I'm the person who packs for a five-day trip like it's a month in Antarctica. My husband calls it "the Lauren tax," because half the time I end up paying baggage fees just to bring clothes I don't wear.
Last spring it hit $138 in one round trip. For a carry-on that came home half-empty.
I'd tried the cheap Amazon compression bags before. They ripped on the second trip. I'd looked at Ekster too, but at $160 for something that barely holds a week of clothes, it felt like paying more for less.
Then I saw 2PackBag™ show up in my feed, with over 9,700 reviews and a claim I didn't believe: fourteen days of clothes, one carry-on.
So I ordered it. Here's what actually happened when I packed for a real trip, not a demo.