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WILLOWS KIAMA

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I have packed a bag for forty years and never once had a thought about the bag itself. Until this one.

Maggie Crawford

Southern Highlands · September 2026

After my husband died I stopped going away for a couple of years. Then my sister put an end to that, in the way sisters do, and since March I have been on a coach to the Blue Mountains, two trains to my daughter's in Sydney and one overnight in Bowral.

Which is how I came to be standing in a queue behind a woman with a quilted bag over her arm, looking at her luggage instead of at my phone, and thinking something I have never once thought about luggage.

That looks like somewhere nice to be going.

Spot the one that belongs to somebody in particular.

1

Weekend bags come in two piles

There is the sensible pile. Black nylon, sags in the middle, and looks exactly like every other bag on the rack, which is how my cardigan once went home with a woman from Goulburn.

And there is the smart pile. Stiff little cases that already weigh something before you put anything in them, scuff on the first trip, and hold about half of what you had planned.

Saggy and invisible, or stiff and heavy. Nobody ever offered me a third thing, so after a while I stopped looking for one.

2

What that bag was actually costing me

I had put it down to the trips themselves. Packing is a chore, going away is tiring, and at our age you are allowed to find it all a bit much.

It was not the trips. It was dragging that thing down off the top of the wardrobe, and digging through it at the bottom of somebody else's spare bed at eleven at night, and picking it back off the rack among four identical ones.

Half the reason I used to put a weekend off was the bag, and I did not work that out until I had a different one.

3

What I had wrong about quilted

I assumed quilted meant flimsy. Something pretty that would give out by the second trip, which is exactly why I had never bought one.

It is the other way round. Soft enough to squash into an overhead rack or under a seat without an argument, then it comes back into shape as though nothing happened. And the padding works in both directions, so whatever is inside travels cushioned. My reading glasses have survived two trips they would not have survived in the old one.

Stitched into the bag, not printed onto it.

4

What they all have in common

I went through the whole collection at the kitchen table, and underneath the different designs they are all built the same way.

The straps run right round the body of the bag rather than being stitched onto the top of it, so the weight is carried by the whole bag instead of by a few seams. That is the part that always gave out first on my old ones, and it is why I can walk from the car park to the platform without swapping sides.

The opening is wide, so I can see everything at once instead of excavating. And there are two sizes with the measurements printed plainly, which sounds like nothing until you have ordered a bag online that arrived the size of a lunch box.

I took the larger one. I have never come home from a weekend wishing my bag had been smaller.

From the car park to the platform without swapping hands once.

5

Side by side

The usual weekend bag

Black nylon that sags in the middle

Identical to every bag on the rack

Thin walls, contents arrive rattled

Handles stitched on at the top

One vague size, no measurements

This collection

Quilted, and it springs back into shape

A design nobody picks up by mistake

Padded walls that cushion what is inside

Straps that run right round the bag

Two sizes, measurements printed

6

It earns its keep between trips

This is the part I did not expect, and it is the reason I am writing this down rather than just telling my sister.

The old bag lived on top of the wardrobe and came down twice a year. This one does the pool on Wednesdays and the overnight at my daughter's, and last month it carried a bag of things in to somebody in hospital and made that errand a little less grim than it had any right to be.

It sits by the front door now. And I go away more than I used to, which I did not expect a bag to have anything to do with.

The dread was never the weekend. It was the packing.

By the door, packed for Sydney. It does not go back up on the wardrobe.

7

If it is not right, send it back

Buying a bag online without holding it first is the bit I put off for a fortnight, so here is how that side of it works.

Two sizes with the measurements printed, free shipping with tracking the whole way, and thirty days to send it back. I packed mine on the kitchen table the day it came, just to see whether a weekend actually fitted, before I took it anywhere.

The worst thing that can happen is a trip to the post office.

Free shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee

See The Weekend Bag Collection

8

About the price

I will be honest, the price made me look twice, and not the way you would think. Half price is normally where I start asking what is wrong with a thing.

They are $59.95 AUD, down from $119.95 AUD.

The reason is simple enough. The woman who runs Willows is retiring and closing the shop, so the whole lot is being sold off rather than packed into boxes. It goes by design rather than by size, so the ones people like go first.

I read the reviews before I ordered, the way I imagine you are doing now. Over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.3 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. The same things kept coming up: it holds more than people expect, it does not sag, and somebody always asks about it.

See The Weekend Bag Collection

9

If you were sitting next to me on that coach

Have a look at the bag you take away with you. If it is black, and it sags, and you could not pick it out of five others on a rack, you already know what I am telling you.

You did not decide to stop looking forward to going away. Nobody does. You just kept packing the same miserable thing until the whole business felt like more trouble than it was worth.

A bag will not change anything. Mine has not. But there is a weekend, or a grandchild's birthday, or a Tuesday overnight somewhere in your future, and the packing should not be the part that keeps you home.

Mine is by the door with the thermos already in it. That is the whole review, really.

Maggie

★★★★☆

4.3 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

The Quilted Weekend Bag Collection

$119.95 AUD  $59.95 AUD

✓  Quilted and stitched into the bag, not printed on

✓  Holds a proper weekend without wrestling

✓  Padded walls that cushion and spring back into shape

✓  Straps that run right round the bag, so nothing digs in

✓  Two sizes, with the measurements printed

✓  A whole collection of designs to choose from

✓  Free AUS delivery

✓  30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

See The Weekend Bag Collection

Buy 2, save 15% · Buy 3, save 20%
Closing-down sale. When a design is gone, it is gone.

Maggie Crawford is 67 and lives in the Southern Highlands. She is a customer, not a travel writer, and she was not paid to write this letter.