Packing light

In My Humble Opinion
21

I usually pack light, probably lighter than you’re interested in, because I’m often walking long distances on the Camino or taking a train between cities. I’m not eating or going out to anywhere fancy.

General

  • Internal frame hiking backpack that meets airline/European carry-on dimensions, with rain cover and a few lightweight dry bags/Ziplocs
  • Lightweight small day pack
  • Pacsafe waist pack, lockable with slashproof front panel and belt]

Items (varies a little if I’m staying in hostels, guest houses, hotels, or someone’s house, and if I’m walking in an area without stores/groceries/banks, arriving during a week-long festival when stores will be closed, etc. For example, I don’t need the shawl or sleep sack if I’m only in hotels or hostels that provide bedding and towels.)

  • Zippered wallet [DL, Global Entry, Priority Pass, medical card, insurance card, emergency contact info, 2 credit cards, no-fee ATM card, $20]
  • Passport
  • Zippered coin bag [local currency/ies]
  • Plastic envelope with documents
  • Medical alert bracelet
  • TSA luggage locks, thin lock cable
  • 2 14-oz Nalgene water bottles
  • Travel-sized toiletries and a few bandaids + antibiotic ointment packet + SPF lip balm + sunscreen +comb
  • Medications
  • Medication pen cooling wallet (Frio)
  • Travel clothesline + 4-8 lightweight metal clips
  • 2 foldable travel hangers
  • 1 small travel towel (for helping to dry underwear and socks)
  • 1 quick-dry thin shawl (as towel, blanket, wrap, extra layer)
  • Silk sleep sack if needed
  • Phone, cord, USB-A/C adapter, (European) charging block, [plug adapter,] portable battery, AirPods on cord, [Bluetooth folding mini-keyboard, folding phone stand]
  • Lightweight notebook + 2 pens
  • Jewelry pouch with 2 sets of earrings, 1 sturdy necklace
  • Tiny emergency sewing kit
  • Gum + mints
  • Plastic watch
  • Sunglasses in hard case
  • Reading glasses
  • A few N-95s
  • Foam earplugs

Spring through Fall Clothes (one set worn, one carried)

  • 1-2 short-sleeved technical (athletic/hiking) shirts

  • 1 3/4-sleeved technical (athletic/hiking) shirt

  • 1 technical overshirt with hood

  • 2 lightweight/quick-dry pants, at least one of which has snaps to raise the legd to mid-calf. Zip-off would work, but they all hit at a point on my knee that’s uncomfortable

  • 3 pr Ex Officio underwear

  • 1-2 pr Tilley quick-dry ankle socks

  • 2 pr Merino socks

  • 1-2 pr Merino liner socks (#/type of socks depends on the nature of the trip)

  • 1 TSA belt (plastic buckle)

  • 1 pr Tevas

  • 1 pr quick-dry boxers

  • 1 silk underlayer tank top

  • 1 pr shower flipflops

  • Lightweight rain jacket or poncho

  • 1 lightweight infinity scarf (I use it around my elbows on the plane to keep my arms in snuggly)

  • 2 cotton bandanas

  • 1 rainproof baseball cap

  • 2 carabiners

  • ^ This comes to 14-18#, depending on the backpack

Additional items, depending on plans and predicted weather

  • Lightweight duffel or IKEA FRAKTA bag if I need to check my larger bag or possessions acquired on the trip.
  • Thin quick-dry base layer
  • Puffy vest
  • Thin gloves
  • Swim suit
  • Flat USB-chargable travel fan
  • A paper guidebook (if the maps are better than in the ebook version), only the sections I need, pages recycled as I go
  • Packets of miso soup
  • Lightweight mug on carabiner handle
  • Spork
  • Thin plastic cutting board
  • Basic penknife (I buy one there, and donate when I leave)
  • Lightweight travel binoculars
  • Collapsable hiking poles (I buy there, and donate when I leave)
  • Map
  • 2 protein bars

It’s more or less the same list for 1 week or 6 weeks. I might take a slightly nicer pair of travel pants and a silk scarf if I need to be a little dressier. I can make do with less if necessary. The shorter the trip, the less medication I have with me and therefore the lighter that packet is.

