Carry on Bag..Eagle Creek 20 Load Warrior or Steves

[brett]

Looking for a new carry on. It is all that I travel with so I want something light, with good wheels, and reasonably well constructed. Looking at Eagle Creek 20" Load Warrior or the Rick Steves 20" rolling carry on. The former is lighter but a little less capacity. Anyone have any good or bad experiences with this gear or any other suggestions?

 

[KB]

I have a couple of Rick Steves bags, a 22 inch that I've had for maybe 10 years and a newer 21 inch. The 21 inch has a hard shell in back. Both have held up well. The smaller one will fit into the overheads on European flights, which is why I bought it. The 22 inch is a little too big.

My only complaint is no inside pockets, so I have a set of Eagle creek pack-its that I use to organize my stuff.

 

[Scuba]

Love Eagle Creek! DH & I have the EC Tarmac carry-ons. Been all over the world with them and love these bags.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

Looking for a new carry on. It is all that I travel with so I want something light, with good wheels, and reasonably well constructed. Looking at Eagle Creek 20" Load Warrior or the Rick Steves 20" rolling carry on. The former is lighter but a little less capacity. Anyone have any good or bad experiences with this gear or any other suggestions?

I wonder if this is the one a fellow lady passenger was trying to jam into the overhead compartment that was above my seat. Seemed large and heavy, if it fell out I would have gotten rendered unconscious. The wheels seemed very sturdy, they would have dented my skull.

 

[2017ish]

We did a lot of investigating for carryons that would support us for multi-month trips. Wheels were a negative both because they take up space and because they don't work well on many surfaces. We ended up going with Osprey Farpoint 40 backpacks, which work fine for carryon, but can be on the large side if you purchase the right clothing and pack optimally. May downsize to the 35L Tortuga Outbreaker backpack when we start doing city/europe traveling, to ensure we meet the carryon size for european budget carriers.

Steves' convertible carryon also gets good reviews; again, no wheels.

 

[brett]

We usually do two longer trips per year. One at six weeks or so, the other 2-3 months. We definately need/want wheels even though they add weight and space. But the wheels have to be good, only two are required and we want the built in not exterior as per the four wheel variety. All independent travel, all modes.

We only take carry on. Trying to get it down to a 7KG limit which seems standard on European and Asian budget airlines.

 

[jonat]

Check out eBags.com . I have their TLS Mother Lode Weekender Convertible and the Wheeled Duffle and love them both. The Wheeled Duffle is a 2-wheel model that doesn't make the wheels take up a lot of space the way spinners do. The Convertible can be used as a backpack. Both are very well designed and made and surprisingly affordable.

 

[Scuba]

Eagle Creek has a lifetime warranty on their luggage which is one reason we love that brand.

 

[aja8888]

Eagle Creek has a lifetime warranty on their luggage which is one reason we love that brand.

I have an Eagle Creek carryon and when my wheels disintagrated on a European trip, I called them and they said the wheels were not part of that warranty!

I replaced the wheels myself using very good roller blade ones that the airline employees use for replacments.

 

[2017ish]

...

We only take carry on. Trying to get it down to a 7KG limit which seems standard on European and Asian budget airlines.

Agree. But man, shoes are a bear on this if you are going hiking/trekking and fancy eating on the same trip. Luckily, electronics have gotten rid of the book weight though!

 

[Rustic23]

I bought a cheap one from Walmart! It has lasted 8 years. You carry it on, it does not see the abuse of a checked bag. I think it was less than $20.

Just checked below is $33, I could buy 10 for what 1 Eagle Creek cost

 

[gerntz]

Why is carry-on so desirable for a long trip? I'm not in a hurry to get off plane on long vacations & want to have adequate options for weather changes - not to mention being able to bring my bourbon bottles of choice.

 

[RetireAge50]

Why is carry-on so desirable for a long trip? I'm not in a hurry to get off plane on long vacations & want to have adequate options for weather changes - not to mention being able to bring my bourbon bottles of choice.

If it weren't for the checked bag fees I'd all about this especially for trips involving only a plane and a single hotel or cruise ship.

We recently purchased lightweight Osprey 46 backpacks (no wheels). Plan to do a lot of travel requiring a lot of walking around with all our stuff. Total weight will be about 20 lbs (so far so good on some practice runs).

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Love my Eagle Creek bags. I'm also a fan of their packing cubes and folders; although pricey they were worth it to me for organizing my stuff and packing shirts with few wrinkles.

Nice to know about the wheels and the warranty, though. At least they're designed to make the wheels replaceable.

 

[Amethyst]

I have a Samsonite softside carryon that someone gave me in 1979. Just used it on our Canyonlands trip. It can expand almost indefinitely, but of course I only pack it to approved carryon dimensions ;-) It has been in a lot of airplanes!

 

[Johanson]

I just received a Tumi Tegra-Lite® Max International Expandable Carry-On https://www.tumi.com/p/tegra-lite®-max-international-expandable-carry-on-028720TG# for my Million Miler gift from Delta last week. I still haven't used it because I always use a large bag and check it, at least for work. Maybe I'll take it to Prague next month.

