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silverflight8I keep thinking about how I should post and somehow the topic that has floated up is...packing for trips??
For a bit I've been researching luggage and thinking about what I like about my set up and all that. I'm incapable of making large purchases without first wildly over-researching them and quadruple guessing if I need it and wavering between options, and then once I've decided, waiting like a spider for a deal on what I want, so I've accrued Thoughts on This Topic. Most of my trips are around 1 week to 2 weeks; previously I would mostly do urban cities with public transit, I visit family for several weeks sometimes, but now I also do a lot of birding-specific trips. I do sometimes do smaller trips, like a night or two. The frustration of using my stupid backpack, which I believe is something like 20ish litres in volume (North Face Vault for women) and is annoyingly small, droves me nuts. I have a roller bag for the longer trips, which is great, but it was nearly impossible to pack a weekend trip in the backpack, which is just absurd. I don't pack that much! It's just incredibly inefficient and tiny and I swear the instant you put a laptop in the sleeve - which I don't even travel with generally!! - the whole thing shrinks to about 5L of packing volume and feels super uncomfortable. Why did I buy this backpack? It was 2020 and I needed a backpack and couldn't try one on and it wasn't too crazy expensive, but I hate it. It is so uncomfortable to carry, even though it's not that big and not very heavy, because I just ordered online.
I started reading stuff on r/onebag which is about travel with only one bag, i.e. no checked bags and if you have a carry on, you only have that. A lot of the reasoning is stuff I agree with - luggage is encumbrance, you have to keep track of it and watch it, if there are stairs you have to haul it, if there are cobblestones you have to drag it, and checked bags can get lost. Minimizing your baggage means less weight to carry. There's a lot of flat lays of what people packed when going to X destination for Y days and reporting back what they used and didn't, which is always interesting. As it's reddit, lots of focus on tech-gear, there are people who have set-ups for "infinite" travel (i.e. not a fixed 2 week trip but for 8 months, 2 years, whatever). Very fond of washing your clothes every day or two in the sink and hang drying, and also only carrying 3 pairs of underwear (this one is the funniest). "Don't pack your fears".
As I type this I am flashing back to all these ultimately-okay-but-so-annoying-in-the-moment memories: went to Paris, took the Metro, there are so many stairs, taking turnstiles sucks with luggage; Air Canada asked me to check my carryon-sized luggage and I did and then they lost it, my shoes and socks and pants got soaked and I had nothing to wear; once I was trying to take the subway to get to the train station and my rolling luggage handle broke as I was hauling it around and I had to try to hoof it while carrying it, sweating profusely and stressing out. There's also the issue of overhead bin space, i.e. as airlines have charged fees for checking bags, they've incentivized people who used to check bags to carry-on their stuff. So you have to worry about that - and if it doesn't fit, then they will gate-check your bag, and then there's the risk of losing it again. After reviewing what I did have and my usual travel, I decided I wanted a bag for really short trips that would fit under an airplane seat, but have more space and better organized than my current backpack, and ideally nicer to carry physically.
I've learned a lot from past mistakes like:
*If you go for 1 month do not bring pans and kitchen knives, good grief. You hate cooking, you are not going to cook. Also there was no kitchen. That was the last time I ever brought a checked bag.
*If it goes down to 17C at night a knee-length dress is not going to cut it and you will be cold. Bring a sweater/jacket and something to cover your legs.
*The one time I forgot flipflops I was staying in this set up where my room was private, but to get to the bathroom I had to go into the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into another suite. The previous room I was staying in was just sharing an apartment with a nice clean lady so it was fine just nipping across the hallway; this second place, the hallway was between apartments, so it was trod on by people with shoes on. I think I tried this for one night and then I had to search for any kind of slipper, which was a quest that was only partially successful (I got them but they were so expensive, I didn't know where to get the cheap kind).
*Recently I went to Florida and I spent every single day outside starting around 6am going until the afternoon/evening. Even in Mar/Apr, the temperature range is something like 23-32C, and really, really humid. I also was arriving from a climate where I started wearing a sweater in September and hadn't stopped until I arrived in Miami. I completely forgot how sweaty you get. When it's cold you can wear the same clothes, swapping out underwear of course, for 2-3 days, especially if you aren't exerting yourself. But I was, I was running around in the Everglades and getting into my rental car that was approximately a billionty degrees after sitting in the sun for 3 hours, and if I could change my clothes 2x a day I would be tempted to. I packed 4 shirts - cotton t-shirt, cotton long sleeve, 2 hiking shirts (light synthetic button-down) plus what I wore on the plane. Completely insufficient as the cotton things were miserably hot and 2 shirts is not enough for 13 days. Yes, you need more layers and therefore more space in your luggage when it's cold - but you also cannot wear the same shirt when it's hot. It's just too gross.
