luggage and packing

Bonnie88

Any comments on the hype of luggage to bring to the Australia New Zealand trip. Hard or Soft? Brand.
What clothing to pack. It seems to be pretty casual, do men need a sports jacket?

Ken from Vegas

For luggage, I would recommend a 24-25" hardside "spinner" bag. That size meets airline and Tauck limits for bag size and can be packed to airline weight maximums. If it has an expansion zipper (allows you to make it a couple of inches thicker), that's good, too. Polycarbonate is the best material (strong and light). I've seen a lot of damaged softside bags, so I think hardside is the way to go. The spinner wheels (i.e. 4 wheels) make it easier to maneuver. Look for TSA locks, too.

There are many good brands. Ebags.com is a good place to buy. They have very good house brand bags, but carry many brands. Register on their site and they will send you e-mails with discount codes. They regularly have 20 -30% off everything.

One more thing - never buy black luggage. While it won't show the dirt, it is by far the most popular color. If you buy black, it's hard to spot it on the carousel and likely to be grabbed by someone else by mistake.

British

We stopped using hard sided bags many years ago, two reasons, they became too heavy empty for modern day weight restrictions. Second, when you started to have to either leave bags unlocked in the US or use TSA approved locks, which by the way those locks were always gone when we picked up our bags, we stopped buying them and now use zip ties, then it’s easy to see if the bags have been opened—- we leave a small pair of scissors in an outside pocket to cut the ties. So sometimes those hard sided bags would appear on the conveyor belt half open with clothes hanging out, we feel zips are more likely to be closed by the baggage handlers. A couple on our last trip painted bright large yellow smiley faces on their black bags, I thought that was a great and permanent solution to a generic black bag.
As far as clothing advice, it entirely depends on When you are going on this tour. It can go from extreme heat over 40 degrees C in Australia to snow in New Zealand,when are you going?

AshvEd

Luggage type is certainly a personal preference. We have used hard side polycarbonate spinner bags for the past 10 years. Empty weight is 8-10 pounds and TSA locks are integrated so they can never go missing. We also use a yellow/black strap around the bag and it has a TSA lock too. Helps to differentiate our bag from all the similar colors. I had a Samsonite and baggage handlers finally beat it up after 10 years. I just bought a Lojel hard side and spouse has an eBags house brand.

As far as clothes to bring, check the weather forecasts on weatherspark.com and definitely think layers as the temperatures are so different from Uluru to the NZ South Island.

Ken from Vegas

As far as marking your bags go, we use duck tape on our hardside bags. Not elegant, but easily identified. We found some with pictures of the Minions on the tape. This came in really handy on time when our flight was delayed and we decided to reschedule for the next day, rather than miss our connection. We had to have our bags pulled from the flight. We told the luggage rep to pull the silver and green bags (no black for us) with the Minion tape on the sides. We were able to get our luggage back in a reasonable amount of time.

British

A few years ago I got some metal luggage tags with our photographs on them from Shutterfly, half price, $4 each. We use them all the time. On our most recent tour the tour director checked all the bags in for the group for our return trip so were not able to see the bags get the routing tags on them. Something went wrong somewhere, but while we sitting in the business class lounge for the next connecting flight, an airline official walked straight up to Mr B, to tell us that a rrouting tag was missing from one of our bags but he was able to recognize us from the photos on the tags and tell us he had put a new routing label on the bag and give us the receipt. Really useful, and of course we look a little younger on the photos now so it is a win win!

Bonnie88

thank you for your replies. We are going to Australia and NZ mid April. Still want to know do men need to bring a jacket for the cities and is the rest of the tour pretty casual? Still appreciate any comments on the luggage type too.

AshvEd

Bonnie88 wrote:

thank you for your replies. We are going to Australia and NZ mid April. Still want to know do men need to bring a jacket for the cities and is the rest of the tour pretty casual? Still appreciate any comments on the luggage type too.

Bonnie. I wore a blazer, slacks and collared shirt at the Welcome and Farewell Dinners, and 1 or 2 nights when we dined out on our own. Australia and New Zealand are quite casual. It's always a mixed bag on what the men should wear. There is no right or wrong answer, just whatever he feels comfortable wearing. The luggage we use is above in a prior response.

CatLover8

We just returned from this trip. Men do not need to bring jackets. Most of the men in are group did NOT wear jackets at welcome and farewell, just a nice collared shirt with long sleeves. Almost all other dinners are casual enough that a polo shirt and long pants will do for men. And some are so casual that shorts are also fine!

Basically, if your husband is the type who wants to wear a blazer, then bring it; he will fit in. If he is the type that doesn't want to wear a blazer, then don't bring it; he will fit in.

It is much cooler in New Zealand. 65 is not what you think especially if it is rainy or overcast. In Queenstown we woke up to snow on the mountains! We had a lot of overcast and rainy days with cool mornings. Layers are a must. I brought a sweater weight puffy coat and used it on many days, especially any days we were on the water when the sun wasn't shining brightly (which was most of them - Sydney harbor cruise was a nice day though). Raincoats are a must. Bring a hat that won't blow off in the wind or just buy a cute merino/possum/silk one in New Zealand.

British

We took the Australia and Ne w Zealand tours separately. First because my husband was not retired and the tour was too long, but mainly because the climates for the two countries are so very different. We would have found Australia too hot at this time of year, so we went in August I think it was, but we went to New Zealand in the New Zealand summer and it worked out the best for the range of temperatures that we like for touring. We arrived a couple of days early and stayed a couple of days after both tours to see more of those four locations. The trade off was paying for two lots of flights but at least we did not have to pay for the mid tour flight for the Australia to New Zealand flight that the longer tour requires and that day is not wasted traveling either. I recommend thinking of taking the tours this way. I would go back to Mew Zealand to see more of the country. Australia I could skip another visit.

Monge10

There is definitely no need for men to have a sports jacket. There was only one person on our trip that wore a jacket. It is very casual and there are places for laundry so no worries. As far as luggage, that is really a personal preference. We used soft side bags and they were fine. I do suggest that you use "packing cubes". https://www.amazon.com/eBags-Packing-Cubes-3pc-Set/dp/B004C0XZM4. These were a godsend when you are moving around so much. We were able to grab them in and out without messing everything in the bags. I also recommend a packable down jacket as I wore this almost every day. https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/women-ultra-light-down-jacket-400711.html?dwvar_400711_color=COL18&dwvar_400711_size=SMA003&cgid=women-ultra-light-down-collection#start=12&cgid=women-ultra-light-down-collection

It is a fabulous trip!