Lin Zhiyang, a seventh-grader who loves to travel, creates Taiwan’s only luggage delivery service

▲ Lin Zhiyang (born in 1979), Wang Yixiang (born in 1981), and Jiang Jiahong teamed up because of their love for travel to create a specialized luggage delivery platform. (Photo provided by Lin Zhiyang; all others are the same)

Reported by reporter Li Zi Yi

Does carrying heavy luggage while traveling abroad dampen your enthusiasm? Especially on the first day after arrival or the day of departure, if your flight schedule is inconvenient, you may find yourself struggling to find a place to store your bags. Lin Zhiyang, a Taiwanese born in the 1990s (seventh-grader), discovered a business opportunity through his passion for travel, and together with friends, built a platform where travelers can easily handle their luggage issues—sending bags to over 30 cities’ airports, hotels, and train stations.

Lin Zhiyang, a late bloomer of the seventh grade, talks endlessly about travel and has always dreamed of circling the globe. In his junior year of college, he saved up money from part-time jobs and set off. Over the past four years, he has visited over 30 cities in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and continues to chase that dream.

▲%枷舶?眯械牧种狙螅?哟笕?悄昕?蓟酚问澜纾?恢钡较衷谝丫?刍?伺贰⒚馈⒀侵蕹7个城市，打工一存到钱就以穷游的方式飞到各国去旅行。

Lin Zhiyang said that during his travels, he often wasted time looking for lockers or shuttling back and forth between hotels just to store his luggage. This gave him the idea to start a business to solve the problem of moving luggage and to create Taiwan’s only platform dedicated to delivering “luggage.”

Lin Zhiyang recalled that during a trip to France in his junior year, most of the local subways were old and lacked elevators. Carrying a 28-inch suitcase and a backpack, he searched everywhere for lockers. At that moment, he wished someone could help carry his luggage or that he could just leave it behind. That’s when the entrepreneurial idea was born, and he also hoped to create a service he could use on future trips.

Lin Zhiyang said that currently, most of the customers are female—when traveling abroad, they naturally want to look their best, and dragging luggage around while searching for lockers would leave them drenched in sweat. Other users include couples, backpackers, business travelers, and shopping agents, many of whom also enjoy the service. Currently, around 300–600 pieces of luggage are delivered monthly, and the number is steadily growing.

▲ For Lin Zhiyang, the most important part of travel is “attractions,” so he spends most of his money on visiting sights, while keeping accommodation and meals very economical.

Everyone values different aspects of travel. Some care especially about food, some about accommodation, but for Lin Zhiyang, “seeing the sights” is the top priority. Therefore, he saves a lot on food and lodging during each trip, usually staying in hostels or at friends’ houses to cut costs; for transportation, he exclusively uses budget airlines; as for meals, he shops at supermarkets, cooks at home, or makes a few sandwiches in the morning to take on the go, simply using the sandwiches to get by and putting all his money into transportation and saving time.

▲ Because he frequently travels abroad and dislikes dragging luggage around, he came up with the initial concept of the “Luggage Agent.”

The idea of starting a business emerged in his junior and senior years of college. While doing his military service, he met two other partners, Jiang Jiahong and Wang Yixiang. Since they all loved to travel, they hit it off immediately. The three young men, with an average age under 26, began building Luggage Agent in 2015. Initially, due to lack of information and poor strategy, they rented a storefront in Ximending, one of the busiest tourist areas, where the three spent their days handing out flyers to tourists and hotels but faced constant rejection, earning almost no orders for two full months.

After the three completed their military service, through continuous trial and error, they gradually negotiated partnerships with logistics companies in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, eventually creating a nearly perfect luggage delivery system—that is, today’s Luggage Agent. Gradually, the service became available in over 30 cities across Taipei, Bangkok, Seoul, Shanghai, New York, London, Paris, and more than 200 hotels, train stations, and airports. Japan, a favorite destination for Taiwanese travelers, is also expected to begin trial operations on May 20.

▲ Currently, this specialized luggage delivery service is the only one in Taiwan.

Using Luggage Agent to send a piece of luggage to a hotel, airport, or train station varies in cost by country, typically ranging from 20 to 45 US dollars (approximately NT$600.67 to NT$1,351.5). At first glance, it may not seem cheap, but it saves you the hassle and exhaustion of hauling luggage around. Whether it’s worth it depends on the individual, and it offers consumers another option.