*If you plan to do laundry mid-trip, bring a detergent sheet or something, single-use packets are expensive in those laundry room vending machines
*If you have a backpack + roller, and the roller gets checked (or even if it doesn't), put a set of underwear + pajamas plus toiletries etc in the backpack. That way when the roller gets lost, you might need to re-wear the same outfit but at least you didn't have to sleep in it, too.
*If you want ice to keep your lunch bag cool, freezing water in a reusable ziplock bag = good. Freezing water in a thin plastic bag for bagging produce = this will stick permanently to the glacier in your minifridge and you will never be able to remove it
So anyway with all that in mind, although the onebag vision is pretty great, and I entertained visions of me onebagging my future birding adventures with a 35L Allpa or something, I don't think it's feasible. Two points: one, I hate carrying large heavy backpacks, and I would have to carry one, because two: I do actually have to carry some stuff that onebag people don't. Binoculars are non-negotiable and I usually want my camera, and those two items take up a lot of space. But more importantly, the onebag thing mostly works in urban places where you might go out to dinner or explore a museum and go to a wine-tasting and walk around some paved areas. I get rained on and sweat and step in mud and goose poop and get covered in dust (so much dust) and spray DEET on me and my clothes daily. A lot of my clothes, no matter how capsule-wardrobe they are, just need to be washed after one wearing, and I just don't have the appetite to do it every day in the sink. Underwear is the smallest garment you own, why skimp there?! I don't think my packing is perfect, but it's pretty pared down, I don't fill my rollerbag and backpack, and I use pretty much all the items. Having two pairs of shoes has saved me so many times because I often get my shoes wet because dew and rain; the lightweight shoes that people suggest, like a set-up where you wear sneakers and bring sandals, is impractical - I'm not going to hike in sandals. I also feel like the idea of "if you are missing it, you can buy it" is not a great idea. I know what they mean - don't try to prepare for an Arctic blast in Arizona and well, if it ever does happen, you can go into a shop and get a sweater. But it gets carried way too far, and the strategy of achieving lighter luggage by essentially buying stuff at the destination and then trashing it (or donating it) is wasteful and not economical.
I decided that for the birding trips I'll just keep on with my roller bag + backpack, and got a short-haul kind of backpack. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I test-packed it and like it a lot so far, and it's surprisingly roomy for 28L, so I'm excited. It fits under the seat, it is clamshell style, and has several zippered pockets for organization, and I plan to retire my North Face one from travelling. That backpack remains my work/commute one, since top-open and tiny is good for daily, but it's eventually became so irritating for travel that it kicked off this entire Luggage Thoughts and Purchase cycle. (Seriously, I would put binoculars + camera + 1 shirt + 1 pants + 1 waterbottle in, and then I would have to start forcing things into it.)
For a bit I've been researching luggage and thinking about what I like about my set up and all that. I'm incapable of making large purchases without first wildly over-researching them and quadruple guessing if I need it and wavering between options, and then once I've decided, waiting like a spider for a deal on what I want, so I've accrued Thoughts on This Topic. Most of my trips are around 1 week to 2 weeks; previously I would mostly do urban cities with public transit, I visit family for several weeks sometimes, but now I also do a lot of birding-specific trips. I do sometimes do smaller trips, like a night or two. The frustration of using my stupid backpack, which I believe is something like 20ish litres in volume (North Face Vault for women) and is annoyingly small, droves me nuts. I have a roller bag for the longer trips, which is great, but it was nearly impossible to pack a weekend trip in the backpack, which is just absurd. I don't pack that much! It's just incredibly inefficient and tiny and I swear the instant you put a laptop in the sleeve - which I don't even travel with generally!! - the whole thing shrinks to about 5L of packing volume and feels super uncomfortable. Why did I buy this backpack? It was 2020 and I needed a backpack and couldn't try one on and it wasn't too crazy expensive, but I hate it. It is so uncomfortable to carry, even though it's not that big and not very heavy, because I just ordered online.
