My Packing Cubes Will Not Close. Now What?

The cubes are full. The zippers are fighting. You are sitting on the cube to make the zipper meet.

That zipper is going to break. Soon.

If your packing cubes will not close, you are over-stuffing them. The fix is to size down what goes in each cube, not size up the cubes.

After 12+ years of traveling roughly half the year using the same Eagle Creek packing cubes, my cubes close on the first try.

The reason is the items inside, not the cube design.

Why over-stuffing kills cubes.

Packing cubes are designed to slightly compress what goes in.

Over-stuff them and the zipper teeth take force they were not designed for.

One forced zip and the slider warps. Two and the teeth start skipping. Three and the cube is dead.

The right cube fill ratio.

About 80 percent. Items should fit comfortably with the cube’s lid sitting flat without strain.

If you are pressing the lid down with your hand, you are over the limit. Pull one item out.

What to remove from each cube.

From the tops cube: the 6th top (you are at 5 max for any normal trip).

From the bottoms cube: the second pair of jeans.

From the underwear cube: the extras “just in case.”

From the toiletries cube: the duplicates of what the hotel supplies.

The system that pre-sizes cubes.

The 10-step Space-Saving Travel Packing Method I built over those 12+ years of traveling half the year tells you exactly how many items go in each cube based on the trip.

The cubes close at 80 percent fill. Zippers last for years.

Trim the contents. The cube is fine.