Some families get to the airport early to avoid lines. My family gets to the airport early to avoid causing a scene and yet somehow, against all odds and even with all the necessary precautions taken, we manage to make one every. single. year. on our annual trip to Spain.

It’s always about the luggage—and the prosciutto, and the bottles of wine, and the cans of olives my grandmother somehow thinks are okay to pack in bulk in her carry-on luggage. She does it without fail every year even though my dad checks her bags the night before (our theory is that she sneaks the items in some time between the hours of midnight and 6:00 A.M.). After we watch in horror as the Spanish TSA asks us “WTF?” (or as they say in Spanish, ¿WTF?) and tells my grandmother that, no, he can’t accept her prohibited items as gifts, we lug our incredibly heavy and misshaped bags to the gate while my grandma curses quietly in the background. Sure, our bags aren’t stuffed with items every human being knows you can’t take on an airplane. But our luggage somehow always ends up overweight anyway, so we stuff items from them into every free pocket and corner of our purses and carry on bags. It’s never pretty. It’s always painful. I was being literal when I said lug.

It should go without saying that the mere thought of packing and luggage in general sends me into a state of absolute panic. I always wait until the night before I leave. I never take into account the weather of wherever it is that I’m going. I inevitably forget which toiletries are and are not permitted. I think about how somewhere off in the distance my grandmother is stuffing double bottles of wine into some too-small zippered interior compartments.

I am also vain and find almost all luggage to be an eyesore. Yes, suitcases are necessary and there is a real reason they look like armored boxes on wheels. But I am also someone who willingly carries around a teeny tiny PVC bag, that exposes my credit card number to the public and doesn’t even fit my phone, for the sake of appearances (it’s cute, okay!). So when Away first launched their suitcases, which were actually aesthetically pleasing, I was intrigued but also skeptical. I held off and carried on with the truly atrocious suitcase my mom had bought from an off-brand store near our home in Queens. Then every single podcast I listen to told me I needed an Away bag more than I needed a vacation, which made me wonder: luggage had made my life miserable for so many years, would something more thoughtfully designed really change that?

The answer is obviously yes, but it took until the new Away weekender was released for me to come to terms with that. As someone who is evidently luggage-averse, I never really understood what a weekender was and definitely never owned one. But I love weekends, so I wanted to give this bag a chance. Plus, my grandma had borrowed my old carry on and spilled olive juice all over it, so I definitely needed a new one.

My initial reaction was that the bag didn’t offend me, visually. Sure it didn’t look like any of my mini bags but it also didn’t look like any piece of carry on luggage I’ve ever had before. It’s sleek and minimal, which is great since I am incapable of packing just one bag and it has to accompany my very loud, very leopard print suitcase (like I said my suitcase is from Queens and consequently resembles Fran Drescher).

Away

Away The Weekender Bag in Black Canvas

Buy Now

The weekender is made of textured cotton canvas with leather accents, which also feels very nice. So even if I do have to lug it over my shoulder if I’m in a rush and moving quickly (or running away from the TSA agents my grandmother upset—kidding! Kinda) it doesn’t hurt or bother my shoulders or skin. Speaking of lugging, there is a flap on the weekender that helps secure it to any Away suitcase (but it also worked for mine, which isn’t Away) for a smooth ride. When I was running through the airport on a trip last week, I had the Away weekender sit atop my suitcase while I wheeled it rapidly past dozens of gates—and it didn’t slip once.

Source link