Technology or toiletries? It’s a tough choice

The number of air rage incidents could be cut in half if carriers stopped serving alcohol on planes and lifted on-board luggage restrictions, if you believe the conventional wisdom.

And most of my colleagues do. Not a week seems to go by that I don’t read a story taking a hard look at liquor on flights. But fewer travel pundits bother to check into the luggage dilemma, which is a considerable issue for leisure travelers – particularly those who want to walk on board with the kitchen sink – and a jumbo-sized problem for the jet set.

One reason that baggage may be such an issue for business travelers is that most of it is made for tourists. Generally speaking, the carry-ons on the market cater to leisure travelers. They make few, if any, allowances for laptop computers, peripheral disk drives, batteries, cables and transformers. “When it comes to luggage, business travelers have been overlooked – especially when it comes to luggage that takes technology into account,” says Peter Cobb, who co-founded eBags, a Web site that sells luggage.

That’s fine as long as you’re allowed two carry-ons – one for the laptop, the other for overnight items. But what happens when space is tight and the cabin crew orders you to make a choice? At that point, most experienced travelers try to consolidate their technology with their other bag – a futile, often comical scene in which gadgets get wedged between suits, socks and underwear. (Safe bet that those poor road warriors weren’t among the 59 percent of people who told pollsters from the National Business Travel Association that reducing the number of items passengers may carry on flights would benefit business travelers.)

It’s these forced-to-consolidate travelers – these victims of circumstance – that luggage manufacturers have largely overlooked. They’re people like Brooks Hurd, a reader from San Luis Obispo, Calif. He carries a large Briggs and Riley suitcase that’s withstood four years of almost constant travel. “I could get by with a smaller suitcase, and thus travel lighter if it were not for the curse of the modern business traveler – chargers,” he says.

Here’s just a partial inventory of chargers he must carry: four cell phone chargers, a Palm Pilot charger, a charger for the CD RW drive, one for the Dell notebook computer and the Sony CD player. Hurd believes technology manufacturers are to blame for the charger problem and looks to them for a solution.

I agree, but I also think luggage manufacturers share some of the blame, because none of the leading bags for business travelers really address Hurd’s problem either. What happens when you try to cram the chargers into a half-empty carry-on bag? I’d rather load a few bowling balls into the trunk of my car and spend an hour in stop-and-go traffic, thanks very much.

There are other frustrated luggage users out there. Take Patricia Eachus, a traveler based in Gig Harbor, Wash. At one point, she considered ditching conventional luggage in favor of a backpack, because it seemed to be more accommodating to the technology. “I finally purchased a small roll-along bag that’s more like a large briefcase. Everything fits, along with some underwear and an extra change of clothes for the inevitable,” she says.

So which luggage manufacturers are the exceptions to the unfortunate rule? Swiss Army puts out an excellent backpack that accommodates a cell phone, but its signature offering for business travelers is called the Upright Mobilizer. Atlantic Luggage’s Business Upright Commuter is tech-friendly, too. I also like Kensington’s Simply Portable Roller, which includes several useful features for the road warrior.

However, my experience with these products is that while they allow for technology, they sometimes exclude the other important items that you travel with (like clothes and toiletries). And they don’t exploit the airline carry-on restrictions by being expandable to the very limit of what’s allowed, just in case you need to carry enough clothes for a two-night stay. One exception is Tumi, which offers a 20-inch carry-on with a fold-down design. This doesn’t just allow for easier storage, but also gives the bag room to expand if needed.

Bill Richardson, a regular reader of this column, has found another solution to the tech-luggage dilemma. It’s a two-in-one bag from Shaun Jackson Design that incorporates an overnight bag with a laptop carrying case. “I’ve been carrying it for a year, and I’m very, very pleased with both its compactness as well as its convenience,” he says.

But there’s little evidence that the mainstream luggage manufacturers are embracing any of Shaun Jackson’s design principles. Otherwise this column wouldn’t be necessary.

In the short term, it appears as if we’ll have to make do with what we have. We’ll have to find innovative ways of making inelegant technology and inflexible luggage work together when we travel. It’s not quite enough to make me break into a fit of air rage, but it isn’t exactly helping the situation either.

In the long term, of course, airlines will have to relax their draconian carry-on rules so that we won’t have to make difficult choices between technology and toiletries. An OAG survey found that 40 percent of frequent travelers want carriers to ease their luggage policies, but that’s still nowhere near the numbers we’d need to get this changed.

Meantime, pack lightly.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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