One-bag, carry-on, light travel tips, techniques, and gear

Why does luggage cost what it does? And what does your money buy? Here’s such wisdom as I have on the subject. Let’s divide the type of luggage an OBOW reader might choose into three price categories (give or take a few dollars): $50, $100, and $200.

$50 buys a bag made overseas that may or may not be a good value - the eBags Weekender Convertible comes to mind. This bag is as comfortable as most on the back and the design is quite good. The quality is less so. I started one=bag travel with one of these years ago, but after a few uses a main seam began to fail. I know of another that came to its owner with defective hardware. The materials and construction are always suspect with a bag of this price.
$100 buys a better-made overseas bag that usually has a decent layout and set of features. Think the Rick Steves bags and offerings by Victorinox and the outdoor equipment companies. These will almost always be serviceable bags that are reasonable values.
$200 buys an American-made bag that should last as long as you want to use it under normal circumstances. These bags are produced by small, conscientious US companies that put a lot of effort into producing a quality product - like Red Oxx, Tom Bihn, Tough Traveler, and MEI. This price point may represent a good value if you are a demanding traveler who doesn’t like surprises and doesn’t intend to change bags every year or two. You can also spend $200 or more for bags from reputable luggage companies which offer foreign-made bags of good quality, lots of features and excellent warranties.

You can of course spend even more for leather or some other variety of high-style luggage, but I’m assuming that most OBOW readers are more interested in quality than in ultra-expensive luggage whose primary purpose is to make the owner feel “special”.

Which category represents the best value? My theory is that in most retail categories you should go cheap or go for get-what-you-pay-for quality. In the luggage world this means spend $50 or spend $200. Buy a bag for a lifetime - or one for a year of hard use or a couple of vacations. This makes the most sense to me. A $50 bag is disposable; a $200 bag is still the cheapest element of your next major trip.

A word about sales: Good value can sometimes be had when a sale turns a $180 bag into a $120 bag. But American luggage companies rarely have sales. Why? Small American companies know how much profit they must build into a bag to keep operating. Their labor and material costs are high and they don’t change much. So they don’t have sales. Foreign-made bags are mass produced and marked up significantly. Cheap labor and materials make this possible. When a retailer buys 500 of a bag and it sells slowly they mark it down to near cost or below. It’s more important to a mass marketer to dump excess inventory so they’ll have the cash flow to move on to next years model or trend. The American companies are under less pressure in this respect since they maintain tight inventories and feel no need to replace their high-quality products with something new every year or two.

What do you think?