OpinionDrafted with AI assistance and reviewed by our editors. Sources linked below.
NBC's editors listed 100 travel essentials. The $20 items are the ones to copy.
A $475 aluminium carry-on sits next to a $17 toiletry bag in the same list. One of them changes how a trip feels. It isn't the expensive one.
NBC Select published a list of 100 travel essentials its editors “never leave home without” on October 20, framed around the stresses of holiday travel: check-in fees, long security lines, cramped seats. It’s a long list and, as these things go, a useful one — because the editors give a specific reason for each pick rather than a star rating.
Read it all the way through, though, and a pattern emerges. The items that editors describe most vividly are mostly the cheap ones.
The expensive end
There is impressive luggage on the list. The Portar Lucent aluminium carry-on, $475 on sale from $575, with quiet wheels and built-in TSA locks. The Solgaard Check-In Closet at $395, recommended because its rectangular shape fits packing cubes and it has no zippers to snag. A Calpak carry-on at $245 that one editor has used for eight years. A Halfday garment roller at $258 with a built-in garment bag.
These are good cases, and the eight-year Calpak anecdote is the kind of evidence we trust. But a $250–$475 case mainly changes how your clothes travel. It doesn’t change the trip.
The cheap end
Compare the reasons given for the inexpensive items. A $16.99 Bagsmart toiletry bag earns its place because transparent compartments make things easy to find and a hook lets it hang in a small bathroom. A $39.99 six-pack of compression cubes holds “about two weeks of tops and bottoms” and fits both carry-ons and checked bags. A $19.99 universal adapter covers most plug types with four USB ports and a USB-C port. A $69.99 folding charger charges a phone, earbuds and a watch at once and folds down to pocket size.
Each of those solves a specific, repeated irritation: the hotel bathroom with one shelf, the suitcase that won’t close, the wrong plug, the tangle of cables. Those are the moments that make travel feel either smooth or stressful. The suitcase, by contrast, is mostly judged in the thirty seconds it spends in the overhead bin.
Even the medicine cabinet makes the cut
The list includes chewable Pepto-Bismol tablets, with the practical note that chewables avoid both the need for water and TSA liquid restrictions. It’s a reminder that “travel essentials” is a category where the least glamorous item on the list may be the one you’re most grateful for at 2 a.m. in a hotel room.
How we’d use the list
Buy the small things first. Packing cubes, a hanging toiletry bag, an adapter and a compact charger together cost less than $150 and improve every trip you take from now on. Then, if your current suitcase is actually failing, look at the cases — and weight the eight-year track record more heavily than the finish.
A caveat worth repeating from NBC’s own page: it earns a commission on some links, and its methodology is editors’ experience rather than a scoring system. That is fine for a list like this, as long as you read the reasons and not just the prices.
Before you decide
What are the cheapest items on NBC Select's list that editors rate highly?
Among the items NBC lists, a Bagsmart large toiletry bag ($16.99 at Amazon), a six-pack of Bagsmart compression packing cubes ($39.99), an Epika universal travel adapter ($19.99) and an Anker MagGo 3-in-1 folding charger ($69.99) all come with specific reasons from editors who use them.
What's the most expensive item?
The Portar Lucent aluminium carry-on, listed at $475 (down from $575), followed by a Solgaard Check-In Closet at $395.
How did NBC pick the products?
NBC Select says its editors have tried almost every major brand and many lesser-known accessories, and the picks come with personal anecdotes from editors who use them on trips. The page doesn't describe a formal scoring system and notes that NBC earns a commission on some links.
