India, Aug. 8 -- I have travelled with both hard shell and soft shell suitcases, and I have spent enough time dragging them through airports, lifting them into car boots and trying to squeeze them into overhead bins to know that neither is perfect.

Soft shell luggage is forgiving. It gives you that little bit of extra room when you have somehow acquired more things than you left home with. Hard shell luggage, on the other hand, makes me feel far more comfortable packing anything fragile.

For a long time, I thought choosing between the two simply meant deciding what mattered more between; flexibility or protection. I no longer think that is necessary. For the way I travel, an expandable hard shell suitcase gives me the best balance of bo...