packing cubes - are they any good?

I've been wondering about packing cubes. We've never used them.

Sometimes I think, "but they'll just add more weight to what we have to carry", but other times I think, "if we're carrying so little in order to fit under the weight limit, we're either going to need smaller bags, or some way of stopping everything from just tumbling around in the bag."

Just to be clear here, I'm not talking about vacuum type bags that squeeze everything down and take up less space. I'm talking about bags that help to organise the space in your bag. The ones shown left are eBags Packing Cubes from Amazon.

Last trip, our bags were mostly filled up with large emptiness i.e. the car booster seats (which were mostly air) took up a lot of space, and very little of the weight limit. If we'd filled the same space with clothes, the bags would have been much heavier.

Therefore, next time, without the booster seats, the bags are going to be much more empty, because we still can't go over the weight limit.

Because we use Doug Dyment's wonderful clothes packing method we have a nicely shaped bundle of clothes all together. But then there's just lots of little things that can float around the bag. When the bag gets stood upright, I figure that without the car seats, all the little things will fall to the bottom in a chunky mess.

This is where I wonder if packing cubes can help me. On many of the travel packing websites people rave about packing cubes. There are lots of different brands including Rick Steves, eBags and Eagle Creek.

I'm thinking that if I can convince John (my husband), we might try them on our next trip. Personally, I think that they would help to keep all the little things in order and in place. Would that be right, in your opinion?