I'm a lousy packer and really dislike packing, so there is that. However, I do use packing cubes, and love them. Here's how I use them: 1) underwear; 2) socks (not an issue for summer travel); 3) layering tees (typically winter wear); 4) scarves and gloves; 5) charging cords and any kind of techno stuff; and 6) medicines and any product, like sunblock or insect repellent, that doesn't normally go in my LL Bean travel kit, which I always keep packed.
Clothes are simply folded and layered in the main compartment of my bag. Shoes are put in cloth shoe bags and stored in the shallow back section of my suitcase. The cubes can be fitted in wherever. Sometimes on top of everything; sometimes tucked around the side of the case. There is usually room in the shoe section for at least one cube.
Packing cubes work for me, because pre-cubes, I often found that small but necessary items, bra, socks, charging card, arg!, easily got lost in my suitcase even if initially packed similar items together in specific locations. It was particularly irritating if I was traveling to a new place every few days, as you'll be doing on your upcoming trip. If I was rummaging around for a particular top then I likely buried my underwear and completely lost my laptop charging cord and boy, then my day was not off to a good start, and my suitcase was a shambles. Once it devolved into a shambles, it tended to stay that way.
I probably still need a packing intervention, but at least the cubes have helped me corral all the small fiddly stuff, and that has relieved a big chunk of the stress of packing and living out of a suitcase for me!
