Luggage Shopping

These days I'm getting ready for a spring trip and because the Northwest Airlines baggage handlers took a forklift to my luggage and it's contents on my last international trip I'm luggage shopping.

I know more or less what I want: a largish (I still have my small/medium bags), tough, stable, rollerbag in something other than BLACK.

Black bags do have a few things going for them. Mainly they don't show the scuffs and scrapes that lighter colors do.

BUT... it seems that EVERYBODY has a black bag that looks more or less like every other black bag on the luggage carousel, and if it's a common brand sold by one of the major retailers it IS the same as some of the other bags... so I'm going for COLOR.

So I hit some of the major retailers web sites just to see who carries what and found quite a few acceptable bags... BUT here's the snag with luggage shopping, most bags aren't available in the stores, they are -web only-. I'm guessing they just take up to much shelf space in the stores.

This isn't a problem if you're planning now for a trip this coming summer but I didn't realize I didn't have a suitable bag until NOW... just a few days before our departure date... so it's off to hit the stores and see what they actually have in stock and find something suitable...

(see my tales of woe dealing with NWA and my mistake in obeying the NWA handicapped aid/assistant when dealing with my duty free purchases in an earlier posting)

The moral to this story?

Plan ahead.

Don't wait until the last minute to shop for anything or take what you can get and deal with it.