NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — What's one of the most important things to take with you when you head out on a trip?
Your luggage!
Think you have it bad when it comes to traveling? Now imagine what your luggage goes through, especially if your trip involves flying.
“We are dragging, dropping, pulling these bags to kind of simulate what. It would be like somebody was traveling with a piece of luggage,” said Consumer Reports' Tanya Christian.
Christian says its luggage tests mimic the airport experience and everything in between.
“Our tests find that you don’t have to spend a lot to get a quality bag,” Christian said.
Testers fill the luggage with fabric -- to simulate a bag packed with clothing and then run it along a conveyor belt studded with obstacles for thirty miles.
To check handle strength, a machine lifts the weighed-down bags five thousand times! This test checks for resilience by applying 220 pounds of pressure to the top and sides of the baggage.
This is a simulated downpour to see how much moisture is getting through the zipper and seems of the luggage. To assess maneuverability, men and women of different sizes wheel the luggage over curbs, stairs, and sidewalks.
For quality construction, you can’t go wrong with this Samsonite. It outperformed models costing hundreds more! A nice feature is that the handle can be expanded and raised to six different positions.
This hard-shell Amazon Basics skips the bells and whistles for about half the price but still offers solid performance.
If you’re looking for a soft-sided carry-on, consider this top-scoring TravelPro. It offers excellent resilience and very good construction.
A final travel tip?
“If you often check a bag it may be worth it to get peace of mind by having a tracker on your bag," said Christian. "That helps you locate it in case you ever lose it.”
If you’re packing a lot of things that are breakable, you'll want a hard-shell piece of luggage. A soft-sided suitcase, on the other hand, is more lightweight and can expand and even compress so you can get it into tight spaces.
No matter which type you choose, be sure to check the size of your luggage to make sure it meets your airline's carry-on requirements unless you plan on checking your bag.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at jennifer.kraus@newschannel5.com.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
