh, that tidily zips away your clutter.
After considering and testing 36 packing cubes over the last seven years, we’ve chosen four to suit different kinds of travelers: a set of packing cubes for most people, a lightweight set for light packers, a set of compression cubes for heavy packers, and a set of cubes made of upcycled materials for travelers who love a pop of color.
Staff writer Claire Wilcox has been cramming clothing into suitcases since she was a child. For decades, she traveled without packing cubes, and she disliked packing so much she once bribed her younger sister into doing it for her. Her attitude has improved since discovering packing cubes. She has also written about car-camping tents, sleeping bags, and puffy blankets for Wirecutter.
This guide builds on many years of testing and research by senior staff writer Kit Dillon, who has covered luggage and travel gear for Wirecutter for over a decade. In that time, he’s tested and used an absurd number of bags, including endless numbers of packing cubes. They remain his number one travel hack whenever people ask.
For the latest version of this guide:
For previous iterations of this guide:
Simple and solidly constructed, this three-cube set keeps your bag organized while you’re traveling.
Get this if: You need a set of basic packing cubes that does the job without getting in the way.
Why it’s great: The Eagle Creek Pack-It Reveal Cube Set doesn’t have any frills, but overall, every aspect of it feels a bit nicer compared with the competition. This three-piece set is an updated design of Eagle Creek’s original Pack-It cubes, which we’ve recommended for more than six years. In 2024, Eagle Creek relaunched the line with a slight redesign and 100% recycled fabric. This new incarnation repels water better (in areas besides the mesh paneling), feels even sturdier than the previous version, and continues to be a durable choice for keeping up to a week’s worth of clothing organized and easy to move from suitcase to hotel dresser.
The Reveal packing cubes are made of 300-denier polyester. (“Denier” refers to the thickness of a fabric’s thread. The higher the denier, the stronger the fabric; 300 denier indicates a sturdy fabric made to resist tears.) They stay upright when empty, so they’re easy to pack. Their windows use the tightest mesh link of any cubes we tested—better for resisting snags—yet it’s easy to see what’s inside the cube without opening it. However, mesh lets in dust and dirt over time. (If that’s a worry for you, Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Isolate Cube Set may be a better option.) The zippers slide smoothly around corners, even when a cube is overstuffed. We also like the cubes’ clamshell design, which opens fully on three sides and lets you easily access everything inside without having to unpack the entire thing.
We find the three-cube set particularly useful when separating clothes, but you can also buy these individually. The largest cube (labeled “medium”) is great for shirts, shorts, and insulating layers. The half cube (“small”) and quarter cube (“extra small”) are perfect for underwear, socks, and other thin fabrics, such as stockings or sleepwear. We were able to pack up to a week’s worth of clothing in this set, but you can also buy these cubes individually if you need to add more sizes or would prefer to assemble your own set.
The cubes are guaranteed for life. Eagle Creek’s warranty promises to replace or repair them as long as you’re the original owner.
The Reveal cubes now come in more silhouettes. When Eagle Creek relaunched this cube in 2024, it also released a range of new shapes, including an expansion cube, a compression cube, a slim cube, a clean/dirty cube, which allows you to separate your clean and dirty clothes—a feature we particularly liked—and a shoe bag. We still think the basic cube set is the best for most travelers, and for folks looking for a compression/expansion option, the REI Co-op cubes we recommend are a more affordable, lightweight option, but each of these silhouettes performed well during testing. If you’re already a fan of the Pack-It Reveal line and want to expand your packing cube repertoire, these are all solid, well-built cubes.
We’ve been testing packing cubes, and recommending some version of this set, for seven years. In that time, we haven’t had any issues with the original version of these cubes. Supervising editor Tracy Vence said, “I’ve used the Eagle Creek packing cubes at least once a month for the last seven years. They’ve held up beautifully—no issues with the zippers, netting, etc. Really, they’re just great.”
These three cubes have the same shape as the Pack-It Reveal cubes, but they are somewhat water-resistant (to guard against spills) and weigh half as much, thanks to their lighter material.
Get this if: You need a set of lightweight packing cubes with a bit of water resistance.
Why it’s great: The Eagle Creek Pack-It Isolate Cube Set—an updated and renamed version of the company’s original Specter Tech design—is a good, ultralight set of three packing cubes that weighs half as much as our other picks. Based on our testing so far, these cubes are nearly identical to their predecessor, except they’re now made out of 100% recycled fabric. If you want the organizational benefits of packing cubes but also want to add the least amount of weight to your suitcase, the Isolate set is a great choice.
