Our methodology

What "field-tested" means here

Field-tested means our picks are judged against how gear performs on real trips, not against a spec sheet. For each category we read every substantial published hands-on test we can find - Wirecutter, GearLab, Pack Hacker and others - and weigh what their testers actually found. We combine that with the specs that decide the purchase, particularly whether a bag fits the airline limits you will really be measured against, and with our own travel experience where it genuinely applies.

We are not a testing lab. We do not receive samples. When a finding comes from someone else's testing, we name them. That is the whole definition, and the badge on our homepage means exactly that and nothing more.

How we choose picks

In order of weight, for luggage - the category most of this site is about:

1. Fit against published airline limits. A carry-on that does not clear 22 x 14 x 9 is not a carry-on, whatever else is true about it. Every pick is checked against the limits each carrier publishes.
2. Empty weight. On any airline that weighs cabin baggage - most international carriers - this decides how much of your allowance is left for your clothes. It is the most underweighted spec in the category.
3. Wheel and handle durability as reported in published hands-on testing. These are the parts that fail. Shell material barely features in real-world failures and features heavily in marketing.
4. Warranty reality, not warranty length. A lifetime warranty covering manufacturing defects but not the wheel you destroyed on a curb is a different thing from a repair network you can actually use.
5. Availability on Amazon, because that is where this site's readers buy and a recommendation you cannot act on is not a recommendation.
6. Price band. Last, not first. The right bag at the wrong price is still a better answer than the wrong bag cheaply.

For other categories the list shifts - compression socks are judged on sizing and fit, power banks on watt-hours against airline limits, toiletry bottles on whether the seal survives a cabin pressure change. The principle is constant: judge on the specs that decide the purchase for the trip you are taking.

What we do not do

• No paid placement. Nobody can buy a position on this site, and nobody has tried hard enough to be worth mentioning.
• No free samples. We do not accept them, which means we also cannot claim to have tested what we would have received.
• No commission-driven ranking. Where a cheaper product is the better buy, it goes at the top. Buyer-first beats commission, every time.
• No invented ratings. We publish no star ratings or review scores dressed up as measurements, because we did not measure anything.
• No testimonials. We have none. A site with no customers has no customer reviews, and inventing them would be fabrication.
• No claimed first-hand testing we did not do. This is the one that matters most, and it is why this page exists.

Why we do not show prices

Prices and stock change constantly, and we have no live price feed for this site. A price published today and wrong next week is worse than no price at all, because it looks authoritative while misleading you.

So every buy link on this site reads "Check price on Amazon" and sends you to the live retailer page. That is an honest description of a real constraint rather than a design choice we are dressing up.

If that changes - if we get a live price feed - prices will appear with a visible date stamp, and any price older than 48 hours will disappear automatically rather than sit there going stale. That behavior is already built; there is simply no data flowing into it yet. This section will be rewritten when that changes, and the update date at the top of this page will tell you when.

How we make money

Amazon Associates commission on qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. That is currently the only way this site earns anything. The full statement, including what it does and does not influence, is on the affiliate disclosure page.

How often we update

Freshness is one of the things we actually compete on. When we surveyed this category we found competitors ranking with a stale year in the title and no update date anywhere on the page - so a visible date and a real cadence is a cheap, genuine advantage.

How to tell us we are wrong

Email contact@packandpassport.com, or use the contact page. Corrections to the airline rules pages get looked at first, because those are the ones where being wrong costs somebody money at a gate.

We will correct errors and we will say that we corrected them - the update date on the page changes when the content does. If you think a pick is wrong rather than a fact being wrong, tell us that too; it is a different conversation but a useful one.

Who writes this

Michael W., the hands-on owner behind The First Buyer. One author, named on every page. More on the about page.

We could show a masthead with a writer, a tester and a fact-checker. We have one person, and showing one name honestly is worth more than showing three invented ones.