Hacker News Reader

Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to start something like this many years ago (and I still cannot find anything like it in the cities I go to); I travel a lot for work and I want to leave a suitcase in every city I travel to every few months so I can just take my laptop on the plane. The places that exist only do 24-48 hours max or are very expensive (can rent an apartment for just a little more). So yeah, airbnb for luggage.

View on HN

Where have you needed this? Will add it to our expansion roadmap! Keep a look out for us next time. We're in 72 cities now and that number will at least double this year.

HK, Shanghai, Melbourne, Orlando and Bangkok. I travel between those.

In Bangkok you should be able to leave your luggage long term in Kaho San Road at some hotels.

At least that's what I used to do.

On it!

I was thinking of adding some other services as well as all people (expats) were looking for those; buying stuff for you and putting it into suitcases for instance.

I have a room full with crap; even at $1/day per case (which I would pay long term), I can put enough cases in there and easily get them out to pay triple the mortgage on the entire house every month... All my chinese and thai friends (where I store stuff now) would gladly long term store cases in their houses: 20-30 of them for sure.

Short term they would not but 2 weeks or more; many people working abroad would jump at that.

I have always dreamed of someone providing me all the essentials I need on a vacation - toothpaste brush comb etc and having it ready at airport or hotel. At a reasonable price.

Seems I always forget something or forget to bring it home. Would be nice just to not stress about them during packing and just focus on clothes laptop etc

As a general tip, if you travel enough, keep a travel kit that you can just toss in a bag. For toiletries, I just have a 1 quart Ziplock I only use for travel. And I have another little kit bag that contains a bunch of odds and ends I may need while traveling.

I don't keep dupes of everything. My cables and plugs bag is the same one I use day-to-day. But I do keep a general travel pile that has most of the stuff I may need on a trip other than clothing--which varies by location/season/type of trip.

Many hotels have some essentials available if you ask. Co-working spaces like WeWork do too if you're a member.

Sounds like a great idea for Bounce to support someday! Thank you for describing this! We want to create a world where your things never hold you down - you always have access to what you need!

There are luggage shipment services although the one time I tried to use one internationally I ended up with customs issues.

And that was also a weird case where I had a hiking trip after a multi-leg business trip so I didn't want to lug all my gear with me. In general, I travel lightly enough that I'm not checking luggage anyway.

Just playing out this scenario in my head:

Would this entail buying several sets of clothing, tailoring them if needed (some of us can't buy clothing off the shelf), doing laundry and stashing them in the local locker every time you visit?

TBH, most people have extra clothing. It's very common for people who have timeshares or vacation condos of some sort to leave clothing and other necessities so that they don't need to pack it all every time. Of course, if you can't buy clothing off the shelf, you'll probably have a lot less than many people do.

Ah I'm much too much of a dandy for that to work for me, but I can see this working for some folks.

Also, the other problem for me is temperature, formality etc. -- for city i with mᵢ seasons, and nᵢ situations (casual, formal, etc.), I have to own ∑ᵢ mᵢnᵢ sets of clothing.

Sounds like you need something like Clutter (https://www.clutter.com/) for longer term storage.

So you need to leave the suitcase for extended periods like weeks or months?

That's very interesting, I'm sure more and more people will need this in the future.

How much would you expect to pay?

A large storage closet in my apartment building (nice one, Houston) is $20/mo. Can fit grill+bicycle+boxes+more.

I probably wouldn't pay more than that to permanently store a suitcase somewhere. That would be the ceiling for me.

Some frequent business travelers may be willing to pay more.

I'd see it as a $x/mo + $y per bring it to me at the airport (or maybe hotel, depending on the situation)

I doubt you'd find a business charging that little. $100/month seems to be about the floor for self-storage generally although the space is normally larger.

There are luggage delivery services but they're fairly expensive especially if you normally get free checked luggage.

I totally agree, which is why I haven't ever used a service like this.

If you're storing for a longer term, what about a small self-storage unit?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com