Packing for your travels can be daunting as you’re only given a limited amount of space in your luggage to bring everything you think you’ll need. So, most people won’t even consider bringing just a carry-on for their trip as they believe it to be too constraining.
We’ve been able to travel with just a carry-on on a 12-day trip to France, a 14-day trip to Mexico, a 12-day to South Africa, and many more trips. So today we’ll answer why traveling with a carry-on is a great decision, how to decide what to bring, how to pack, and if it’s right for you.
The samsonsite Freeform carryon glides easily over the cobbled streets of Segovia, Spain
Why bring just a carry-on?
It’s cheaper. While some airlines offer a free checked luggage on certain trips, many require you to pay extra for it. Even worse, if you happen to go over weight on your large checked bag, you may face a large fee! So, take the free included baggage and do the best that you can with it. This usually includes a personal item, like a backpack or purse, and a carry-on (usually a 22” bag or smaller.)
It’s liberating. Pushing 50 lbs of baggage through an airport or through a city, especially a cobblestone street, sounds like a nightmare (unless you’re going for some John Cena Trap muscles). Instead, having a carry-on that weighs only 30 lbs makes a huge difference when trying to run for transportation or simply traversing a city.
It’s also smaller so it’ll guarantee to fit just about anywhere, especially a rental car. And, it saves you time from having to check the luggage at the counter or having to pick it up from the baggage claim. That means more time sipping an ice-cold drink at the beach!
It makes you more creative. Bringing half of your wardrobe to your vacation can seem necessary at the moment. But most times, there’s clothes that are never worn or really needed. On the other hand, bringing a couple of pants, dresses, or shirts will allow you to mix and match as well as have a smaller load of clothes. This also means that you bring multi-purpose clothes that can be worn numerous times instead of a single-occasion article of clothing.
Deciding what to bring
Choose the right carry-on bag for you. Usually carry-on bags come in 20-22” sizes but they’re not all made equal. Some are made with lighter-weight material which allows you more weight for your items. Some may also have thinner walls that give you the most volume to stuff your stuff. And some have wheels that roll easier than others giving you freedom of movement wherever you are.
This is our favorite carryon. It’s made to last, easy to roll and comes in several cute colors!
Activities. You obviously want to bring clothes that are appropriate for the things that you’ll be doing and seeing on your trip. So, start there. Will you be walking around a city or will you be hiking? Do you plan on spending your time on a beach or looking at art in a museum? Whatever you decide to bring along, wearing your bulkiest items like a coat, long pants, and the biggest shoes will make sure you have enough space for the rest of your items.
Capsule Wardrobe. Bringing tops and bottoms that can be interchanged can help to give you different looks even though you’ve worn the same article in previous days. Dressing for a dinner date can look very similar to dressing for a museum or wine tasting. Maybe the sneakers you wear to do a walking tour can hold you over on a short hike. The point is, try to bring clothes that can be worn more than once as this reduces the amount of clothes you bring by half! Also, don’t worry about taking a picture in the same shirt twice, nobody is going to notice!
Laundry. This might be the last thing we wanna do on vacation, but putting a load of undergarments or shirts in the washing machine of your Airbnb while you’re away for the day can extend the time with your wardrobe by double. This may be especially true if you travel with kids as they tend to soil their clothing more often.
Even if you’re staying at a hotel, you can use some Castille soap and wash some clothes in the bathtub or the sink and let them air dry.
How to pack a carry-on
Use the rolling method. Folding your clothes is obviously more compact than simply throwing them in a ball into your bag. But once you’ve folded your clothes, rolling them into a small tube can make them more compact as it squeezes air from the clothing. Beware that this may cause your clothes to wrinkle if you’re not careful with it.
Leave no space unused. When your clothes are well rolled, you can also fit these into the smallest crevices like your sneakers and boots, between packing cubes or bags, or use them to wrap valuable and fragile merchandise. Also, remember to distribute some items between your carry-on and personal item. If you’re bringing a backpack or a travel tote you can put some essentials like toiletries (this also saves you time going through TSA as you won’t have to open up your roller bag) entertainment and snacks in it.
Use a packing cube or vacuum bag. To keep clothing even more compact you can use one of these small cubes that can zip tight and keep your clothes from moving around your bag. We have owned these packing cubes for MANY years and they come on every trip, whether its a few days or a few weeks. You can usually fit about 2 or 3 of these in a roller bag and still leave space for shoes. For maximum space saving you can opt for a vacuum bag that uses suction to take all the air out from between the clothing.
Is traveling with a carry-on right for you?
This question can only be answered by your circumstances. Traveling with kids, especially toddlers means more clothes, formula or milk, toys, etc to bring along with you. All of which needs space and weight, weight that they may not be able to carry by themselves. Maybe you’re doing very specialized activities like intense hikes or camping that require more clothing or equipment. Or maybe you’re in and out of meetings that require suits or dresses that don’t fit inside a carry-on.
Traveling with a carry-on isn’t for everyone in every situation. But we do encourage you to try it! As you’ve seen, traveling with just a carry-on can be cheaper, liberating and it can motivate you to be creative with your clothing choices. By choosing wisely the clothing you’ll be taking and using some swift packing methods you can be sure you’ll have the appropriate clothing for your entire trip and you can enjoy your travels instead of lugging extra weight around. We hope this article helps you on your next adventure. Stay safe!
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