I started reading stuff on r/onebag which is about travel with only one bag, i.e. no checked bags and if you have a carry on, you only have that. A lot of the reasoning is stuff I agree with - luggage is encumbrance, you have to keep track of it and watch it, if there are stairs you have to haul it, if there are cobblestones you have to drag it, and checked bags can get lost. Minimizing your baggage means less weight to carry. There's a lot of flat lays of what people packed when going to X destination for Y days and reporting back what they used and didn't, which is always interesting. As it's reddit, lots of focus on tech-gear, there are people who have set-ups for "infinite" travel (i.e. not a fixed 2 week trip but for 8 months, 2 years, whatever). Very fond of washing your clothes every day or two in the sink and hang drying, and also only carrying 3 pairs of underwear (this one is the funniest). "Don't pack your fears".
As I type this I am flashing back to all these ultimately-okay-but-so-annoying-in-the-moment memories: went to Paris, took the Metro, there are so many stairs, taking turnstiles sucks with luggage; Air Canada asked me to check my carryon-sized luggage and I did and then they lost it, my shoes and socks and pants got soaked and I had nothing to wear; once I was trying to take the subway to get to the train station and my rolling luggage handle broke as I was hauling it around and I had to try to hoof it while carrying it, sweating profusely and stressing out. There's also the issue of overhead bin space, i.e. as airlines have charged fees for checking bags, they've incentivized people who used to check bags to carry-on their stuff. So you have to worry about that - and if it doesn't fit, then they will gate-check your bag, and then there's the risk of losing it again. After reviewing what I did have and my usual travel, I decided I wanted a bag for really short trips that would fit under an airplane seat, but have more space and better organized than my current backpack, and ideally nicer to carry physically.
I've learned a lot from past mistakes like:
*If you go for 1 month do not bring pans and kitchen knives, good grief. You hate cooking, you are not going to cook. Also there was no kitchen. That was the last time I ever brought a checked bag.
*If it goes down to 17C at night a knee-length dress is not going to cut it and you will be cold. Bring a sweater/jacket and something to cover your legs.
*The one time I forgot flipflops I was staying in this set up where my room was private, but to get to the bathroom I had to go into the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into another suite. The previous room I was staying in was just sharing an apartment with a nice clean lady so it was fine just nipping across the hallway; this second place, the hallway was between apartments, so it was trod on by people with shoes on. I think I tried this for one night and then I had to search for any kind of slipper, which was a quest that was only partially successful (I got them but they were so expensive, I didn't know where to get the cheap kind).
*Recently I went to Florida and I spent every single day outside starting around 6am going until the afternoon/evening. Even in Mar/Apr, the temperature range is something like 23-32C, and really, really humid. I also was arriving from a climate where I started wearing a sweater in September and hadn't stopped until I arrived in Miami. I completely forgot how sweaty you get. When it's cold you can wear the same clothes, swapping out underwear of course, for 2-3 days, especially if you aren't exerting yourself. But I was, I was running around in the Everglades and getting into my rental car that was approximately a billionty degrees after sitting in the sun for 3 hours, and if I could change my clothes 2x a day I would be tempted to. I packed 4 shirts - cotton t-shirt, cotton long sleeve, 2 hiking shirts (light synthetic button-down) plus what I wore on the plane. Completely insufficient as the cotton things were miserably hot and 2 shirts is not enough for 13 days. Yes, you need more layers and therefore more space in your luggage when it's cold - but you also cannot wear the same shirt when it's hot. It's just too gross.
*If you plan to do laundry mid-trip, bring a detergent sheet or something, single-use packets are expensive in those laundry room vending machines
*If you have a backpack + roller, and the roller gets checked (or even if it doesn't), put a set of underwear + pajamas plus toiletries etc in the backpack. That way when the roller gets lost, you might need to re-wear the same outfit but at least you didn't have to sleep in it, too.
*If you want ice to keep your lunch bag cool, freezing water in a reusable ziplock bag = good. Freezing water in a thin plastic bag for bagging produce = this will stick permanently to the glacier in your minifridge and you will never be able to remove it
So anyway with all that in mind, although the onebag vision is pretty great, and I entertained visions of me onebagging my future birding adventures with a 35L Allpa or something, I don't think it's feasible. Two points: one, I hate carrying large heavy backpacks, and I would have to carry one, because two: I do actually have to carry some stuff that onebag people don't. Binoculars are non-negotiable and I usually want my camera, and those two items take up a lot of space. But more importantly, the onebag thing mostly works in urban places where you might go out to dinner or explore a museum and go to a wine-tasting and walk around some paved areas. I get rained on and sweat and step in mud and goose poop and get covered in dust (so much dust) and spray DEET on me and my clothes daily. A lot of my clothes, no matter how capsule-wardrobe they are, just need to be washed after one wearing, and I just don't have the appetite to do it every day in the sink. Underwear is the smallest garment you own, why skimp there?! I don't think my packing is perfect, but it's pretty pared down, I don't fill my rollerbag and backpack, and I use pretty much all the items. Having two pairs of shoes has saved me so many times because I often get my shoes wet because dew and rain; the lightweight shoes that people suggest, like a set-up where you wear sneakers and bring sandals, is impractical - I'm not going to hike in sandals. I also feel like the idea of "if you are missing it, you can buy it" is not a great idea. I know what they mean - don't try to prepare for an Arctic blast in Arizona and well, if it ever does happen, you can go into a shop and get a sweater. But it gets carried way too far, and the strategy of achieving lighter luggage by essentially buying stuff at the destination and then trashing it (or donating it) is wasteful and not economical.
