The best luggage, wheeled bags, suitcases and handbags of 2025

In an ideal world, we’d be spending flights to top vacation destinations just to put our luggage through the kind of real-life tests you’d give yourself. Our budgets don’t run into the tens of thousands, and we have to find more appropriate ways to replicate those situations at home.

First, we fill the cases with a mix of heavy and soft items and zip them shut. We walk them around inside our homes, across hardwood floors, thick carpets, and fluffy rugs — exactly the kind of surfaces you’ll find in your own home and inside the various hotels, Airbnb rooms and guest houses you’ll find on your travels. Then we throw them down the stairs. Not because we’re cruel, but because this is a great way to simulate the kind of brutal treatment cases are likely to receive from airport baggage handlers.

Boxes are often broken due to rough luggage handlers, with cut wheels being very common. So we drop it on its wheels from all angles over and over again. Then again. We pull them out and twist them. We press the handle. Can it support our weight and can it handle being thrown into a bad mood when your flight is delayed and you miss dinner service at your hotel?

We take them outside, still full of heavy things, and drag them over the paving stones, along the old cobblestone streets and up and down the sidewalks. Are they swaying? Are the wheels shaking? Do the handles bend? Do they scratch? These are all things we are looking for. Finally, we look closely at the fasteners and materials to check for any signs of loose stitching or other manufacturer defects that indicate quality control could be better.

If they do not pass the tests, they will not be listed.