How much difference can packing cubes make?

[hugoagogo]

I recently had a weekend away and struggled with my 24litre back pack.
I am going away again soon again for 2 nights, is it worth trying some of these cube things or shall I bite the bullet and buy a bigger bag?

I don't backpack but I do use cubes and find them brilliant. Much easier to find things.

I don't find them that great. They make your bag neat but themselves take up room so you can fit less in.

I like them but I have a clam shell opening type pack so they fit well. I find it helps organize things.

That's sort of what I expected, my backpack is great, very comfy to wear, but it has loads of compartments and I think I might need something with just one big section to help me fit more in.

Other things I thought of ( blindingly obvious i suppose) are to pack thinner pyjamas and maybe leave my tablet at home although I hate surfing on my phone.

I really don't take much stuff, but feel the cold and am fat, so no chance of just taking leggings and t-shirts. I need a hoody at least.

Packing cubes are great for keeping things organised, finding things quickly and you can take them from the backpack to a drawer, open them and use them in the drawer, so you don't really have to fully unpack and pack. But they don't really help save space. For that you need some roll up plastic ziplock vacuum bags, the type that zip closed with a little plastic thing and then you just roll them up. That does help fit more in as you squeeze out all the air. The downsides are slightly creased clothes (doesn't really matter much for t-shirts, or at all for underwear and socks or for storing dirty clothes though. ) And because they make a pretty solid lump they sometimes might confuse the x-ray operator at airport security who will then get someone to make you unpack your entire bag in front of them. To be fair this only happened once, I had really crammed stuff in to try and make my rucksack look smaller as it was slightly oversized for hand luggage, but it might have been something else that caused them to search my carefully packed bag (repacking it in a hurry at security wasn't much fun!) or even just a random search...