I decided that for the birding trips I'll just keep on with my roller bag + backpack, and got a short-haul kind of backpack. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I test-packed it and like it a lot so far, and it's surprisingly roomy for 28L, so I'm excited. It fits under the seat, it is clamshell style, and has several zippered pockets for organization, and I plan to retire my North Face one from travelling. That backpack remains my work/commute one, since top-open and tiny is good for daily, but it's eventually became so irritating for travel that it kicked off this entire Luggage Thoughts and Purchase cycle. (Seriously, I would put binoculars + camera + 1 shirt + 1 pants + 1 waterbottle in, and then I would have to start forcing things into it.)
no subject
Date: Jun. 20th, 2023 04:56 am (UTC)I've found myself going the opposite way as I get older, from always traveling with just a carry-on and a minimal amount of stuff when I was younger, to preferring to let the baggage handlers deal with my stuff in the form of a checked bag, and carrying on a light, easy to stow bag with a laptop, book, and a few items of toiletries and underwear in case my main bag goes missing. This also means that I can bring full-sized bottles of shampoo and other hair care products rather than trying to get it down to travel size only.
no subject
Date: Jun. 21st, 2023 02:33 am (UTC)Oh man, yes. Liquids?! In regular sizes?
no subject
Date: Jun. 20th, 2023 05:08 am (UTC)*If you want ice to keep your lunch bag cool, freezing water in a reusable ziplock bag = good.
We evolved towards both of these, too, and now they are fundamental components of us packing for a trip :) The "set of underwear and PJs in backpack" -- and we actually do a change of clothes, too, if we are traveling somewhere with very different weather than where we're coming from -- was something we first started doing with the kids, who had personal carry-ons but no other luggage they had on them-- that way we would never have to look in the main luggage for stuff they needed to go to bed. And then we were like, hey, it's super convenient to have the PJs and a change of underwear in a small bag that's always with you, why don't we also do that for ourselves, and now we do :D
We double bag the makeshift ice pack, and the funny thing is, we almost always forget to toss it before we get to the security line, and it has NEVER been flagged, even when other stuff gets pulled over for inspection.
I used to try to take just a backpack with me for short trips, but it makes for a very large backpack, which consequently is too unwieldy to fit underneath the seat of a plane, so I have to cram it in the overhead anyway. Having learned from that, I now do reasonably sized backpack (for work trips) + roller. My big concern used to be walking/using public transit with something other than a backpack, but my current roller is light enough and maneuverable enough that I've concluded it's not actually that harder to wrangle than a large backpack, so it's an all-around better solution.
I have definitely never tried to travel with kitchen stuff! In my experience any place that has a kitchen will have some kitchen stuff (probably not great, but serviceable in a pinch). My parents do travel with a tea kettle, I learned recently, which makes sense, but also, like, I will boil water in a saucepan if I really have to, it's fine.
One thing we did learn to pack for international travel: medicine! It is surprisingly hard to find stuff that you know works for you in a different country, even with the assistance of a pharmacist. We all came down with terrible colds in Europe one year, but needed to be functional during the day and to sleep at night, but you cannot buy the equivalent of NyQuil or DayQuil in Belgium for love or money (this is a fact, or at least was at that point -- our pharmacist relative confirmed it). So now we make sure to always pack DayQuil and NyQuil with us when we go, plus other things we know work very well, like Sudafed, Benadryl, burn cream, etc.
no subject
Date: Jun. 22nd, 2023 02:29 am (UTC)Oh wow, I didn't realize you were bringing it frozen!
I actually googled this problem - what I want is to be able to carry lunch while out birding, I don't care about the airport transit (since I can buy food if needed). And someone suggested a GENIUS idea which is to use a plastic water bottle. Almost no weight, easily emptied for TSA, obviously leak proof, fits well. I'm going to do this. Apparently you can bring solid ice through, but if it's slushy they might make a problem for you, and the TSA always reserves the right to be a dick to whoever they want, alas.
