How To Pack It

Useful Packing Tips

If you've done a good job of selecting what to pack, the task of actually packing it should be a fairly straightforward one. Nonetheless, here are a few ideas that you might want to consider...

Organizer Pouches

An excellent item that has become more difficult to find of late (since Outdoor Research ceased production of their fine versions) is the "organizer pouch", a flat, rectangular, often multi-compartmented, nylon bag with zipper closure(s). They sometimes incorporate see-through mesh panels, and are available in a variety of colours. These are terrific for avoiding what could otherwise be a cluttered mess in your bag. Use a little thought to organize your belongings into categories, and store them in the pouches; this approach also makes smaller items less likely to be lost or forgotten. Cartom Products manufactures four sizes of good, basic, single-compartment pouches with mesh fronts (pictured at right); they range from 5 × 7 inches (13 × 18cm) to 14 × 18 inches (36 × 46cm).

By way of example, one of my pouches (a blue one) contains all of my laundry-related items (i.e., sink stopper, detergent, spot remover, viscose towel, travel clothesline, inflatable hangers).

An appropriately-sized organizer pouch also makes an excellent core object for the bundle wrapping method of packing clothes. Cartom's large-sized pouch (the red one in the above photo) is well suited to this purpose, as is the multi-compartment, equally large-sized "Deluxe Pocket" (made by On Sight Equipment, and pictured at left). Both of these pouches are about 10 × 14 inches (26 × 36cm) in size; the latter version comes with tabs/clips in the top corners, which should be removed for use as a core object.

Packing Cubes

So-called "packing cubes" may be something of a misnomer (they are rarely cubes, but rather rectilinear zippered fabric containers, often with mesh panels to reduce weight and make the contents visible), but they, like the above pouches, can be very helpful to organize the contents of one's bag. Your choice of cubes will depend on how you choose to organize things; fortunately, they come in a wide variety of sizes. I normally carry two, adding a third for business trips.

The first, used mostly for toiletries, is a Pack-It® Quarter Cube (from Eagle Creek, and pictured at right). A mere 7.5 × 4.5 × 2.5 inches (19 × 11 × 6cm) in size, it is dwarfed by the giant "Dopp kits" (and worse) that many people seem to consider necessary for this purpose. But mine quite handily holds all of my toiletries, plus vitamins, medicines, etc. with considerable room to spare.

I also employ a Pack-It® Tube Cube (also from Eagle Creek) to carry miscellaneous items, things that don't logically group in other ways (such as my flashlight, Jakstrap, whistle, compass, alarm clock, sunglasses, eyeglass retainer, water cup, garbage bags, etc.). This bag is 13 × 4 × 3 inches (33 × 10 × 8cm) in size, and fits neatly along one side of my carry-on. Sort of my "junk drawer".

On business-related trips I additionally carry a small packing cube (one no longer on the market, but similar to Eagle Creek's Quarter Cube) to hold miscellaneous laptop gear: power supply & cord, mouse, network cables, flash memory card adapter, earphones, and a remote control for presentations.

The use of packing cubes also increases the likelihood that your belongings will remain tidy and well organized should you be singled out for a bag search.

Coping with Shoes

If you're packing shoes (in addition to those you're wearing), consider the use of shoe bags: lightweight, inexpensive, drawstring bags designed to keep any residue of Parisian streets away from the rest of your belongings. Magellan's sells nice ones. A posher approach comes in the form of tailored neoprene Shoe Socks™, which eliminate the annoying drawstring, leave the shoe opening more accessible for packing things inside, and come with a lifetime guarantee, but are also costlier, bulkier, and heavier, a medium-sized pair weighing 4.4 oz (125g), compared with 1.7 oz (48g) for the Magellan's bags. Or consider the budget solution: a pair of the plastic bags in which (many) newspapers are delivered: they're sturdy, long, not too wide, weigh 0.3 oz (9g), and when their days are done, you can simply dispose of them.

Shoes are perhaps the most difficult items to pack, given their typical weight, bulk, and awkward shape. Minimize the number you take, and try to wear (rather than pack) the bulkiest pair when reasonable. It is usually best to pack a pair of shoes tightly together, soles out, with the heels at opposite ends. Also, don't neglect the spaces inside your packed shoes; they're great for fragile items, or anything else that will fit, for that matter.

Watching Your Weight

While attempting to attain travel packing nirvana, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the goal is more to travel light than small. Strive to keep the weight of your loaded bag as low as possible: anything more than about 10kg (22 lbs) will weigh heavily on your shoulders if you carry it for any distance. (Curiously, there is some historical perspective for this particular weight!)

On flights with very restrictive carry-on limits, weight will prove more problematic than bag dimensions if you wish to avoid checking luggage. When trying to overcome an unreasonable carry-on baggage weight limit, though (notice that they don't ban overweight people from the cabin), remember that items carried on your person are not weighed. Wearing specialized "stealth" clothing, though certainly not required, can make this more convenient. You can get a bit overenthused with this solution (see "Crazy Eric", below), but it can occasionally be very useful, and you only have to endure it until you get past the weighing station. Unlike the inspired fellow in the video at the left, though, the skilled traveller does this to redistribute weight, not carry more stuff!

Whenever being subjected to a weighing of your bag(s) at an airport, it is useful to bear in mind that, on any given day, about 10% of airport scales give incorrect readings (as has been demonstrated by random testing). If you've weighed the bag(s) at home first — always a good idea — and are being given a different number by the airline, or if you haven't, but are discovering that your bag is only just slightly over the limit, insist that it be weighed on another scale.

Incidentally, you can weigh your bag on an ordinary household/bathroom scale; there's no need for a special luggage version. Just stand on the scale, holding your bag in front of your legs (keep it as close to the centre of the scale as possible for most accurate results), and make a note of the weight. Then weigh yourself without the bag, and subtract that from the first number. Simple!

Buddy Packing

If you have an extremely compatible travelling partner, you might consider packing half of each person's things in the other's bag. That way, in case of a bag being lost (much less likely for the carry-on traveller), each of you will still have half of his/her stuff. This method has the downside of providing something in the way of a disincentive to pack minimally, however!

Whether or not you do buddy packing, it should be obvious that when two or more travel together, many of the packing list items (alarm clock, guidebooks, repair supplies, etc.) need not be replicated for each person!

For the Travel Minimalist: Really Light Packing

Those willing to forego certain niceties (notably extra clothing), and adopt a devil-may-care adventurous spirit, can journey with considerably fewer items than I suggest on this site. Some people manage casual travel quite well with only a daypack (I have elsewhere mentioned that the bag I most frequently use is smaller than the majority of those I recommend). Ray Jardine addresses many of the issues associated with this form of travel, which often involves some specialized do-it-yourself gear (although this is much less true today than it was when Ray first began writing of his travels, thus pioneering the modern art of ultralight backpacking).

Some people travel with no bags at all. Tackling this particular challenge from an engineering perspective that is not unlike my own (a thought some might find chilling!) is Anders Ansar (pictured at left), who travels — in tropical areas anyway — with only the (significantly-modified) clothes on his back. His iPod-Nano-sized "suitcase" is shown at right.

At the extreme end of the carry-everything-in-your-pockets spectrum is Guinness World Records notable Crazy Eric, who's neither light (his "packing list" currently numbers some 1300 items!) nor all that much of a traveller (neither his form nor his content are likely to pass airport security), but unquestionably interesting. And he does suggest what's possible, if you're sufficiently eccentric!