Sadly, my company is tight on the policy of doing laundry, so I often have to travel heavy enough that I can’t carry on, thus the heavy abuse. I am beginning to believe that even anvil cases can’t handle the abuse that luggage handlers dish out :-( (you should see the gear that came out of an Anvil case at this show I am at now. The PC is “bent”. I am amazed that it started up at all.)

I agree on the black bag comments. Too often they all look alike. I have a groovy copper colored roller that is easy to spy coming off the carousel.

I know several people with Victorinox backpacks that are satisfied. Being a Mac person at heart, I recently bought a booq bag (www.booq.com) and it seems to be holding up remarkably well. I travel probably 2 weeks a month, and have been to Europe twice, Asia 4 times, and Japan three times this year, and it has been solid. I can recommend it highly.

Only one part of the interior liner is torn, but otherwise it’s really doing well. I really like the magnetically-closed pouch for holding frequently accessed items like my wallet, tickets, keys, iPod, etc. (shh, don’t tell anyone)

As far as checked luggage, I prefer to buy cheaper stuff and plan to replace it every couple of years. Better to do that than buy something really expensive and get mad each time a new dent or scratch appears, or worse-still, have it never show up at my destination. Also, I never buy black checked luggage — sure, it’s cool and it’s what everybody else has… Wait….

Now, why do airports provide so few power points. smaller airports like San Jose have power all over the place, but try finding one in (say) Chicago.

My other suggestion is a portable media player. By the time the middle of the month rolls around, I’ve seen the airline movies at least six times, to the point where I turn off the audio and start injecting my own dialogue. An iPod Touch, PSP or Archos thingy is ideal. Also, some noise cancelling headphones. I have a set of Sennheiser PXC300 – cheaper than the bose ones, and half the size when packed as well.

@GTA – I very rarely check a bag, using a tri-fold roll aboard garment bag currently, so I can’t say much about performance when checking luggage. I do know that Tumi is happy to replace things like broken zippers. My lovely wife brought her 6 year old backpack with a broken zipper in to Tumi and it was fixed at no charge, and pretty quick. I’m more confident in Tumi’s “lifetime guarantee” than I am in most brands – and the lost luggage finder program supports this (I actually returned a piece to someone because of this once).

What I can say, is that my Victorinox roll aboard started showing serious signs of wear after about 6 months of twice monthly use, while my Tumi has held up remarkably well over 18 months of much heavier use. YMMV, of course, but my 18 months of rolling around San Francisco, New York and a variety of other places every week take a pretty serious toll on luggage and my Tumi pieces have held up remarkably well.

@CPM, and others – please let us know if you find something incredibly rugged. The next frontier is probably steel mesh reinforced Kevlar!

BK

Geoff, the CPM’s dead-after-just-three-years bag was a TravelPro. Agreed, it’s not a quality brand. The Cranky Product Manager was entertaining getting a Tumi or a Victorinox suitcase. Interesting to get both viewpoints on Tumi. Anyone have anything to say about Victorinox (the Swiss Army brand)?

I made a mistake buying what the “flight attendants” use, TravelPro. THeir luggage lasts because they never ever have to check their bag. I unfortunately, often have to check my luggage, and the first time I did, the zipper pull got broken off.

I am still looking for quality, bulletproof luggage.

What I did buy recently was a Sony eReader. I love to read (I almost never watch TV on the road). I used to raid the used book stores in town for my Sci-Fi fix, but I would often exhaust my bring alongs, and not be able to replenish them. No longer a problem, I can load this thing up and read for months on one memory card. Highly recommended.

Geoff

It is a bit of an investment, but I think worth every penny.