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I’m Convinced: The Best Item at Ikea Is This $1 Travel Accessory

Forget the Billy bookcase and Poäng chair.

ikea packing cubePhoto by Jack Seemer for Gear Patrol
Jack Seemer

By Jack Seemer

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Slowly but surely, my home is starting to look like an Ikea showroom. My office has three separate Kallax units. My dresser is Malm. A few Gladom tables hang out on the patio (the removable tray is truly great for hosting). And I’m considering going all-in on the industrial Bror system for my garage.

But what if told you that Ikea’s best product wasn’t a shelving unit or a chair or a table lamp (even though those are great, too) but a $1 packing cube that’s become an essential part of my travel kit?

It’s called the Pärkla Shoe Bag and unlike Ikea’s iconic Billy bookcase or Poäng lounge chair, it doesn’t have notable backstory or a legion of fans on the internet. Not yet, anyway.

In fact, I’m not even sure when Ikea came out with the thing. However, none of that matters because the Pärkla is excellent, and cheap, and everyone should own one, if not a dozen for traveling or commuting.

Function over flair

For starters, the Pärkla is simple. One zipper. One compartment. In their quest to advance a category, bag makers have engineered more pockets than you’d ever think possible on a small cube or pouch.

ikea packing cube
Beyond the $1 price tag, one of the best things about the Pärkla is its unapologetic simplicity — one zipper, one compartment.
Photo by Jack Seemer for Gear Patrol

I find most of that stuff fussy and, frankly, overkill. A packing cube should provide a layer of organization to a bag or suitcase, speeding up the time it takes to find a gadget or pair of socks.

In their quest to advance a category, bag makers have engineered more pockets than you’d ever think possible on a small cube or pouch.

Put a pocket in a pocket and the whole premise starts to fall apart. I can’t be the only person who’s lost a charging cable halfway through a trip, only to find it days later, hidden in a secret pocket.

Tough and cheap

The Pärkla is also tough. Just like Ikea’s famous blue shopping bag (or, let’s be real, laundry hauler), the Pärkla is constructed with partly recycled polypropylene — albeit a see-through variant, which makes it easy to see what the hell is inside the thing. Though it does get cloudy with some wear, I’ve yet to encounter even the slightest sign of a rip, even after thousands of miles.

But even if did break down, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. The Pärkla costs a dollar. And I have dozen backups, anyway.

Take a Trip

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