Space Bags / Vacuum Taschen

This morning I am busily packing for a long weekend in Regensburg, something that has become quite a simple feat after so many packings and unpackings for adventures this year. As always, I am struck by how much I love Space Bags. You might have seen the infomercials on TV babbling on about how if you put your sweaters or blankets or winter coats into a Space Bag and suck the air out, you triple your storage space because your belongings become so small. I found the commercials amusing, but I never believed them.

And then we were packing to come to Austria, mountains of clothing including summer, fall, winter, and spring wardrobes piling up everywhere. I had carefully thought through each bag we would bring with us starting with Nikolas'. As the smallest member of the family with the smallest sized clothes he had been mentally allotted one duffel bag. That was to fit a year's supply of clothes, in gradually increasing sizes plus coats, hats, mittens, boots and shoes. I thought I might also be able to stick in a few of his toys. But then I started packing, and when only about half of his things would fit, and I could hardly zip the zipper, I started to freak out. Suddenly my image of six or seven bags was multiplying to twelve or more.

Then I discovered Space Bags. I bought one pack of jumbo sized vacuum sealed Space Bags, and in an instant, one of the large mountains because a small mountain. Of course we needed more Space Bags, and so I bought more vacuum bags and also a number of sets of travel bags where you roll the bags to get the air out. You can buy enormous Space Bags and medium Space Bags and small Space Bags. Who knew how much fun it could be to shop for Space Bags?

After everything was plastic wrapped and sealed and piled up, it was simply a matter of fitting the packets into the various suitcases, and instead of worrying about fitting everything in, we had to worry about making the bags too heavy. You can stuff a lot of full Space Bags into a suitcase.

It takes a little bit more time to pack into Space Bags and when I arrive at a destination, I spend a lot of time peering into the sealed Space Bags trying to remember which bag the thing I want was sucked into, but I love my Space Bags. They've completely changed the way I pack.