Susie Wee’s travel tip: How to move three carry-on suitcases at once

The wheeled carry-on suitcase is a wonderful invention. It’s perfect for my business trips as I zip around airports, taxicabs, and hotels in near and far-away places. I can get from place to place in record breaking times. Well, I just came back from vacation and I had a little predicament. We got off the plane, and he got the car and I got the suitcases. Oh no! I was responsible for three carry-on suitcases!

One little travel tip is when you get picked up from the airport, it’s much easier to get picked up at departures than arrivals. The reason is that the airport traffic cops are always pushing along the cars at the arrival terminals to keep the flow going, but they don’t pay a lot of attention to the departure terminals. So, if you can manage to get yourself and your bags to the departure terminal then you’ll be doing your driver a big favor.

Now back to the three carry-on suitcases. I had a little dilemma on how to get the suitcases upstairs while keeping them all within my sight. Sure, I could have shuffled them along leapfrog style- move one suitcase forward 10 feet, then the next, then the next, then repeat. But this seemed inefficient. So, I had put my thinking cap on… and then… It came to me!

Susie rolling three suitcases at once

I took two of the suitcases and put them back-to-back. I pulled up the two handles and held them together in one hand. Then I kicked the bottom of one suitcase forward and the other suitcase backward so that they formed an upside down V. Voila! I could roll two suitcases with one hand! Then I rolled the other suitcase with my other hand. All of this after putting my backpack (which had my purse inside of it) on my back. So, I made it upstairs to the arrivals terminal to get my ride with all three suitcases, a backpack, and a purse in tow and I didn’t have to ask for help.

The one tricky part is maneuvering the suitcase pair with one hand. The tip is this: You have to look ahead at what direction you want to go so you know where you have to turn and you have to move your hand the opposite way from the direction you want to turn. In other words, if you want to curve left then you have to move your hand to the right. And, if you want to curve right then you have to move your hand to the left. This is because moving the top of the upside down V in one direction makes the two suitcase wheels form an arc in the opposite direction, which then guides you in the direction you want to walk.

I guess this could possibly work with four suitcases, but I didn’t have a fourth one to try. Let me know if this works for you.

p.s. He did offer to pick me up at the departure terminal near the baggage claim, but I insisted on trying since I had some extra time… and this led me to this great discovery.

p.p.s. This is the kind of article you can only post on a personal blog.