Honeymoon,  Lifestyle,  Reviews,  Travel

Away Luggage Bigger Carry On Review

It’s been almost two weeks since we got back from our amazing honeymoon and I’ll probably never stop talking about how amazing it was!! We had so much fun and so many fabulous new experiences – it was the perfect way to celebrate our wedding and spend time together.

Photo 0060.png

In the midst of our honeymoon planning, we realized that it would probably be a good idea for us to get some new luggage. Up to this point we had kind of just used whatever we had around for travel – I have a Vera Bradley duffel bag I like, and we had an older set of rolling luggage in okay-ish condition. But we had been meaning to buy new for a while because we definitely want to travel a lot when we’re married, and the honeymoon seemed like as good of an excuse as any for an upgrade.

Enter Away luggage!

box

I actually first heard about this on my much beloved podcast, My Favorite Murder. One of the ads I’d hear on their show a lot was Away luggage, and I guess it did its job because I found myself googling them one night and immediately fell in love. The bags looked beautiful, sturdy, and pretty much perfect in every way???

box open

And upon further research, I found pretty much exclusively glowing reviews all over the internet. The idea behind their brand is that they can charge less for the bags because they’re sold directly from the company and not through other retailers. They also offer a 100 day money back guarantee and a lifetime warranty if anything happens to the luggage – I was shocked when I was doing my research because this just seems like it’s too good to be true haha

Away offers two carry-on sized bags (the Carry On and the Bigger Carry On – I know, original) and two larger checked bag sizes (the Medium and the Large). All the bags come in 8 colors with a few special promotional colors every now and then. We decided that the Bigger Carry On seemed like a good choice for us. Chris chose grey for his and you probably could have guessed that I would get the pink one haha

 

The shipping was super fast too… I ordered January 2, it shipped the next day and was delivered on the 6th! It arrived in that box you saw up there, and then it was in a pretty canvas bag inside as well. There was also a little guide book to explain everything and all the features of the bag.

 

Make sure to know your strength haha. So anyway – inside that canvas bag was this beautiful pink luggage!!

thing

It’s so stunning in person and it really is very sturdy – the outer shell is super solid! I was also really excited about those 360 wheels which were amazing when we were darting all around airports and hotels. On the inside…

open

The bag has two separate sides, which the company touts as being one side for clothes and one for shoes, toiletries, and other hard objects. I utilized them as two separate sides for whatever can fit in there haha. That little compartment in the middle is a compression pad that can be tightened to buckle everything down better, which proved to be a GODSEND when we were trying to fit 10 days of clothes and souvenirs in!! It also comes with a little laundry bag that you can use to separate dirty clothes. One caveat about that: they claim that you can put a wet bathing suit in there and pack it with everything else and be fine – we tried this and did not find it to be the case when the clothes packed closest to it were damp lol

ANYWAY the bag also has a TSA approved lock:

 

and it came with that luggage tag but I replaced it with a beautiful floral one that my lovely friend Sarah got for me <3

But the COOLEST feature about the bag is that it comes with a built in charger for your phone!!

in the wild

There I am charging away at the airport in Hawaii! It’s really just a charger similar to any other portable lithium battery you might carry with you. It can be removed if you want to carry it around or if you want to check the bag. It can juice up your phone up to 5 times before needing to be recharged. I definitely utilized it a lot while we were waiting for flights!

———————————-

So, here’s what I love about this bag:

Everything.

Just kidding, but it’s basically everything.

in the wild 2

I was especially impressed with the 360 wheels. I normally hate rolling luggage because the wheels are SUCH A PAIN but these were so perfect. I loved being able to just walk with my luggage by my side, scootin along anywhere I wanted. They also held up on pretty much all types of terrain – carpet, parking lots, airport floors, and everything in between.

I also was really pleased with the size. It’s honestly amazing how much stuff we were able to fit in there. I was a bit confused about the difference between Away’s Carry On and the Bigger Carry On, but here’s the deal: the smaller one is sized to all airlines’ specifications that are posted on their websites and official material. The BIGGER carry on is the actual dimensions of the sizers that are in the airport. It’s about an inch bigger on all sides. The airlines tell you your bag has to be a bit smaller than the sizer to ensure that it actually fits, but Away figured out this loophole haha. We had no trouble getting our bag onto any of our seven flights on four different airlines – it fit perfectly in all overhead bins!

So, here’s the rough part – even though these bags are “less expensive” than other luggage, they’re still a lot of money. They range in price from $225-295. Ours cost $245 each. That being said….all things considered, especially after traveling with them for an extended trip – I do not think that price is unreasonable. It’s such a high quality product and I am already looking forward to when we can buy the Medium size as a checked bag!

The only thing I really DISLIKED about the bag was the laundry bag, and that wasn’t even a dislike – we just learned not to put wet swimsuits in there and expect the rest of our clothes to be dry! I’m also not sure how well I’d be able to lift this into an overhead bin if Chris wasn’t traveling with me, but that’s more of a problem with me being an overpacker rather than a fault of the bag haha

Chris Christensen - 1751F9F8-16D0-4323-856C-66333BFB67DC

waiting for our shuttle at LAX with my beautiful Away bag!

All in all, I could not be more pleased with our luggage from Away. The entire trip we were commenting about how well they were holding up and how easy it was to maneuver around with them. We loved them!!! Away also has a refer a friend program where you can get $20 off (and I’ll get $20 toward a future purchase!) if you click on my link here! Let me know if you have any more questions or if you’ve tried Away and love it as much as I do 🙂

That’s all for today! Stay tuned for more posts about the honeymoon – I promise they’re coming!

xo,

sign

8 Comments

  • Amy Smith

    Thank you for the great review! What airlines did you fly? Did you fly Hawaiian airlines with the bigger carry on?

      • Amy Smith

        Hello again! I’m trying to use your Away code but it’s just taking me to the Away site. Do you have a code I can type in? I would like you to get credit since you were so helpful to me!

        • Kaela Celeste

          Aw that is so sweet of you! I think as long as you check out through the specific link, it will automatically give you the discount and credit me 🙂 I copied the link again from my referral page just to be sure it’s up to date, try this one: http://fbuy.me/mNETL ❤️

      • Cindy

        Hi Kaela,

        Were you able to bring the bigger carry-on in the overhead bin each time you boarded the plane? Did they ever ask you to check your luggage?

        Thanks in advance!

  • Molly

    So you did the bigger carry on with Hawaiian airlines bc the dimensions showed that it shouldn’t be able to fit with that bigger carry on…
    Thanks in advance!
    Molly

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *