I'm not going to lie I love international first class, and especially flying Etihad's First Apartment. But at most I do that a few times a year, so that's not what makes the bulk of my travels better.

I slog it out with well north of 100 flights a year, most of that is domestic. And there's one thing that makes my travel better than anything else: not checking a bag, but more importantly not needing overhead bin space.

I think it was Peter Greenberg who is most known for saying, “there are only two kinds of bags: carry on and lost.”