The largest Isolate cube weighs 1.3 ounces; the same-size Eagle Creek Pack-It Reveal cube weighs just over 3 ounces. The updated Pack-It Isolate cube is made out of a semitranslucent, 100% recycled, 70-denier ripstop nylon. Previous iterations of this cube were made out of a thinner (50-denier) ripstop polyester, so we have less experience testing this new fabric, but so far it’s proven as durable and water-resistant as the cubes we tested for over five years with no issues. In fact, it’s now even stronger, though it weighs just as little.
Whereas our other picks take up about the same packing volume as a balled-up pair of boxers, these bunch down to the size of a single ankle sock. There’s no mesh, but the fabric is translucent enough for you to see what’s inside. Like the Reveal cubes, the Isolate bags zip open on three sides and hinge along the fourth.
Like the Reveal set, these cubes come as a set of three, or you can buy them individually. We find this basic set (which includes medium, small, and extra-small cubes) the best for packing for weeklong and shorter trips. But if you want to supplement your cube set with individual Pack-it Isolate cubes, you can buy them one at a time.
And they now come in multiple silhouettes. As with the Reveal line, Eagle Creek has also expanded its range of Pack-it Isolate cube shapes to include a clean/dirty cube, a compression cube, a slim cube, and a shoe sack. We found that the REI Co-op Expandable Packing Cube Set is more versatile and easier to pack, but if you have the Isolate collection and want your cubes to match, these cubes are all functional and well made.
The cubes are guaranteed for life. Eagle Creek’s warranty promises to replace or repair them as long as you’re the original owner.
These three cubes hold the most of any set we tested in the smallest amount of space. The compression zippers can be tricky to operate, though.
Get this if: You tend to overpack and need a little more compression to get that last T-shirt into your bag, or you plan to pick up some clothing along the way.
Why it’s great: The REI Co-op Expandable Packing Cube Set (which includes a small, medium, and large cube) holds more in total than our other picks but takes up the least amount of space in your suitcase when the cubes are fully compressed. Unlike a regular packing cube, which has a single zipper around the lid, the REI Co-op cubes have two sets of zippers: one around each lid and one around the middle of the cube itself. Opening the middle zipper expands the walls of the cube. Once the cube is packed, you can compress it by pushing down on the bag and then closing the middle zipper.
This process squeezes the cube down to half its size, but it takes some practice for it to go smoothly. When the cubes are properly packed, though, you’ll see that you can squeeze about a third more clothing into the compressed REI Co-op set than into the Eagle Creek Pack-It Reveal Cube Set.
Like the Eagle Creek Pack-It Isolate Cube Set, these cubes are made of lightweight, tear-resistant ripstop nylon. Even with an additional zipper, a large REI Co-op cube (14.5 by 10.5 by 3 inches) weighs only about a quarter of an ounce more than the nearly equivalent medium cube (10 by 14 by 3 inches) from Eagle Creek’s Reveal set; it weighs almost 2 ounces more than the medium cube in our ultralight pick. REI backs its gear with a satisfaction guarantee, which gives you one year to return an item if you’re an REI member (if you’re not, you have 90 days). In the past, REI had a good reputation for honoring its former lifetime guarantee; the wording of REI’s current warranty for REI Co-op branded gear seems to say that if an item fails after one year, accepting the return would depend upon an employee’s discretion.
The REI Co-op set is more affordable than Eagle Creek’s compression and expansion cubes. Eagle Creek’s expanded Isolate and Reveal lines now offer a number of individual compressible or expandable cubes that rival REI Co-op’s set. The Eagle Creek cubes are functional, and they have stronger zippers on the whole than REI Co-op’s cubes (though they’re also a bit trickier to compress). But, at the time of writing, a single Pack-it Reveal medium expansion cube from Eagle Creek costs roughly $30, whereas REI Co-op’s entire set of three costs about $45. Of all the compression and expansion cubes we tested, this set still offers the best balance of value, function, and durability.
These three sturdy packing cubes are made out of repurposed remnant materials from other Cotopaxi products and come in a mix of bright colors.
Get this if: You enjoy a splash of color in your packing life and also want to support a B Corp company’s social and sustainability goals.
Why it’s great: The Cotopaxi Cubo Packing Travel Bundle Del Día is a set of three well-built packing cubes from Cotopaxi, a Certified B Corp outdoor-gear company. (B Corp status means the manufacturer has met “high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency,” according to B Lab, a nonprofit that issues those certifications.) We’ve reviewed and recommend plenty of Cotopaxi gear, and we’ve found that it’s built to a very high quality. All of Cotopaxi’s travel cubes are made using leftover materials from its (and other companies’) backpacks and other products. Using the scrap material here keeps it from ending up in a landfill. This also means that every cube has a unique motley effect, and the cubes in the set don’t match. This may not be to everyone’s taste, but if you don’t mind the variation, these bring a cheerful pop of color to your suitcase.
