How to read the cabin box an airline gives you
The three numbers on the airline page are the outside of the case, wheels and handle and all. Here is how we measure ours against them.
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Logbook
Notes from the road
What we learned building these shells, written down before we forgot it. 6 notes so far, all of it about cases we build rather than cases in general.
Hard shell or soft side, and what you give up either way
We build both because neither wins outright. The choice comes down to what you carry and how the case gets handled.
Every pound of empty case is a pound of clothes
Checked bag limits are total weight, not contents. Here is where the pounds sit in a case and which ones we can take out.
Why we build cases that open from the top
A clamshell has to lie flat and be unpacked to reach the bottom. A top opener does not. That is the entire argument.
A week in a cabin case, without sitting on the lid
The limit is not really space. It is the shape of what you put in first and how much air travels with it.
Wheels, handles and the parts that go first
Luggage rarely fails in the middle of the shell. It fails at the four places that move.
Match your case to airline limits
Overhead sizers vary between carriers, and an oversized corner can mean a gate-check you did not plan for. We list every case by outer bounds so you know what fits before packing. Enter the limits from your boarding pass into our finder, and we show you the exact hard shells and compact bags cleared for that cabin.