Carry-on only for week-long trip to another country?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not do a carry-on and a backpack?

+1 we did this to Europe a few months ago. We were there for a week.

Packing cubes
rolled up socks, panties into extra pair of shoes
smaller toiletry bottles - I used contact lense cases
layer on the plane with a sweater and coat or whatever outwear you have

OP, here. I will have a backpack as my personal item. I've done all of the above, except packing cubes. How do they help? I have a couple of packing cubes, but I'm not sure how to utilize them in the best way. Thank you, everyone, for your responses!

Packing cubes does a good job of compressing the clothing, and providing a bit more space in the bag. It also makes finding other items easier in the bag since you don't have to sift through the clothing looking for something. If I want to repack some stuff, I just need to take the cube out rather than dump all the clothes out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Carry-on all the way. Packing cubes are not necessary (and add unnecessary weight to a bag you may need to lift). The trick is to wear your heaviest shoes and pack only one other pair of small light weight shoes, and only if necessary.

packing cubes are super light, at least mine are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Carry-on all the way. Packing cubes are not necessary (and add unnecessary weight to a bag you may need to lift). The trick is to wear your heaviest shoes and pack only one other pair of small light weight shoes, and only if necessary.

packing cubes are super light, at least mine are.

Same here, the weight in my bag is not from the packing cubes. I find packing cubes much easier for everyone in my family. We don't have to repack each time we move accommodations, the kids know where to find their clothes and are much more self-sufficient with dressing and packing. The clothes stay unwrinkled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not do a carry-on and a backpack?

+1 we did this to Europe a few months ago. We were there for a week.

Packing cubes
rolled up socks, panties into extra pair of shoes
smaller toiletry bottles - I used contact lense cases
layer on the plane with a sweater and coat or whatever outwear you have

OP, here. I will have a backpack as my personal item. I've done all of the above, except packing cubes. How do they help? I have a couple of packing cubes, but I'm not sure how to utilize them in the best way. Thank you, everyone, for your responses!

Packing cubes - with clothes rolled inside the cubes - helps me keep things organized. It doesn't always make more space - sometimes if I'm really struggling to fit things - everything rolled and not in a packing cube I can fit things in weird spaces. However, as I learned recently on a trip - when security wanted to look in my bag - I had to take each and every piece of clothing out and re-pack it. With the cubes - I keep my shirts together, my underwear in another. Then wherever I am its easy to just grab a cube to get dressed.

DP, but this is my issue with packing cubes... You end up having to take out every single cube out, open them all and then repack everything just to get dressed. Otherwise I'd just open my suitcase, select a shirt/pant/socks/underwear and.. its fine.

I normally take all of my packing cubes out - organized by type - in whatever space I have available. THey are different colors if they are the same size so I can easily determine shirts from something else. Its really so much easier than rifling thru all the clothes looking for that one pair of pants that is at the bottom of the suitcase.

Ah that is the difference. I live out of the suitcase, which is much more work to repack if I were to take everything out.

[Anonymous]

I take older clothes and discard, or newer clothes and donate. In either event, I'm coming home with less than I arrived with ... so room for souvenirs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take older clothes and discard, or newer clothes and donate. In either event, I'm coming home with less than I arrived with ... so room for souvenirs.

I've read about people doing this with undies and socks Just trash the old ones and not bother bringing them back at all!

[Anonymous]

OP again. Thank you all so much. This is very helpful.

[Anonymous]

+1. I have one packing cube per person. Makes it so much easier when one person is looking for a specific item to not have to search through four people’s clothes.

[Anonymous]

We spent ten days in England last year with two carry on suitcases for three people, using packing cubes (and we had backpacks). We ended up buying a duffel for purchased items, though we could get away with this since we had a third person (our kid) who didn't have a carry on outbound. I will say, we took the train a bit in England and there is not much space for the roll-aboard kind of carry on suitcases we use here in overhead bins on planes...they are too large for the overhead space on the trains. There's a small "luggage area" in the car that fills quickly and if your stuff is at the bottom, people just pile on. If we were doing a lot of train travel I'd do all duffels because they can get shoved overhead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We spent ten days in England last year with two carry on suitcases for three people, using packing cubes (and we had backpacks). We ended up buying a duffel for purchased items, though we could get away with this since we had a third person (our kid) who didn't have a carry on outbound. I will say, we took the train a bit in England and there is not much space for the roll-aboard kind of carry on suitcases we use here in overhead bins on planes...they are too large for the overhead space on the trains. There's a small "luggage area" in the car that fills quickly and if your stuff is at the bottom, people just pile on. If we were doing a lot of train travel I'd do all duffels because they can get shoved overhead.

That's surprising - the overhead spaces on long distances trains in Italy, Switzerland and France have been big enough for our carry-on size suitcases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We spent ten days in England last year with two carry on suitcases for three people, using packing cubes (and we had backpacks). We ended up buying a duffel for purchased items, though we could get away with this since we had a third person (our kid) who didn't have a carry on outbound. I will say, we took the train a bit in England and there is not much space for the roll-aboard kind of carry on suitcases we use here in overhead bins on planes...they are too large for the overhead space on the trains. There's a small "luggage area" in the car that fills quickly and if your stuff is at the bottom, people just pile on. If we were doing a lot of train travel I'd do all duffels because they can get shoved overhead.

That's surprising - the overhead spaces on long distances trains in Italy, Switzerland and France have been big enough for our carry-on size suitcases.

I found the commuter trains in The Netherlands have very small (short/shallow) overhead bins. My backpack might fit if it's not overstuffed and my very small roller wouldn't fit at all. There are sections of the train you can leave your bags. So not all trains and luggage space are equal. I do think long distance trains expect luggage and have space for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1. I have one packing cube per person. Makes it so much easier when one person is looking for a specific item to not have to search through four people’s clothes.

Wait. You are saying you fit all of one person’s clothes not just in single international carryon, but in a single packing cube????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take older clothes and discard, or newer clothes and donate. In either event, I'm coming home with less than I arrived with ... so room for souvenirs.

Yep. I call it "Throw and Go" and have been doing it for decades. Years ago, before clothing became so cheap, I often had hotel staff double-check that I actually wanted discard my still-serviceable items. When I said yes, they were happy to take the items. If they didn't use things themselves, then they could sell it.

[Anonymous]

I’m in the minority on this thread but I’m team checked luggage. I don’t like limiting my shoes in case some get wet or cause blisters, I like to pack my own blow dryer, I like to have lots of OTC meds just in case, I do not like to do laundry in sinks, and I don’t like the stress of finding overhead bin space. I use AirTags / tiles in my checked luggage and that prevented an issue once. Usually no problems.

[Anonymous]

Carry-on on the way there, expand suitcase or use a small packable duffle and check on the way home