Light. I can fit all my stuff into a regular shoulder backpack. If I need to carry more clothing I use my Military duffel instead. I could literally live out of my backpack, and could live fairly comfortably out of the duffel.
I have a long check list of everything I might possibly take on a trip. I’m adding to the list all the time, especially with new technology. When I’m planning a trip I go through the list and delete everything that I won’t be needing on this trip. This works for me, because I don’t take things I won’t be needing, and don’t neglect to take things I will be needing.
This is an interesting thread.
My 75 yr old Mom is the ultimate light-packer. For weekend trips she could almost make do with a large purse. I obviously missed this gene.
Her packing mantra (for weekend trips) is: Get ready in the morning with the suitcase beside you; If you wear it, put two in… If you use it, put one in.
Generally people think I’m immigrating.
Over half the stuff I carry I don’t even wear or use but it’s a huge comfort factor having options and just-in-case items, especially for the in between seasons when you can’t tell whether it will be hot or cold. I need to be fashionable ;] or feel good/appropriate with my outfit and hate suffering not having something that I need… I don’t think of what to leave out; I think of what situations I might not have thought of… another word I have a problem and have no idea how to pack. Except for the carrying the giant bags etc and the ridicules, it works for me.
I went for “any less and you could fit it in a purse” but that’s not really accurate - I actually HAVE packed for a two-night stay in a purse, and no, it wasn’t a suit-case size purse, just handbag/normal totebag size.
I pack incredibly light. If I need “emergency” spare clothes they go on the credit card I carry for emergency purchases. Ditto for anything else I might need I don’t have with me.
Some years, I travel 6 months or more for work. I have packing down to a science and travel very lightly.
Absolutely the bare minimum.
If I could afford to I would just get on the plane with only the clothes on my back and buy whatever I needed when I got there, but unfortunately I can’t.
the men in my life have accused me (rightly so) of packing a bag for every day i’m going to be gone. the women in my family don’t pack - we nest.
the only time i’ve ever had to rethink that was on our 3 week dive trip to hawaii. to cut down on the prohibitive cost of extra baggage, we jointly decided that we could only take a pelican case each (not counting our dive bags. they hold the big stuff like second stages, wetsuits, fins, masks, and bcds.): half for the smaller dive equipment and half for our clothing and sundries.
i’m the kind of girly-girl who has a bag for makeup and a bag for hair toiletries. AND i’m going to be living out of half a pelican case for three weeks!?!?!?
it was not pretty. 
we did a LOT of laundry while we were there.
I’m a fairly light packer, especially when I’m packing for a trip that involves the kids. I usually manage to bring exactly the amount of clothing we need, as well as a good estimation of what we’ll need in the carryon (snacks, books, toys, etc.).
When I’m packing for a trip for myself, I usually bring a little bit more because I don’t have to carry anything for anyone else. Plus, even if I’m traveling for business, chances are I’ll have 2 hours a night more time to myself than I would have were I traveling with kids, so I can get a workout in if I want, take a walk if I’m in an interesting town, read a book I’ve been putting off due to time constraints, etc.
Also, keep the list. Look at it after the trip is over. Ask yourself what you didn’t really need. Ask yourself what you had forgotten to bring. Then use that revised list the next time. I have four packing lists (basically for short and long trips in the summer, and similarly for winter), with a couple of add-ons for holidays and weddings.
It might seem a bit overkill, and I suppose it is, but I can pack for a three month trip in half an hour without forgetting anything. And I’m not exactly a minimalist.
Most of my traveling is between here and Chicago, which I do several times a year. Several years ago I came up with the idea that, because I always stay with a friend when I go there, it made sense to leave a supply of clothing at his place. So now, all I pack for those trips is my CPAP, enough of my vitamins, supplements and other sundries for the length of my stay, my Kindle (which replaces the books I used to pack), and a change of underwear and socks “just in case”.
I pack what I cannot do without. My wife takes anything she might conceivably need as well as a few things she thinks I might need. So I go to Barbados for three weeks in a sport bag (and mostly live in bathing suits and T-shirts) and she takes two suitcases.
I pack only what I know I wil need. Anything else comes, I will buy locally.
I came home from a week of work in the UK on Friday evening. Unfortunately, the corporate travel agent lady didn’t figure that Boston has the slowest shuttle bus system in the world between terminals. And I needed to get to my connecting flight.
It took me five minutes to breeze through immigration. My bag was seventh out of the chute. Customs just waved me on.
And then I suffered in agony while I waited for a shuttle bus that seemed like it would never come. Once it came, the driver stepped out for a break.
The upshot of it all was that the guy at the ticket counter told me I had missed bag check time by two minutes. I ran full-speed with my carryon and “checked” bag to security, trying to remember if I had packed any switchblades.
The bag went through security with minimal hassle: I had some bottles of shampoo in it so it was hand searched.
The “checked” bag fit, with some persuasion, into an overhead bin.
Lessons learned: Never do connecting flights for international travel, and always pack light enough to carry it all on if you need to.
Oh yes… If I am driving (not flying), I take too much junk. I take along a portable electric guitar and amplifier, among other things. Even for a two night stay.
With time and expertise, and most motivationally the arrival of the checked-baggage fee, I’ve become much more efficient at packing. I can fit a week in a carry-on easily *if *I can just wear the good suit on my flights and it’s not winter. But still I tend to be slightly over what I coud get away with, just so that if I encounter a Planes, Trains and Automobiles-type situation I will be good to go a day and a half past my original ETA. Doesn’t help that I have reached a position in life where if it will not do for me to wear one jeans and warmup jacket ensemble both day and evening for a week.
And add me to the list where travelling to a place that is having Winter kills me, volumewise. I know the technique is layering, but all those layers take up room. Plus, I am not going to have as my strategy that if there’s a really bitter cold snap I’ll just wear all my shirts at once.
My personal travel rule is that I have to be able to carry my own luggage. No stupid wheely thingys that can break a wheel or turn over on non-level surfaces. So I pack pretty light. A weekend is a backpack. A week or more is a backpack plus a matching shoulder bag. They’re both Timberland luggage and built with lots of pockets and mesh and places to put small things, plus appropriate compartments. Whatever I pack for a week can be washed and re-used as needed, so what’s for a week can be for a month. I would just have to purchase toiletries.
I seem to go to extremes.
When I’m going somewhere for a lengthy stay…work in Alaska, or moving to another state entirely…I go light. I ditch practically everything and just…go.
But last time we spend just 2 days in San Diego, I swear I brought enough clothes for a week. :eek: It’s always “Just in case!”. Somehow moving is the opposite, a kind of “What the hell, everything won’t be enough, so don’t bother with any of it”. It’s…weird. Even to me. 
My wife is kind of the same way so when we travel together, my light packing is negated. It’s not like I can just take my carry on and say “see you on the beach.”
Wheeled carry on plus a laptop bag OR a backpack for any trip 7 days or shorter. For a weekend trip its just the wheeled carry on or a large Adidas duffle.
The less people travel the more they take.