Essential Travel Luggage – Stylish and Practical

Stylish and practical should be your mantra when choosing your travel luggage.  The best designs don't always travel well and the more practical solutions will detract, instead of enhance, your own cool and stylish image.  Ever been standing at baggage retrieval and wondering where your bags were?  Choosing a unique design or colour is also a great idea for spotting your bags in amongst all the other usual run-of-the-mill styles.  Here are a few suggestions of the latest innovative and gorgeous designs for a wide range of tastes and budgets:

Tumi

Tumi offer a range of wheeled carry-ons, large wheeled suitcases, overnight bags, sports and day travel bags and much, much more.  Their latest "Alpha" range is currently ranging in a limited edition saffron yellow colour - just the right shade for spring, as well as their standard black, red and brown.  They also recommend their "Townhouse" and "Voyageur" range.

Hugo Boss

They have a small range of larger bags and a wider range of smaller travel bags for style and high quality.  The Boss "Black Travel Bag" for example, is a mid-sized business wheelie in soft calf leather and durable nylon.  It has a large front pocket, separate laundry compartment and telescopic handle.

Timberland

For the adventure traveller, try Timberland.  Their "Extreme Performance Wheeled Backpack" is lightweight and packed full of practical features.  In grey and orange, the telescopic handle system has a rubber handle making it easy to wheel around airports and streets.  It easily converts into a backpack and is fully lockable and secure.

Gucci

And for real style and panache, you can't beat Gucci.  Simplicity, quality and fashion.  Their range of trolleys, garment bags, cosmetic bags and computer cases are simply wonderful.

Choosing Travel Luggage

Travel Luggage comes in all shapes and sizes and although its purpose is largely practical it is also often considered to be part of a your wardrobe and therefore you may want to choose something that matches your tastes and styles.  However, before you choose your next item of luggage let's summarise the various options open to you.

The following luggages types would serve as a starting point:

• Backpack - a bag that is slung over both shoulders.  Sometimes called knapsack when carrying camping supplies.
• Trunk - a large piece of luggage often wooden, plastic, or even light metal.  Due to its size this isn't really practical for most air travel and is usually only used for sea voyages or for overland journeys.
• Suitcase - a general purpose piece of luggage that comes in various sizes and may or may not have wheels.
• Wheeled Upright - a suitcase on wheels with an extendible handle that allows the owner to pull it along behind or push it in front.
• Suit or Garment Bag - a large flat bag that is often lined and which is used to store clothing.  It sometimes has a coat hanger integrated with it and straps on the outside which enable it to be folded and secured. They can be quite large and are sometimes wheeled.
• Tote Bag -  a shoulder bag or a small bag on wheels.  Often used as hand luggage on aircraft although some models exceed the maximum allowed weight and size for overhead lockers.
• Duffel bag or Holdall - a soft bag that comes in a variety of sizes.  Usually barrel shaped and used to carry clothes or sports equipment.
• Briefcase - a piece of hand luggage usually used for carrying business documents.
• Carpet bag - luggage made from pieces of carpet!
• Rolling Luggage - a term which describes any kind of luggage that has wheels attached to aid movement (see above).

Go to our luggage section for some examples of these and other types.