Halfway through college, shoulders aching as I traveled to visit my long-distance boyfriend, I came to a realization: Freebie tote bags alone would not do. It was time to invest in a well-designed weekender. The ideal weekend bag should fit your essentials (from toiletries to underwear) but still be lightweight, compact, and durable. To make sense of options ranging from duffels to mini-suitcases, we spoke to travel experts, bloggers, and Strategist staffers about their favorites.

If your cosmetics bottles fail you, a proper toiletry bag will act as a barrier between the mess and the clothes in your suitcase. The flimsy plastic bags from the drugstore are no better than a Ziploc and likely won’t make it through your first trip, let alone the next one. You need something that’s primed for travel, roomy enough to fit all the essentials, and stylish. It should be spacious, have a wide opening, and be water resistant in case of any accidents. In pursuit of the best options, we surveyed ten frequent travelers, men’s-grooming experts, and generally stylish guys on the Dopp kits and toiletry bags they rely on to carry their precious products.

In a world without packing cubes, we’d probably all be constantly piling items from one end of a suitcase to the other, searching for that one T-shirt or pair of socks. They make travel less chaotic (at least as far as your luggage is concerned). With packing cubes, “all of a sudden everything has its place before you’ve even packed it,” says editor and self-proclaimed overpacker Foster Kamer. “By the second or third time you use them, you’ll already know exactly what fits where and how much of it you can take with you — down to the very last sock.” And they’re not just great for organization: Packing cubes can help you fit more inside your luggage. “Cubes kind of work like mini-compression sacks,” says Aly Simmons, an operations partner at REI. Once your cubes are filled, “things just fit around each other in the bag perfectly.” To help you find the right packing cubes for your trip (and packing style), we pulled in recommendations from experts, frequent fliers, and Strategist staff.

Who, besides baggage handlers, really knows what our suitcases go through when they’re out of sight at an airport? At the very least, you’ll always want rolling luggage that can handle being tossed around. But beyond that, what makes for a good piece of luggage is highly variable: hard-shell or soft-side? Two wheels or four? Luxury or affordable? Stylish or practical? Ideally, your luggage will be the perfect blend of them all. To find these Goldilocks suitcases, we asked some of the most well-traveled people we know about their favorites, and below, you’ll find a suitcase fit for just about every traveler.

We’ve written about a lot of luggage, and experts we’ve spoken to often prefer hard-shell over soft-shell suitcases. They all pretty much agree that hard-side bags are sturdier and often more durable, as well as easier to wipe clean and slide from luggage racks and overhead bins. Worth noting: They can’t be as easily repaired — a crack will usually be fatal, says Tony Pecorella, the president and CEO of the Manhattan repair shop Modern Leather Goods. So we asked travel writers, former cabin crew, and other frequent fliers about their favorite hard-shell suitcases. If you’re avoiding checked-bag-added costs, these cases are all in carry-on size — but on some budget airlines like Frontier and JetBlue, you do now have to pay for those, too. To help you pack light, travel writers Isabelle Lieblin and Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon recommend slotting some compression packing cubes inside your hard-side case. Once you’ve packed your essentials inside, zipping them up tightly shrinks the cubes down, so you can squeeze in more than you would if you were just folding and rolling. And digital creator Ellie Robinson has a tip from the U.K., where luggage-size restrictions tend to be tighter: Sling a piece like this Etronik gym bag over your hard-side case’s handles, so you can fit more in the cabin with you (and spare your shoulders the strain). The bag will count as your personal item, slotted in under the seat in front of you at no extra cost.

Everyone knows that person who spends weeks sniffing around travel blogs, going deep into Tripadvisor rabbit holes, collecting Google docs from friends of friends, and creating A Beautiful Mind–style spreadsheets to come up with the best vacations and itineraries possible. In this recurring series, we find those people who’ve done all the work for you and have them walk us through a particularly wonderful, especially well-thought-out vacation they took that you can actually steal.

Everyone knows that person who spends weeks sniffing around travel blogs, going deep into Tripadvisor rabbit holes, collecting Google docs from friends of friends, and creating A Beautiful Mind–style spreadsheets to come up with the best vacations and itineraries possible. In this recurring series, we find those people who’ve done all the work for you and have them walk us through a particularly wonderful, especially well-thought-out vacation they took that you can actually steal.

When it comes to travel, having the right luggage can make all the difference. Rolling luggage has become a popular choice for travelers, providing ease and convenience in transporting belongings. With so many options available, it can be overwhelming to choose the perfect piece of rolling luggage for your needs. To help you narrow down your search, we have compiled a list of the 12 very best pieces of rolling luggage on the market. From durability to design, these bags offer the perfect combination of features to make your travels stress-free.