As the son of a contractor, I am intimately familiar with bungee cords for jobs such as holding tarps, but it never occurred to me how useful they could be on a trip until I happened to have some in my bag on an airplane.
Awash in gadgets including my XReal augmented reality glasses, I looked at the tray table in front of me and thought to myself, “You know what would make this more useful?” A couple of bungee cords wrapped around the tray instantly created more storage space for all the stuff – and for the record I recognize it’s too much stuff – that I use on a plane.
It didn’t end there. From food bags to hotel curtains, I ended up deploying bungees everywhere, discovering just how versatile these glorified rubber bands could be.
Having tinkered with plenty of travel gadgets that promised to revolutionize my travels, I never thought I would find the true panacea in a hardware store. Now I wish I could go back in time and start packing them years ago.
Though they come in many forms, I prefer 8in bungee cords with a ball on the end. You can attach them to themselves by lopping the cord around the ball, and there are no sharp points or anything to get caught on.
Here are all the uses I’ve dreamed up for them so far.
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Upgrade your airplane tray table
An airplane tray table holds plenty when it is open and nothing when it is closed. But with this simple hack, the bottom of the tray becomes extra space to keep items such as headphones, batteries and cables. I use four bungee cords to create one strap on each side of the table. Since airplane tray tables are a little more than 8in deep, you get a good amount of stretch that keeps your gear nice and secure.
Close food bags
Often I will pick up a snack or something to munch on, but I usually don’t have anything to close a half-eaten bag. Simply close the bag, fold over the flap and secure it with a bungee cord. No more peanut spills in the bottom of your carry-on.
Strap items to your luggage
I have to carry a lot around with me when I travel and not all of it fits in my rolling luggage. Rather than juggling an armload of cargo, I use bungees to attach it to my luggage, turning it into an improvised wagon and cutting down on the number of trips back and forth to the car. You’re limited only by the number of bungees you carry.
Strap things down to you
Trade shows are notorious for giving out tote bags with goodies and other swag in them, but where are you supposed to keep that thing? Just strap it to the backpack you already have with bungees. This is also a great way to tie multiple bags together, so you only have to deal with one handle.
Hang things in your hotel room
When I stay in a hotel, I like to move in, staying as organized as possible. That means finding a place for everything. A bungee cord attached to a lampshade gives me a good place to literally hang my hat or my walking cane. For bigger lamp shades, just add more bungees to avoid applying too much pressure.
Keep the ‘do not disturb’ sign in place
Have you ever noticed that many hotel “do not disturb” signs fall off the door when you open it? That’s because they were designed for door knobs that twist, not door handles that tilt (and dump them off). Fix this design oversight yourself by wrapping a bungee around both the handle base and the sign.
Cable holders
Often hotels offer an outlet below or behind the nightstand, which means when you unplug your phone in the morning, your cable will slide down into a crevasse. When the nightstand has a drawer, you can open it a crack, run the bungee cord around the edge of the drawer, and slip your cables through there, securing them in place and making them very reachable.
Tie back drapes or curtains
Hotels usually have a set of sheer curtains and a set of blackout curtains. You can open them, but they often don’t have a way to tie them back to get maximum light in the room. A bungee cord serves as a convenient tie back.
Clothesline
If you have more clothes to dry than you can fit on the tiny bathroom towel bar, you can daisy-chain multiple bungees together to form an improvised clothesline between two points, such as a desk and chair.
Bag handle
This is a variation on the classic handkerchief and stick, also known as a “bindle stick”, that you may remember from cartoons. If you need a bag in a pinch and you don’t have one, you can lay out a towel and put whatever you need to carry in the middle of it. Then pick up each corner of the towel and tie them all together with a bungee cord at the top and carry it away.
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Adam Doud has been a leader in the tech media field for more than a decade and keeps busy getting his hands on as many phones, tablets and laptops as possible. He regularly uses both iOS and Android (six-month rotation for each), and he fully embraces technology. He hasn’t carried cash money since 2018, and pays for everything with his phone wherever possible