 

[OldShooter]

My most recent bag is this one: Zero Air II - Lightweight Luggage Collection | ZERO HALLIBURTON bought because of its extreme light weight and tough polycarbonate shell material. Airlines, especially in third-world countries seem to be getting tougher and tougher on carry-on bag weight.

It seems to be quite tough, though it's only been on one trip -- two week photo safari to Tanzania and Kenya with lots of rough travel between tent camps, plus a carry-on for the outbound journey and checked baggage for the trip home.

If you get interested in in it, be aware that there is an earlier version still being sold that has a single-pole extension handle and different construction. I don't like single pole handles because one can't stack another bag where the bag is anchored tot he handle. Plus, there is some reason why they revised the shell and went to polycarbonate. I don't want to find out what that reason is by buying the old version.

Re why carry-on? Bags get lost and delayed. We have seen a couple of cases where the checked bag did not rendezvous with the traveler until he/she returned home. While we often check one bag with hair spray and maybe a box of wine, our carry-ons always have a couple of days clothes plus camera equipment, toiletries, pills, etc. that would be a big problem if lost.

 

[REWahoo]

I bought a cheap one from Walmart!

+1

I have two cheap Walmart carry-on bags - one for formal travel and one for more casual trips...

 

[FlaGator]

I just received a Tumi Tegra-Lite® Max International Expandable Carry-On https://www.tumi.com/p/tegra-lite®-max-international-expandable-carry-on-028720TG# for my Million Miler gift from Delta last week. I still haven't used it because I always use a large bag and check it, at least for work. Maybe I'll take it to Prague next month.

thanks for the link, had not looked at the stuff for several years.

Always thought I got good value for the high price of the several Tumi suitcases, garment bags and briefcases I wore over the last 25 years.

 

[Sunset]

So DW's one large bag had the roller wheels break apart, and the zipper broke. So we bought her a new luggage set for our Europe river cruise.

We had to look very hard to find the 2 wheel type as most places want to sell the 4 wheel spinners, which often waste an inch or two of height.

My only advice is to get the 2 wheel type, as the wheels seem less prone to damage, you can literally run though the airport with your bag, and you can fix them with wheels bought on ebay.

I'll totally admit, it was a cheap set of 4 bags, but it was light, and I stiffened it up a bit by putting cardboard in the bottom under the liner.

It performed well, and she loves it as it was the ONLY polka dot bag on the luggage carousel.

 

[Scuba]

I have an Eagle Creek carryon and when my wheels disintagrated on a European trip, I called them and they said the wheels were not part of that warranty!

I replaced the wheels myself using very good roller blade ones that the airline employees use for replacments.

Wow - I'm surprised... always thought their warranty covered everything. We haven't had to replace much on our Eagle Creek bags though. We are sending a 20+ year old backpack back to them. The only thing wrong with it is the elastic on the outside water pockets is shot.

 

[2017ish]

Why is carry-on so desirable for a long trip? I'm not in a hurry to get off plane on long vacations & want to have adequate options for weather changes - not to mention being able to bring my bourbon bottles of choice.

First, we are not "carry on purists." On our dive trips, we check bags with that gear and DW's underwater photography rigs. (yeah, rigs, plural )

As for other trips, the ability to just pick up and go without lugging bags is important to us. Example, our upcoming two month trip has us 1) hiking for a week at altitude (topping out at over 15K), 2) spending other weeks at relatively high altitude doing self directed exploration and hiking, 3) a week or so in amazonia, 4) a week or two in a major city with high end restaurants, 5) coastal explorations in sparsely populated areas, and 6) not sure yet.

Travel between areas will be by local bus lines and at least one puddle jumper airline hop. The bus travel will enable us to hop off at interesting towns and spend a night or more.

We'd rather not carry more than a backpack with that itinerary (and can buy our booze locally!). It takes the right gear, but we are covered for all weather conditions that we are likely to run into, whether wet or dry, from below freezing to jungle heat ...

 

[Scuba]

Impressive that you can pack for these various activities with just a carry-on! Sounds like a fun trip.

 

[2017ish]

Impressive that you can pack for these various activities with just a carry-on! Sounds like a fun trip.

I just wish it would have been cheap to get those clothes.... We felt like bclover's friend buying fancy shoes!

 

[brett]

We started to go carry on after retirement. We travel quite a bit.

Why carry on only? First reason is our physical ability to handle it by ourselves. That could be lifting it up to a luggage rack on a train, into a small rental vehicle, up two flights of stairs in a hotel or B&B, along a narrow ramp to board a ferry, or indeed, as in Thailand, carrying it across two ferries tied together and then climbing down a short ladder to get to on to our ferry.

Apart from that we have had some airline connection delays that we were able to make much better by being able to answer in the negative to that question...do you have any checked bags?

Bottom line....it has made our travel much more enjoyable. It took some time to adapt. It is not for everyone. But with the exception of a car trip from home this is what we take for trips of one week to three months.

Recently came back from South and Central America. Started out in the snow where we live, warm in Santiago, BA, cold around the horn, then plenty warm in Chile, then warm in Costa Rica and Panama. Planes, buses, rental cars, trains. Carry on made it so easy. My spouse was somewhat resitent, now she is the biggest proponent.