The Cotopaxi travel cube’s mix of mesh and nylon paneling allows you to see inside the cube without opening it up, similar to Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Reveal Cube Set. The Reveal and Cotopaxi cubes are made of similarly durable materials and have a clamshell opening, but the latter unzips a little farther, fully clearing all four corners so the top hinges open cleanly. However, the Cotopaxi cube’s mesh liner is built into the sides of the bag rather than the lid.
Cotopaxi has a “Guaranteed for Good” warranty and repair program, which it maintains at its discretion. “We will replace any item that has been affected by a manufacturing defect for the lifetime of the product. A product’s lifetime is not an indefinite period of time—it’s an estimate based on how well a product can realistically maintain its functionality,” it says. “The way the product is used directly impacts the length of a product’s functional lifetime. Materials will deteriorate and fade over time, and moving parts, like zippers, buckles, snaps, and wheels will wear with use. This lifespan will be determined at the reasonable discretion of our Warranty & Repairs Team.” We’ve used the warranty several times with various Cotopaxi products and have had excellent results; we also haven’t heard of anyone having problems.
The cubes come in a multicolored set, but you can also buy them individually. Before Cotopaxi released its Cubo set, we recommended the company’s 10L cube. The set offers greater versatility for packing a long weekend’s to week’s worth of clothing, but if you’d like to mix and match your sizes, like the Eagle Creek cubes, you can buy them individually.
If the Eagle Creek Pack-It Reveal Cube Set is out of stock: Consider the July Packing Cells, which, like the Reveal cubes, have a mesh lid, though July’s mesh feels heavier than Eagle Creek’s. (It’s more like an athletic jersey than a bag material.) The July cubes come in a set of four for about $45 or eight for $85, and the company offers a five-year warranty and 100-day trial period. We haven’t used the July cubes for nearly as long as we have Eagle Creek’s, though, so we aren’t quite ready to make them an official pick.
If you’re traveling outdoors and need something hearty and water-resistant: Consider Patagonia’s Black Hole Cube in the 6L and 14L sizes, which are capacious, water-resistant, and easy to pack and organize. The 6L cube features dual compartments separated by a mesh dividers, and the 14L has one mesh divider and one taffeta divider that helps you separate clothing from dirty or damp items, or pack a pair of shoes.
Like Eagle Creek’s Reveal cubes, these are made with 100% recycled, 300-denier ripstop polyester fabric, and they’re coated with an impressively water-resistant recycled TPU laminate. Whatever else you have in your bag, it’s unlikely anything will poke, soak, or contaminate these cubes. Patagonia also has one of the most generous return and exchange policies we’ve encountered, with no time limit on exchanges. However, its packing cubes are heavier (at 6.7 ounces and 8 ounces, respectively) than the Reveal packing cubes, and they’re significantly more expensive.
Construction, material quality, ease of use, and value are the qualities we considered most important when we chose which of the dozens of available packing cubes (on Amazon and elsewhere) to test. And when we narrowed down our options and actually tested the 36 sets (so far), we focused on:
Because most packing cubes have the same basic design, our testing process came down to assessing build quality and practical, real-world use. Over our years of testing, we’ve packed for overnight work trips, long-haul flights, and multi-tour trips. In that time, we’ve made notes as zippers stuck or mesh snagged or when obstructed visibility slowed down the process of finding a particular item.
Though we’ve tested all the sizes included in each set while traveling, most of our controlled tests were performed using the medium size (roughly 14 by 10 by 3 inches). Into each of these medium cubes we packed items that anyone might bring on a typical weekend away: a rain jacket, two T-shirts, two pairs each of socks and underwear, two polo shirts, a thin fleece pullover, and a small travel towel. When overstuffing to test seams and zippers, we added at least a lightweight down jacket or a pair of jeans until we stressed capacity.
Sometimes the luggage companies whose bags we recommend (including Away, Topo, Travelpro, GoRuck, and Peak Design) make their own packing cubes. Is it necessary to match your packing cubes to your bag? No. The packing cubes we chose will fit well in a variety of bags and transfer easily between them.
However, if you’re dedicated to a specific brand or design, you may prefer to have cubes that are sized to fit perfectly within the relevant brand’s bags. You can read more about the packing cubes from the companies that make our favorite carry-on luggage and carry-on travel backpacks in Other packing cubes worth considering and The competition.
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).
Now that Eagle Creek’s cubes have increased in price, we plan to compare them with the Away and GoRuck cubes again. We’ll also be investigating new packing cubes from Sea to Summit, Step 22, Thule, and other companies.
The latest version of this article was edited by Ria Misra and Christine Ryan.
I research, test, and write about tents, sleep systems for camping, toiletry bags, umbrellas, and more. Much of my beat can be summarized as shelters, blankets, and pouches for people and things.
I’ve covered luggage and travel gear for Wirecutter for over a decade. In that time, I’ve covered various topics related to this coverage and sometimes far afield from it.
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