A cruise, a month away, or a long trip through different climates breaks the normal packing rules. You're not living out of a case for a weekend; you're living out of it for weeks, often in a cabin or hostel with very little storage, and you'll need to find a specific outfit on a specific evening without emptying everything onto the bed. This is what the 8-pack is for.
Why eight, not four
With four cubes you sort by garment: tops, bottoms, underwear, bulk. With eight you can sort by situation, which is what long trips need:
- Day clothes (hot)
- Day clothes (cool / evening)
- Formal or dinner outfits
- Swimwear and beach
- Underwear and socks
- Sleepwear and loungewear
- Shore excursion / walking kit
- Empty – for laundry, then souvenirs on the way home
Each cube comes out of the case and goes straight onto a shelf or into a drawer. Most people don't unpack at all.
"I'm just back from 2 months away from home where I moved around a lot and these were a godsend. No more jumble of clothes on arrival, everything in its place for the whole trip, and they made it so easy to separate dirty from clean for the return trip." – Zara M.
"We bought an 8 pack for a river cruise. We have test packed from our packing lists and they work great. I put 5 sweaters in the large cube with room to spare. Another cube for pants and jeans; and another for shirts." – Wayne T. S.
The cruise cabin problem
Cruise wardrobes are shallow and the drawers are small. Cubes stand on their edge in a wardrobe like books, which means the whole trip's clothes fit in a space a normal suitcase load never would. Compressed cubes are also thin enough to slide under the bed if you need the wardrobe for hanging.
Packing for more than one climate
If your trip goes from, say, a hot week to a cold one, don't mix them. Give each climate its own cubes and keep the second climate's cubes compressed and untouched until you need them. Compression matters most here because knitwear and coats are what eat the space.
"We had a long trip to undertake and several very long flights. A few destinations with different climates. One humid and hot the other winter so a lot of various items to cover the trip. These have been absolutely a godsend." – Lynne M.
Packing for two
One colour each. Two 4-packs in different colours cost the same as an 8-pack, and you never again argue over whose socks are whose. Families do one colour per person.
"I took 8 cubes with me and each had trousers and skirts, tops, underwear, dresses, swimwear… It makes it so easy when on holiday you can organise your clothes especially when you are moving from hotel to hotel." – Nicola M.
The laundry cube
Keep one cube empty on the way out. Dirty clothes go in it, zipped, so they don't touch the clean ones. On a cruise you can hand the whole cube to the laundry. On the way home, it's the souvenir cube. The bundles include a separate laundry bag if you'd rather keep all eight cubes for clothes.
What goes in which size
- 2 × Small (25 × 19 cm): underwear and socks; chargers, adaptors, medication.
- 2 × Medium (30 × 23 cm): t-shirts and tops; swimwear and cover-ups.
- 2 × Large (37 × 27 cm): trousers, shorts, skirts; dresses and formal.
- 2 × Extra large (44 × 33 cm): knitwear and jackets; sleepwear and loungewear.
Get the 8-pack
Two of each size in one colour, ripstop fabric, YKK compression zips, lifetime guarantee on fabric and stitching, same-day dispatch from the UK on weekday orders before 9pm. 4.7/5 from over 4,900 reviews.