Best luggage ?

You might want to repost in the Packing forum: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/packing. We have lots of suitcase/backpack junkies here, and they may be more likely to see your inquiry there.

Def get the luggage with 2 wheels as it's so much easier to pull over cobblestone in Europe. One year we made the mistake of taking luggage with the 4 wheels/spinners and it would not go over cobblestone at all - it kept falling over - we ended up having to carry it. We love the Eagle Creek 26 inch Tarmac. But any with 2 wheels will work.

I tried reposting but it said I posted it once and couldn’t do it again. Maybe I’ll just reword it.

Chinalake67 that’s great advice!

I would add another vote to 2 wheeled luggage. We have used 22” wheeled Travelpro luggage for years. It has never let us down. Well made, light weight and glides over the cobblestone and rough terrain. We have also traveled on trains & easy to maneuver.

I’ll check it out. Thank you!!

OMG......here we go again.....two wheel/Four wheel. Wheels/no wheels.

I am currently traveling around France with four wheels. Not a big problem. I did the same in Switzerland prior to the pandemic. Not every street in Europe is cobblestones. Many/most are regular sidewalks.

Asking what is the best luggage without more details is like asking what is the best car to buy.

Do would want check in size or carry-on? What is your budget? How will you get from the train station to your hotels--walk, public transit, taxi? Define "best."

If you truly want "the best" look at Rimowa, Globe-Trotter, and Mont-Blanc to name a few. You might be able to find something under $1000. Briggs & Riley and Tumi have quality for a slightly lighter price.

I love my 4-wheel 22" on airport floors and my driveway in the US, but at our French home it's h*ll on wheels. This is what I ran into in my own building and neighborhood: challenge one, rolling over door and elevator thresholds, two going over flagstone sidewalks, three curb corners with no cutouts or parked cars blocking, four sidewalk repair with sand, finally, five staying in a hotel with deep plush hallway carpeting. This was all on day one of a weekend trip in September. Last month, I left it at home and took an old 24" two-wheeler on the train to Brittany and Paris. So as Frank II said, there is no best but it depends on where you are rolling. I'm buying a new 2-wheel rollaboard bc I gave my husband my old Delsey when I bought the spinner. I'll keep the spinner for easy car-to-airport travel in the US.

I had the 2-wheel 26-inch Travelpro Maxlite for my Sept. trip and just purchased the 2-wheel 22-inch inch Travelpro Maxlite for my for my June trip. I decided to downsize because of the space issue on the Swiss trains. The 26-inch would just be too much for me trying to lift up to put in the overhead racks. Not a lot of room in that 22-inch though. I did a practice pack yesterday and was able to squish in all my packing cubes and extras, but zero room for souvenirs. I’ll have to rely on my carry-on bag for that.

Whatever suitcase you end up getting, I suggest doing some practice packing to make sure you can fit everything you want to take and are able to carry it. I purchased both a food scale and a luggage scale so I can keep track of the weight. I weighed everything and tried to take clothes that weighed less. For example, jeans are heavier than my nylon pants. So, I ended up taking more nylon pants.

I virtually always walk from train/bus stations to my hotel, and my typical trip involves over 25 changes of hotel, so I hate-hate-hate spinners. It is quite difficult to find bags with two wheels these days, at least in the US. I stumbled on a couple of IT bags with two wheels at either TJMaxx or Marshalls just before things shut down in 2020. I grabbed them both even though they were a bit larger than I wanted. They're very lightweight (as all IT bags seem to be), but I'm worried about what will happen to a soft-sided bag that's not fully packed in the cargo hold of an airplane. It's also true that it's harder to stow a larger bag on a train, even if it's not heavy.

Another factor to consider is whether you can deal with the clam-shell-style opening on nearly all the current hard-sided bags. I don't like that, because you have to open the bag on a large, flat surface [edited] to have access to all the contents. I want to be able to simply lift the top and reach in. Others prefer a clam-shell bag, and on my last foray through luggage departments it looked as if hard-sided, clam-shell spinners were a very large majority of the inventory. Be very, very careful about cheap bags with spinner wheels. The wheels do fail rather easily, and it's very inconvenient if you have a catastrophic wheel failure in the middle of a trip.

This subject has been discussed to death in the Packing forum. It's worth your time to read at least some of the earlier threads. There are suggestions about brands that are relatively sturdy, etc.

Love my 24” Travelpro with 4 wheels. No problems ever on cobblestones. You can tilt it and pull it on 2 wheels. I have the RS rollaboard 22” 2 wheels. Really dislike it but I use it. It falls over easily and way more difficult to pull (on any surface) than my 4 wheel Travelpro.

Here's the thing, Susan. The Lipault saleswoman in Paris instructed me to never pull a spinner on two wheels, as I was doing just that in one of their Paris showrooms. Non, non, jamais Madame, jamais.

It stands to reason that back wheels on a bag designed to be rolled flat on four wheels wouldn't last as long as expected if the bag was tilted and rolled on two wheels. I'm pretty sure doing that was a major contributor to my wheel disasters. But what are you going to do if you have to cross a lot of cobblestones? I always lift my bag over curbs and on stairs, but I can't comfortably carry it over multiple blocks of cobblestones.

Bets, I understand that’s what that woman said. If mine breaks, I’ll just buy a new one. But I love my 4 wheel Travelpro and I hate the 2 wheel RS suitcase so there’s no going back for me.

In my experience, I have often found if a street is cobblestones, the sidewalk isn’t.

And I can’t even remember when I’ve ever had to walk with my suitcases on any cobblestones.

I will head over and read info on bags in that forum. You are right that I should have been more specific on what we are looking for and how we will be traveling.
I’ll jump onto the other forum to ask again with detailed info.
Thanks to you all for the help and sound advice.
😁😁😁😁😁