Best Luggage, Wheeled Suitcases, Duffle Bags & Carry-Ons for 2024

In an ideal world, we would declare flights to the best holiday destinations just to put our luggage through the real tests you would do yourself. Since our budgets are not in the tens of thousands, we need to find more suitable ways to simulate those situations at home.

First, we fill the suitcases with a mix of heavy and soft items and zip them up. We walk them around our house, over hardwood floors, thick carpets, thin rugs — exactly the kind of surfaces you’ll encounter in your own home and in the various hotels, Airbnbs, and guesthouses you encounter when you travel. Then we throw them down the stairs. Not because we’re cruel, but because this is a great way to simulate the kind of brutal treatment your suitcases are likely to receive from airport baggage handlers.

Suitcases are often broken by baggage handlers being too rough, and broken wheels are all too common. So we drop them on their wheels from all sides, over and over again. And over again. We pull and turn them. We put pressure on the handle. Can it hold our weight and can it endure being dragged around in a bad mood when your flight is delayed and you missed dinner at your hotel?

We take them outside, still loaded with heavy gear, and drag them over sidewalks, along old cobblestone streets, and up and down curbs. Do they wobble? Do the wheels rattle? Do the handles bend? Do they scratch? These are all things we look for. Finally, we look closely at the zippers and materials for signs of loose stitching or other manufacturing defects that indicate that quality control could be better.

If they don’t survive the tests, they won’t be on the list.