The Check-Out Line: The ZUCA Bag

Welcome to The Check-Out Line, where I review products (and services) that are designed to make your life easier. I give you my opinion and my opinion only. You decide for yourself. You can see past product reviews here. This week, I'm reviewing the Zuca Pro Travel Bag.

Purpose: This particular model of Zuca Bag is designed for organizing and transporting all the items you carry on to an airplane for personal and business travel. There are several other models of Zuca for other purposes but...

this one is designed and sized for travel and fits in most airplane overhead luggage compartments.

Suggested retail: $295

I've been a travelin' fool for a few months now, so now was the perfect time to review the Zuca. I took my Zuca Pro Travel Bag on two trips so far and it's been great. The design is a little unusual, which means complete strangers comment on it. A lot. The TSA staff in the security line consistently remark about how "cute" or "different" it is, and other travelers going through the security line and on the plane do too.

The Zuca Bag was originally designed by Laura Udall, whose kids were being totally bogged down with super heavy backpacks at school. She, like many other parents and chiropractors, was concerned about the health of her kids' backs, as they are required to tote between 15 and 30 pounds of books around at school all day. Out of this health concern, the Zuca was born!

The Zuca Pro Travel comes with five removable, color-coded packing pouches that stack inside the bag, plus a SUPER cool clear plastic, TSA-compliant zipper pouch to hold your 3-ounce toiletry bottles. The packing pouches are great for grouping items together and because they're stacked, you can pull out specific things without disrupting the rest of your stuff.

Here are the pictures I took from my recent two-day trip to Tampa. You can see that I only took four of the five packing pouches, plus the clear toiletries pouch on this trip. You can also see the how pouches look inside the bag when it's packed.

 

Pros: The Zuca Pro Travel is very lightweight, due to its aluminum frame. Much lighter than my other carry-on suitcase. The other cool thing about the Zuca is that the aluminum frame not only supports the bag, but it can also support a human up to 300 pounds. As you can see from the pic at the beginning of the post, the top of the frame is perfectly flat, and designed to be a seat. This came in handy when I was flying out of LaGuardia and then again in Atlanta recently and there wasn't a seat to be had at the gate. I plopped my butt down right on top of my Zuca quite comfortably.

Another thing I love about the Zuca is that the wheels aren't regular luggage wheels. They're inline skate wheels, so they roll soooooo smoothly! They're like buttah! The telescoping handle is also  a bit taller than normal, which makes for easier rolling through the airport concourse.

In addition to the five packing pouches, the Zuca has plenty of pockets built into the bag, on both the inside and the outside. It's quite an innovation! There are also Zuca Bags for sports, business, and even to transport your pets. The Pro Travel isn't designed for pets, but don't tell my cat Goldie that... I left the bag open when I first received it, and she hopped right in. By the way, here is a whole page of letters from Zuca users, offering other cool ways to use the Zuca.

Cons: The one snag I'm finding with my Zuca is that I'd like to be able to use the stacking pouches AND put my laptop inside the Zuca, but because my laptop won't fit horizontally on top of the stack, and it's too large to fit vertically in one of the outside pockets, I can't do it.  So, I just have to put my laptop into my other small carry-on bag rather than inside the Zuca.   
Value: Even at $295, for a road warrior who travels as much as I do (lately), I'd say these bags are a worthwhile investment.

Where to buy: You can buy your Zuca directly from their website, as well as several other retailers. There is a retailer locator on their web site, where you simply enter your zip code and you'll find a retailer near you.

 

Overall Score Out of Five Stars:
 

Comments

[Terry Lessig]

Delicates within shoes within other shoes within pouches within a Zuca bag. The TSA has to turn up the x-ray machine just to see it all. Even if you could fit the laptop in, they'd make you take it out and put it in an individual bin for screening. Do they even notice that you are pressing your socks in the closed-up laptop?

Perhaps the business edition would hold the laptop since most business travelers carry one.

With Goldie's paw-print of approval, Zuca should see sales skyrocket.

[Lockable?]

Is it possible to put a lock on the Zuca Pro? Neither your blog nor the Zuca web site mentions securing the bag in a hotel room.

[MonicaRicci]

Terry, Goldie does indeed give her Golden Paw Certification to the Zuca bag. :) As for it being lockable, locking THE BAG closed doesn't appear possible. To secure the frame itself, you could run a cable lock through one of the holes in the frame and lock it to something stationary in the room. To contact the creator of the Zuca and ask her directly, email her at laura@zuca.com.

~Monica

[Jeni]

Hi
RE: Locking or Securing the bag contents

Jeni with ZUCA here. Actually you can lock all of our bags closed. The zippers for the main compartment on our bags have an interlocking zipper head that will accept almost any TSA approved luggage lock.

Regards

Jeni

[MonicaRicci]

Jeni,
THANK YOU!! After I posted my comment, I did check my Zuca bag and discovered I was dead wrong! And I meant to change my comment once I realized that the zipper compartment has a place to hang a lock! And then I totally spaced and forgot to do it, so you reminded me! Sorry about that. :)
~Monica