<p>One thing we found out was that if your child takes a public transportation system like a subway, the wheeled suitcases are a real pain. Much easier to take a duffel bag.</p>
<p>Wheeled duffel, hands down. LL Bean makes great quality ones in lots of different sizes which LAST FOREVER.</p>
<p>D went off to college with luggage, S the following year with wheeled duffel. </p>
<p>D has borrowed his, taken it into 6 countries, still looks great. </p>
<p>A significant factor is the collapsability. D had a tough time storing the luggage, where the duffel flattened out under the bed, taking up virtually NO space.</p>
<p>If I had to do it all over again (and thank g I don’t), I’d only get the wheeled duffel.</p>
<p>LLBean DOES make a wheeled duffle, and it’s so much cheaper than other brands. I ordered one! For the very first time, I feel that I have actually saved some money by reading cc…
Thanks!
:-)</p>
<p>another vote for High Sierra wheeled duffels (they have withstood 5 years of overseas travelling)…
but to move in, large black garbage bags and Spacebags that can have the air vacuumed out of them…my daughter DOES NOT know how to limit what she brings to school every year; spacebags have been a life saver…</p>
<p>My personal bias is toward wheeled duffles: they are lighter than suitcases, but, most importantly, easier to carry (imo). I have had really good travel experiences with wheeled duffles and they have always suited me well on long trips.</p>
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<p>As long as my son has his cell phone and his laptop, he feels that he has his essential items. He could “rough it” if anything else is missing and get by, but those are the essential items. Mom is the one with with the spacebags on hand!</p>
<p>Whichever one you already own.</p>
<p>Target has an Eddie Bauer 30 inch wheeled duffel on sale this week. $39. I bought one this morning and would have bought D another if they had any more left! It looks to be excellent quality.</p>
<p>Costco has a 30" wheeled duffel for $48. Son 1 has had one for about a year, and it has survived several moves back and forth to college and a couple of airplane trips as checked luggage. Just bought another one for Son 2.</p>
<p>I did the garbage bag thing last year and found it didn’t work for me. I now own a five piece dockers brand luggage set complete with two wheeled suitcases and a wheeled duffel that I got on sale from Sears for $120. Most of my stuff is coming in those this year, and when I am done using them they will all fit inside each other and go under the bed. No problem.</p>
<p>^^^Beware of the Dockers luggage for plane use. I just bought a large suitcase this spring. S1 took it on an international flight and a wheel cracked, S2 used same suitcase also on international flights and a different whole wheel was gone when he got home. Luckily it was perchased from Kohl’s and they told me they would refund the purchase. I have a Dockers rolling carryon that works great. I don’t know if this one was flawed or if these bags generally don’t hold up well to airline handling.</p>
<p>my 12 year old son took the EddieBauer bag from Target on an exchange trip overseas last fall…they were responsible for their own luggage from start to finish…so loaded at home airport, transfer in Warsaw for overnight stay, then train ride to another town for the week and then the reverse back home. He’s my youngest so pretty rough on things and it looks brand new and fit 10 days worth of clothes plus extra things the group had to bring and souvenirs on the way home. I can’t imagine a rougher experience for that poor bag.</p>
<p>For driving to school, we loaded clothes, some right on the hangers, into large suitcases that we no longer use for flying because of their size. When we were done, all the storage bags, boxes, etc fit inside and we took them back with us. dd used her large laundry bag with strap for weekends home.</p>
<p>Biggest tip I can give on timing…make sure your roomie is arriving on different day or at different time…can’t imagine both of them in there trying to unpack at the same time, with 4 parents on top of each other, too!</p>
<p>Another vote for wheeled duffel (You can cram more clothes in it and it is easier to store. (although re the garbage backs recommended by emgamac – been there, done that.)</p>
<p>Thank you for the garbage bag suggestion. I’m in the midst of a move to a home about 30 minutes away. I’m gradually getting it done and I had been packing clothes into a suitcase and then unpacking them and hanging them at the house. Using garbage bags to cover several items, keeping the hangers in and laying the clothes on the back seat was sooooo much quicker. What a great idea!</p>
<p>Does anyone use trunks anymore? I am shipping my daughter’s stuff to Boston from the DC area. Do duffels provide the same amount of space? The college doesn’t provide storage for any of the shipping containers so I will either have to ship it back home or she will have to store it under her bed, eliminating the space she could use for extra tupperware drawers.</p>
<p>Hand truck = gold. My mom got one and it made my move in so much easier my sophomore year (freshman year the families don’t touch their stuff at XU; volunteer student movers bring everything up to the room).</p>
<p>For the sake of space, I’d say whatever collapses/folds to store away, though my roommate last year had a wheeled suitcase that stored under our bed nicely, and that was without risers, so if a hard-cased option is necessary, I’d say wheels are nice to have.</p>
<p>Two different issues- moving into the dorm and travelling back and forth. </p>
<p>Moving in. Trash bags are great- they can be saved for packing next spring. Don’t waste time with too many labels- dump and discover works. Easier to cram soft stuff into corners of the car (I’m the family master packer- H and S may have done the loading and say there’s no more room but I rearrange and everything fits with room to spare).</p>
<p>Travel. Ask your son for his preferences. He’s the one doing the hauling and carrying. Make sure you aren’t adding a lot of weight with the suitcase/duffle choice. The choice becomes another place to stuff things for the move. A size good for weekend travel is best- he won’t want a huge bag everytime he comes home. For major breaks he can stuff the car- I once hauled a full laundry basket, laundry bag and laundry collapsable bin for 3 college students (made it easy to determine which belonged to each guy when dropping people off).</p>
<p>The duffles are great for traveling by car, and do fit under a bed. They aren’t the best for air travel, but your child is only 90 minutes away by car, so there’s no need to worry about containers. Whatever you have will work - cardboard boxes, laundry hampers, old suitcases, etc.</p>
<p>For traveling by car, get two pop-up laundry hampers and use them for the blankets, pillows and towels. Get a few clear boxes for supplies that can be stacked on a shelf or stored under the bed. Keep a lid on the kid’s desire to take everything - it’s just a desire to create a cocoon, and it will pass if you set limits. What you want is the least amount of non-essential stuff to schlep. We just returned fropm a freshman move, and wound up taking the stairs up and down three times to move the items - why pack so much that you have to wait 30 minutes for an elevator?</p>
<p>If you must have wheels I’d do the duffles. We’ve actually come to prefer backpacks that are the maximum size you can carry on.</p>
<p>Just came back from move-in. D and I flew to school with one large suitcase, one wheeled carryon and 2 wheeled duffels. She had plenty of room and they were easy to transport. We made a BB&B/Target run after she moved in for bulky items and toiletries. All the duffels and carryon fit inside her large suitcase so storage is simple. (We found the duffels at Walmart for $14 each - they do not have an internal frame so they fold up into a small sqaure.)</p>