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16 Best Carry-On Luggage Brands For Short-Haul, Overnight, And Weekend Trips In 2024

Time to travel in style.

16 Best Carry-On Luggage Brands For Short-Haul, Overnight, And Weekend Trips In 2024

Looking for the best carry-on luggage for your next trip? Look no further. We’ve rounded up the brands producing some of the best carry-on luggage today, that will make your trip from door to door that much easier.

Of course, luggage brands will cater to every type of traveller. Whether you’re someone who likes to fly premium and wants a carry-on bag to match your sleek exterior, or you just need a simple cabin bag that will happily take a beating when stowed away, these luggage brands have it all.

The best carry-on luggage will make your travelling experience a whole lot more efficient. Get it wrong and you’ll be searching through your entire bag to get your boarding pass looking like a fool at the gate. Getting your luggage right will make travel far more enjoyable and impress not only your colleagues or partner, but you’ll be the envy of other travellers, too.

It can be overwhelming to decide what kind of carry-on luggage you want or need, especially with all the different types of carry-on bags that are available. That’s why we’ve assembled this carefully curated guide to save you all the uncertainty…

What We’re Looking For

To understand our reviews and rankings you need to understand the criteria against which we’re rating these carry-on luggage brands. Here are the main things we’re looking out for when reviewing any suitcase worth its salt:

  • Look & Feel: There’s no vanity in admitting that your carry-on is ultimately an essential travel accessory. As such, you want it to look as good as you do, complementing your own energy and aesthetic as you move through the airport, city, and sky.
  • Quality & Durability: Not only does your carry-on need to hold up for the duration of your journey — being able to withstand the many unavoidable knocks endured at the hands of baggage handlers and turbulent planes — it also needs the durability to go through this pain again and again, year after year. Is it hard-sided or soft-sided, and which better suits your needs?
  • Capacity & Features: It’s important to understand how much can these carry-ons actually hold and what kind of trip are they suited for: an overnight stay, a long weekend, or more. Additionally, what special features do they offer that make your pacing and travelling experience that little bit easier? What dimensions does the bag offer and how does this align with airline policy?
  • Price Point: How much all of this going to set you back is a central consideration before any purchase. If it’s pricier than a competitor, what are the benefits you’re actually getting for the additional spend? If it’s cheaper than an alternative, are you missing out on anything? Is the brand skimping on essential features? Or have they simply found the Golden Ratio…
  • Warranty: How protected are you if your suitcase goes awry? Is your hard-earned cash at risk from a wobbly wheel or will the brand repair and replace your chosen unit at will? to only does this matter for your wallet but it has massive sustainability impacts too.

Why Trust Us

Put simply, we’ve been reviewing airlines, carry-ons, and every aspect of the travel industry we can find for over a decade…

Our founder Luc Wiesman has been a committed world traveller for as long as he can remember and our resident Travel Editor Finlay Mead is quickly racking up a long list of business class and economy cabins, hotels, and destinations that he’s experienced and dissected for your pleasure and information.

Most important, however, is that we actually bought and tested a number of these bags ourselves and gave them a hands-on test, taking them with us on our various travels to see how they measure up against the rest.

Firm believers in trying before we buy so that consumers can make quick, easy, and savvy purchases, these are our honest, unbiased, and unfiltered views on how these brands perform.

Short For Time? Here Are The Quick Takeaways

Best Overall Carry-On BrandJuly
Best Luxury Carry-On BrandRimowa
Best Australian Carry-On BrandBellroy
Best Affordable Carry-On BrandLEVEL8
Best Hard-Sided Carry-On BrandSamsonite
Best Duffel Carry-On BrandRAINS