The 4 wheel spinners are pretty good for maneuverability, but I do hate hauling them up and down stairs. I could not do a kettle. (And what if they have different plugs and voltage?!)
Ooh, that's a good thought. When you're sick is the worst time to try to puzzle out medications!! I should probably travel with ibuprofen but I always carry itch cream in my tiny birding pack, because mosquitoes, lol. Oh! Also menstruation supplies, which post-cup, is so much more simplified. Once I went abroad and had my period and it suckeddd not having supplies on hand.
no subject
Date: Jun. 20th, 2023 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 21st, 2023 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 24th, 2023 02:24 pm (UTC)The "one bag" thing doesn't sound doable to me either, alas, because I really don't want to have to wash the same two changes of clothes in the sink every other day. :/ And I also really don't want to carry a heavy backpack around for hours at a time. I'd rather have a roller and keep my backpack light enough that walking with it isn't terrible.
There's also the issue of overhead bin space, i.e. as airlines have charged fees for checking bags, they've incentivized people who used to check bags to carry-on their stuff. So you have to worry about that - and if it doesn't fit, then they will gate-check your bag, and then there's the risk of losing it again.
Yep, that's what I was thinking -- if you bring a roller as part of your carry-on, there's no guarantee it will actually be carry-on. :P I always buy the cheapest plane tickets I can get, so I'm usually in one of the last boarding groups, and often the overhead bins get filled up before I get on the plane and I have to check my roller at the gate -- sometimes all the way through to my final destination. (That happened to me on this trip, and I had to quickly grab some necessities out of the roller and shove them in my backpack just in case the roller got lost. Luckily it didn't!)
The one time I forgot flipflops I was staying in this set up where my room was private, but to get to the bathroom I had to go into the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into another suite.
I'm sure flipflops were better, but -- could you not wear your regular shoes?
(So far, I've never brought extra shoes anywhere, partly because I usually don't even own any extra shoes. >_> But you have a good point about the possibility of shoes getting wet. In fact I was concerned about that several times on this trip, because it rained a lot.)
Yes, you need more layers and therefore more space in your luggage when it's cold - but you also cannot wear the same shirt when it's hot.
I feel like I just learned this lesson as well. XD The only long trips I've made before were either in winter or long enough that I was going to have to do laundry regardless, but this time I thought I'd just pack enough shirts for the trip. But I'm used to being able to wear a shirt more than once, so with the heat and humidity, those ended up being the one thing I wished I'd brought more of!
Freezing water in a thin plastic bag for bagging produce = this will stick permanently to the glacier in your minifridge and you will never be able to remove it
Oh no. XD
I'd be curious to know what backpack you ended up buying!
no subject
Date: Jun. 25th, 2023 02:30 am (UTC)Same - all their clothing packing suggestions were like 3x of everything and that's quite a lot more laundry for a 2 week trip than I want to do. The usual advice is to go for quick dry stuff but that's still a lot of effort!
The gate check thing is so annoying. It wouldn't be a problem if checked baggage wasn't so expensive now - and it also slows down the plane boarding, too. Glad your luggage made it ok! I'd say most of the time it's fine, it's just when it goes wrong then it's a huge pain in the butt.
The flipflops were mostly for showering! I didn't really want to get out of the shower and then put my socks and shoes on.
I bought the Allpa 28L. So far, pretty happy with it, but the real test is when I take it for a trip haha.
no subject
Date: Jun. 26th, 2023 05:41 am (UTC)last year i got that travelpro roller bag that wirecutter recommends, and i've had the ogio hamptons women's laptop tote forever, so that's my overhead bin luggage + carry-on bag for most trips. i will... probably upgrade the tote to a backpack at some point? i have like, weird fashion hangups/preferences for a shoulder bag if at all possible, but damn that shoulder bag gets HEAVY when i'm packing laptops, books, spare clothes, etc into it.
and yeah it's amazing how a warm climate really can fill up your luggage fast. i basically refuse to do laundry unless i'm in a place for at least two weeks, which means packing a LOT of spare clothes, which always makes me feel kind of inadequate compared to r/onebag people, but my last big-ish trip i ended up NEEDING every single one of those changes of clothes, so, y'know! practicality wins!
no subject
Date: Jun. 27th, 2023 12:37 am (UTC)I know, I hate doing laundry too. I guess I'd like to ideally do laundry once a week, because I really do hate carrying a lot around. But if you use all the clothes, IMO you haven't overpacked. It's all a trade off, after all.