How to Use Packing Cubes for Family Travel (From A Mom of 4) — A Mom Explores | Family Travel Tips, Destination Guides with Kids, Family Vacation Ideas, and more!

So you’ve heard people raving about packing cubes but you just don’t get the hype.

Do they save space? Or just keep you organized? How exactly do you use them anyway?

I’m here to answer all of your questions. I’m a mom of 4 who is obsessed with packing light. I’m also a travel content creator, so our family travels frequently.

Over the years, I’ve learned to pack light for every type of trip: outdoorsy national parks trips, city breaks, summer trips to humid and rainy destinations in Central America, winter getaways with thick sweaters and winter boots, and 2-week backpacking trips to Europe.

With 4 kids, I’ve learned that I need to be incredibly organized to make the trip go smoothly, which means I’m often planning out how I’m going to pack weeks or even months before the trip takes place.

No matter what type of trip we’re taking, though, one thing remains constant: I ALWAYS use packing cubes.

In fact, seeing a video on TikTok or Instagram of someone just putting clothes directly into a suitcase just feels wrong.

So I’m here to teach you my ways. I’m going to show you step-by-step how I use packing cubes for maximum efficiency.

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How I Use Packing Cubes

The main reason I personally use packing cubes is for organization. I’m often packing multiple people in one suitcase, so I want to make sure their clothes are separate.

Even if I’m packing for a solo trip, it’s nice to put different categories of clothes into different packing cubes.

Packing Cube Strategies:

By Person - each person gets their own packing cube. You can assign a different color to each family member to easily identify at a glance whose packing cube is whose.
By Category - even if each person has their own packing cube, I will often put all of the swimsuits, goggles, swim cover ups, and rash guards in one large packing cube. That way, when it’s time to swim we don’t have to dig through six different packing cubes for what we need. In addition, if we have to pack them while they’re still damp, they won’t make the rest of your clothes wet. We do the same thing with pajamas, especially if we know we’re going to be arriving at our destination late at night. It’s easier to just get one packing cube out at bedtime.
By Day - On our recent trip to Walt Disney World, I had coordinating outfits for each day of our trip, so instead of packing one packing cube per person, I packed all of our outfits for each day together. Every night as I was prepping for the next day in the parks, I would grab the next day’s packing cube and lay out out the clothes for everyone. This is also a great strategy if you’re taking a road trip with multiple stops. You can do a packing cube with pajamas and just the clothes for the next day so you don’t always have to unload all of the suitcases if you don’t want to.

Another way to use packing cubes is to save space. Even if you don’t use compression packing cubes, I think they do a good job of pressing everything down once you zip them up.

If you really want to save space, invest in a good set of compression packing cubes that get rid of all the extra air. I personally like the Eagle Creek compression packing cubes, but there are definitely cheaper options out there like these ones.

How to Fold Clothes in Packing Cubes

I used to preach rolling clothes or doing an accordion fold to maximize space in a packing cube. However, on our 2-week trip to Italy and Greece in 2023, I discovered that there is a far better strategy.

You see, we packed only 1 backpack for each person on that trip, plus one small carry-on suitcase that we mostly used for pull-ups and extra gear for our 3-year-old.

Anyway, on that trip I found myself packing and unpacking the same packing cubes over and over since we moved around so often.

At the beginning of the trip I had folded the clothes accordion style, and the packing cubes barely zipped.

By midway through the trip, I decided to experiment with laying the clothes flat and folding them to the exact length and width of the bottom of the packing cube. I found it was much easier to fit all of the clothes and zip the packing cubes up.

Here is a video on exactly how I do that.

Packing Bulky Items

Whenever we are traveling to a cold weather destination and need to bring sweaters and sweatshirts, I like to use vacuum storage bags. Some come with a hand pump to get all the air out. I tried a pack from Target that you have to roll to get the air out and I hated them. So back to the hand pump I go!

I’ll usually pick my 3 bulkiest items and put them in the vacuum bag. Before I pump the air out I place the vacuum bag inside the suitcase or backpack I’m using and fold it to fit the dimensions of the suitcase or backpack.

Only then do I start pumping the air out. Once all the air is out, the bag can be hard to bend to fit the space you need.

Which Packing Cubes Do You Like?

I’ve used these packing cubes since 2017 and they are still somehow holding up. And we are very rough on our packing cubes - filling them to the limit, stuffing them in bags, etc. They are pretty inexpensive, so it’s worth a try! If you don’t like them for travel you can always use them for storage somewhere in your house.

I’ve tried these structured clear packing cubes too. I feel like I can’t fit as many clothes in them, but I really like them for things like mouse ears for Disney World, packing toys for my younger kids, and I use the small one as my TSA liquid bag.

We mostly use large packing cubes for clothes. If I’m not trying to pack super light I use the large packing cubes for pants and sweaters/sweatshirts, the medium packing cubes for tops and/or pajamas and lounge clothes, and the long and narrow ones for underwear/bras/socks/swimsuits.

I don’t often use the compression packing cubes because I never really feel like they save that much space, and they’re so inflexible once all the air is out.

So there you have it! That’s exactly how and why I use packing cubes to pack light for a family of 6.