Arrivals

Learning to Lighten your Load

There's no question: overpacking tops the list of biggest travel mistakes.

Thus this Web site, which offers exhaustive (some might say exhausting!) detail on the art and science of travelling light, going pretty much anywhere, for business or leisure, for an indefinite length of time, with no more than a single carry-on-sized bag.

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Why Travel Light?

Of all the travel skills you might acquire, travelling light is the one most likely to result in enjoyable, productive, stress-free travel experiences. For two thousand years, seasoned travellers have written of its many profound benefits, including …

With a greatly reduced need to give your baggage over to the care of others, you are much less likely to lose your belongings to theft, damage, or misrouting. Similarly, you foil those who would enlist your unsuspecting aid as a conveyor of contraband goods. Attaining peace of mind is rarely this easy!

You can eliminate checked baggage fees. You don't have to pay porters and others to carry and store stuff for you. You are more able to take public transportation (even from airports, like flight crews and airport personnel do), rather than limos and (often scam-prone) taxis. You can even walk. All of which also bring you into more intimate (hence rewarding) contact with the people and places that you have come to visit.

Less stuff means greater mobility, which gives you more travel options. With no checked luggage to limit your choices, you can more easily deal with delayed transportation and missed connections. You can switch to earlier flights when space is available. You needn't arrive at airports as early, and you will be among the first to leave (despite the head start afforded those in first class), while the mobs wait at baggage carousels and long inspection queues. You can board trains, trams, and coaches with alacrity. You won't feel compelled to take the first hotel room offered: you can comfortably walk down the street should the ambience be unsuitable or the price unreasonable. You can sell your airplane seat (by volunteering to be "bumped") on full flights. You can even travel as an air courier.

If there is a bottom line, it's that travelling light is simply a better, more hassle-free way to go. You have more time, because packing takes little. You waste less energy hauling stuff. You know what you have, where everything is, and that it's sufficient. We've all seen those hapless folks at the airport, with too much baggage and anxious expressions, worried that they have lost track of something, or left it behind. Foreign travel in particular can be challenging because it is unfamiliar and unpredictable, but the one-bag traveller copes by operating from a solid, familiar, well-considered foundation, with fewer unnecessary things to worry about.

All of the above are concerned with short-term benefits to you. But travelling light also yields long-term benefits to the planet. Less stuff to manufacture. Less use of vehicles and other equipment to move you and your things about. Less fuel for the vehicles that do move you. Less greenhouse gas production. Less damage to our celestial home. Greater likelihood of upcoming generations being around and able to do some travelling of their own. (It's not often that the most convenient option is also the most environmentally responsible.)

O sancta simplicitas!

I'm Convinced!  How Can This Site Help Me?

If there is a "trick" to travelling light, it's the understanding and proper use of a packing list. Apart from that, however, there's no particular magic, no specific secret. Travelling light is a skill comprised of a very large number of very small considerations. Individually, many of them might seem relatively unimportant (or unnecessarily meticulous); collectively, however, they make it possible to journey for extended periods of time carrying no more than will fit in a surprisingly small bag.

If you're a typical traveller, don't expect the transition to happen overnight (unless you are unusually diligent). The expert one-bag traveller will have mastered the three core elements of light travel, listed here in order of importance:

But there's no need to become an instant expert. Feel free to meander through this site, taking inspiration where you find it. Every single topic detailed on these pages can help you become a better (thus happier) traveller, but it's unnecessary (and perhaps even counterproductive) to tackle them all at once. Start with those that most appeal to you, and leave the others for when you seek to further hone your skills.

If you persevere, you will at some point reach a transcendent moment, in which your (one) bag will be small and light anough to carry without consequence, no longer of any meaningful concern. And, right then, your travel experiences will be forever changed.

Where To Begin?

I strongly suggest starting with Using A Packing List, because that will yield the greatest benefit in the least amount of time. After you've begun creating your own personal list, continue as and where your interests lead you; you needn't assimilate everything immediately.

If you came here looking for luggage tips, you'll find much on that topic under the What To Pack It In menu. Appreciate, however, that merely acquiring a bag, no matter how "perfect", will no more turn you into a one-bag traveller than a superb violin will turn you into a concert soloist!

You'll also find a collection of effective packing techniques (including how to pack clothing so that it doesn't get wrinkled), a detailed analysis of every individual item on my own personal packing list, and a considerable variety of supplemental information, including:

• a checklist of things to take care of prior to leaving on a trip
• contact information for suppliers of harder-to-find items mentioned on these pages
• a (very) few recommended books on related topics
• a collection of links to some carefully-chosen sites that OneBag enthusiasts are likely to find interesting
• my own compilation of travel industry links for airlines, hotels, and rental automobiles, plus the best metasearch engines, handy lists of country/airport/airline codes, and tools for checking real-time flight status, airport delay conditions, & aircraft seating arrangements  (a good page to bookmark)

Finally, don't miss the TraveLetters page, featuring comments from people like you, who have put these ideas into action and reported on their experiences, thus offering reassurance that this site isn't merely (or at least, entirely!) the ravings of some geek with a packing fixation.