22

One trick I read in Reader’s Digest is to bring all of your unwanted clothing on a vacation trip. Then as the trip goes on, you can discard clothing - a stained T-shirt here, a worn-out pair of socks there, etc. You not only lighten your suitcase, but create space for souvenirs and whatnot. Of course, you still need to bring some non-ugly clothes.

23

If it’s a vacation, why pack jackets and ties and the like? Nobody dresses formally over there, and they’re used to people from the USA looking like slobs. In six years in Europe I never wore a tie outside of an embassy affair. For a week, one pair of jeans is plenty. Ditch the other pants. If you find you have need of another shirt, buy one locally.

And I like this idea a lot.

24

I typically bring less than I think I’ll need and buy local branded shirts, hats, jackets as combination souvenirs/clothing.

25

Where do you find something like this? I’ve been looking for a good travel backpack that works for me. I have been to REI and got one a couple of years ago, but it is a bit too large to technically be a carryon. My problem is that I’m 6’2" and broad shoulders so the straps start to cut in to me after a couple of days.

I’d love a bag big enough for my shoulders but still has some pockets, something I haven’t really seen. I like having a small pocket for my passport, wallet, things like that, plus another couple of pockets for a book.

My one I bought is nice, and I had them help me at REI, but it’s a back packing pack, I went to pack it for this past trip and I could have almost crawled in it myself with how much room was left over.

26

I have been doing this for many years and it works great!

27

It’s an REI women’s model: https://www.rei.com/product/231777/rei-co-op-trail-40-pack-womens?redirect-pup=false. On the one hand, I’m much shorter than you, and on the other, it’s 40L so it has ample space.

Dimensions (Women’s):
XS - S: 20 x 12 x 9.5 inches
M - XL: 20.5 x 12 x 9.5 inches
1X - 4X: 20.5 x 12 x 9.5 inches

It has a U-shaped zipper, but note that when closed, the tabs aren’t near an anchor point, so I lock them them using a thin cable that I run through the gear loops a few times.

28

I got a question: How to pack light when your destination might be snowy and very cold?

This isn’t actually theoretical. I have to go to Montreal in early March for a few days. Short enough that I should be able to do carry on only. Except the weather could end up being miserable.

29

Wear a winter coat and boots on the flight?

30

If you live the kind of life where you have to bring a jacket and tie on vacation, have your servants carry them.

31

Not sure of this fits most of the answers, which generally deal with air travel, but…

I like long distance multi-day hikes. Every gram/ounce counts*, but luckily washing tends not to be a priority (campfire smoke and sweat and dirt are not so bad when everyone on the hike smells.)

I use the rolling technique described above. It really is the most efficient way to pack. I guess that can be exemplified by the way we all roll up sleeping bags, for the “non-rollers” out there. Also, I need to take food, which is bulky, even though I remove packaging and portion out into double bagged zip locks.

It also helps that I am not exactly going hiking in a tuxedo and dress shirt.

* The only exception is the alcohol - I can take whisky in an aluminum flask, but I can’t compress it.

32

We’ve done multiple overseas trips like this, and our general rule is we have two full sets of clothing for the trip. One set for hiking and one for the hut. We rinse them out when we can but you just have to accept that your clothes won’t be fresh and clean every day.

We’ve been able to have a bag kept for use during the hike either at a hotel or with a trekking company transfer, so we can have fun city times after the hiking.

33

Yup. I always dress for the coldest side of a trip on the airplane. That means i sometimes spend a flight sitting on my open down coat, as it’s often too bulky to store overhead if the flight is full.

34

To be fair, most multi-day hikes here include river crossings, and my favorites are basically in a river - kloofing is a South African hiking style that involves lots of time in a high mountain river where you have to have to spend a huge amount of time in the actual river.

