Independent buying guides
For Australians replacing a suitcase or cabin bag before a trip. Each guide answers one buying question, lists airline and customs figures with the date they were checked, and shows the packed-weight calculator's formula.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
External size, empty weight, wheel type and shell material settle most luggage decisions. How to read each one off a specification sheet before you look at a price.
Photo: Sandrine Z · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Divide the case by the trips it will make. At three trips a year over ten years an example $350 case is $11.67 a trip in AUD, GST included.
Photo: Sandrine Z · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Packing and load
Work backwards from the allowance. Subtract the empty case, subtract the heavy items you cannot leave, and pack clothing into whatever is left.
Photo: Angelina Litvin linalitvina · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Adds up a kit list against a weight target and a body-weight guideline.
total = base weight + consumables (water litres x 1 kg + food days x food per day); share of body weight = total / body weight x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Turns a price into a cost per use, so a dear item used often can be compared with a cheap one used rarely.
cost per use = (price + consumables over the whole life) / (uses per week x 52 x years)
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Angelina Litvin linalitvina · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Weight, volume and what gets left behind.
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Photo: Familydestinationsguide.com Images · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Temperature, weather and terrain, with real numbers.
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Photo: Bryan Ledgard · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Sachi Gahan · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
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Photo: Familydestinationsguide.com Images · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
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Photo: Mstephen247 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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