This is one of my favorites, a reasonably strenuous hike up, and then… glory. It is called Suicide Gorge. After a moderate hike in (probably 10km) you get to a river where there are 10 mandatory jumps, ranging from about 10m to 12m, though the last jump offers a 22m jump for the brave. I am not one of the brave.

We take waterproof food, eg, oranges, apples, etc, because we have to toss our hiking bags down before we jump.

We pack light, but the end of the trail is quite hard, climbing over a smallish mountain, but on very dodgy tracks - loose rocks. So we encourage each other with the fact that there is a bar just 5km from the end of the route.

Total distance, probably about 35km.

35

We’ve done mostly European hut-to-hut hiking (Alta Via 1, Hiker’s Haute Route, Landmannalaugar) and except for the one in Iceland, not many river crossings. But the huts typically have hot showers and drying racks.

36

Luxury!

We have astoundingly beautiful hiking trails here in the Western Cape, South Africa, but even the “glamping” ones don’t have hot water in most of the National Parks.

Unfortunately a nice geyser or boiler is too tempting to our fellow citizens who have a connection to a scrap metal dealer.

We wash in the river, which can be very cold. Or, not at all, if there are crocodiles.

Not that I am complaining, I use a tent, and a small bucket of cold water, because I can’t afford “glamping”.

(note: National Parks here do attempt to provide hot water, it is not at all their fault when it is not. Third World Problems)

37

I’m an old man now, I used to do long backpacking trips with my two-man ultralight tent, but I’ve aged out of those. I’ll canoe camp and bathe in the lakes, but not full backpacking except for single overnights.

38

Having done many trips along the lines of what you’re talking about (our usual travel MO is two weeks, but one carry-on per person), here’s how it usually breaks down for a seven day week (or our usual two week trip, with laundry about halfway)

Take 7 pairs of underwear and socks. Combined with the pair you’re wearing, that gives you a spare pair of each. The synthetic ones are great- I got some by 32 Degrees that are comfortable, wash easily, and dry fast for our Hawaii trip, where we didn’t have laundry available until about day 9 of the trip.

Wear a pair of pants, take a pair. Or even just wear them straight through for a week. Pants don’t usually get particularly dirty doing civilized stuff.

Take one jacket, if you’re expecting jacket weather. If not, don’t take it.

Three shirts plus the one you’re wearing, T-shirts or polos, don’t fool with undershirts- they take up space.

Toiletries; take the bare minimum. Toothbrush/toothpaste, deodorant, medications, contact lens stuff, and that’s about it. Anything else that you need, you can just buy at a pharmacy (they’ve got green crosses in Europe, FWIW).

I might make sure and take an umbrella, or buy one once you get there, and make sure you’ve got whatever charging stuff and adapters you need for wherever you go. Europe’s got two or three different power plug standards, even if it’s all 220v.

Now if you can fit that and have room leftover, I"d consider taking more shirts and pants. In my carry-on, I can usually get seven shirts, pairs of socks, and underwear, along with a spare pair of pants.

If one of your goals is to bring back lots of stuff, you’ve got two basic options. One is to put your fully loaded carry on in a larger suitcase and check it on the flight over, then fill it with stuff, check it on the way back, and take your carry-on onto the plane. Second is to go thrift-shopping and get a bunch of disposable clothing and whatever and just trash it as you go, so that on your trip back, you’ve got a mostly empty bag for stuff.

39

Third is to buy a new suitcase where you go, and only check a bag one way. This is especially useful if you could use a new suitcase, but it also means you only need to lug two bags to the airport one way.

It’s not very hard to buy a suitcase in most cities.

40

We in the third world would prefer it if you did not trash it - there are many places to donate used clothing in the first world, and eventually it filters down via aid agencies to people who can’t afford store goods, especially in Africa

Donate it, even if is not in great condition. No clothing is disposable, even I can sew.