Enjoyed this humourous encyclopedia of luggage packing styles, gift linked below. What is your style of baggage packing?
Some types:
The Impostor
Workout clothes? A library of books? Outfits ripped from Fashion Week? Who are they kidding? You’re the same person on vacation as you are at home. Most of their items will remain untouched until they’re unpacked at home.
The Luggage Dad
He paid for one luggage cart, and he’ll stack it as high as he wants — not that the bulk is his. Underneath his family’s pile of excess, you’ll find a Costco-purchased rollaboard packed with militant precision. It’s old school and organized, down to the manila folder of printed hotel and rental car reservations.
The Burrito
Live by the roll, die by the roll. They heard rolling their clothes saves space in a bag and have been unfurling wrinkled T-shirts on trip after trip ever since.
Or perhaps you are a Tetris Master, Trash Bagger, Marie Kondo, Talent, Tornado, Fort Knox, Mathematician, Minimizer, Maximizer or something more unique (insert your own category here)…?
Shove everything in a grocery sack and hope for the best.
I see that’s actually an option?!
In reality somewhere between the Kondo and the Tetris guru. I’m neat but when I’m done my suitcase has little to no free room. I don’t ẃant to accidentally forget something, after all.
How about the OCD sufferer?
I pack according to a Reader’s Digest article I once read: Bring as much unwanted clothing as possible. Then discard it as the trip goes on, such that your luggage gets lighter and lighter and you have more and more space for other things.
I’ve traveled for a living through two different careers. The first was primarily by car, which to my mind doesn’t really count. Only when going by air have I ever had to put some thought into it. My standard pack-out for airline travel is one roll-aboard and one standard size knapsack - never any checked baggage.
In the larger bag I use a combination of rolling and folding for clothes, there’s a small toiletry bag, a pair of shoes, laptop / charger / mouse, and some errata in the smaller pockets (extra glasses, extra shoelaces, etc). Depending on the trip I may pack some disposable clothes to minimize carrying laundry back home.
The knapsack is essentially my everyday purse and has my wallet, keys, iPad and all the other small stuff. On the rare occasions I’ve had to gate check my roll-aboard I have enough room to move my laptop and toiletry kit into the knapsack as a hedge against the larger bag being lost.
I can live out of that setup for two weeks if necessary, and indefinitely if I can do laundry while on the road.
I can live out of a 38L backpack for weeks, and do on the Camino. One week or 6, the only difference is buying more toiletries.
I have luggage cubes my kids gave us, and I used them when we went to Europe for a cruise, but mostly I’m the Mathematician type. I know how many changes of clothes I need. Then there is a standard packing list.
I almost never do carry ons. First, I’m stuck with the little toiletries, and can’t use my own. Second, I can’t bring my Swiss Army Knife which I pack. Third, I almost always fly Southwest so the bag is free. Fourth, I’m never on that much of a schedule that I don’t mind waiting ten minutes for luggage. Fifth, I don’t have to shlep a carry-on all over the airport.
When I flew all the time for work it was a different story, but I never liked it.
If I’m only going for a few days, I’m the mathematician. I take exactly what I need packed burrito style.
If I’m gone for weeks I’m sort of a minimalist. I know I’m going to have to rinse stuff out in the hotel sink. I sure as hell am not taking 21 pairs of socks
Maximalist, I guess. I don’t use travel-sized anything, just the containers from the bathroom.
One rule is “start from a known state”. Made the mistake a few times of thinking I’d leave stuff hanging in the laundry room and remember to pack it on the way out. (Note: we pass through the laundry room to enter the garage.) Now I take everything upstairs and put it away, even if I’m leaving the next morning. FTR: I travel exclusively via RV or car, never airlines, and trips range from weeks to months sometimes.
Due to medical stuff and insistence on comfort, I don’t pack light. Not even close. One bag for toiletries, meds, undies, socks, shoes, gym shorts and hair dryer. One bag for my pillows (not the brand, just mine). CPAP bag. CPAP spare parts bag (small, but necessary sometime). Hanging clothes. A small lunchbox-sized container for emergency meds, eyedrops, earbuds, adapters, notes/maps etc. that I might need up front while driving.
Probably closer to Tetris Master. Everything carefully folded or rolled and arranged to minimize shifting.
The two driving factors for me are (1) wearing clean clothes daily and (2) the physical size of my clothes. If I can wash clothes during the trip, or even have time to wash them in my room, I take very few clothes. But I’m 6’2" and over 200 pounds, so even a single pair of jeans is substantial. (My wife is 5’ tall and can pack at least two outfits in the space I require for one.)
I take very few full-size toiletries and virtually no “appliances” other than my electric shaver. OTOH, I have been know to pack an entire box of 32 Pop-Tarts in my roller bag.
I’m the mathematician. I travel quite a bit for work, and can do a full week in business attire with my carryon.
One suit coat in the bag, one on my back. The underwear and t-shirts nobody sees anyway get rolled or crammed into corners, while the slacks and dress shirts are folded in just such a way that they look good when they come out. If I’m wearing sneakers on the plane, the dress shoes in the bag can hold several pair of socks. No cc is wasted.
I can usually make enough room for a pair of sneakers and shorts (if someplace warm). Wear bulkier items like jeans on the plane to save space in the bag. I often find in the evenings I’m glad to have a pair with me.
The Tornado
The last-minute packer meets game-time decisions. Clothes get thrown in with reckless abandon. Folding not required.
That’s me! I always swear I’ll do better next time, but that never happens.
Either the Burrito or the Marie Kondo. Everything gets rolled into my carry-on bag, and I always end up taking more than I wear even though there is always extra space left.
I’m probably somewhere between Mathematician and Tetris Master. I figure out how many of each article of clothing I’ll need, plus one spare in case something gets stained or damaged or something. Then the bulkiest items get packed first, then the small items like socks and underwear get crammed around the edges or into whatever space remains. In a pinch I might stuff a few pairs of underwear into an outside pocket rather than the main part of the suitcase.
I was none-of-the-listed, but combined two new ones:
The Sloppy Casual: picks enough clothes with an extra + 1 for each category of expected use. Loosely folded and placed in suitcase (generally travel) without min-maxing space. Also included - medium plastic bag. After use, all dirty clothes go into plastic bag because screw it, it’s all going into the laundry at home anyway, why bother! Travel sized toiletries likely to have been replaced at the last minute as a detailed check on best by dates or remaining amount may not have been checked in a timely manner.
The Tech-addicted - generally applies to carry-ons such as laptop or other tech baggage. Multiple chargers for each and every type of electronics carried: cell phones, tablets, laptops and multiple secondary batteries for charging the above. Cords and wallwarts carefully secured in hard sided case. Multiple overlapping techs for in-flight/destination use in case one fails or is recharging - so multiple tablets/kindles/e-book readers.
If I’m staying in the same hotel for multiple days, dirty clothes get piled on the chair in my room, them folded and repacked on the last day. Then it all goes in the laundry when I get home.
If I’m traveling around to multiple places on the same trip, the dirty clothes get stuffed back into the suitcase before leaving for the next place. That’s how I tell what’s clean and what’s dirty – the stuff that’s still neatly folded is clean, they stuff that’s just randomly stuffed in there is dirty.
Minimalist+mathematician. Unless I really need to carry something extra (dress clothes, etc.), I carry one backpack that fits under the airline seat. That’ll last about a week. If I need more, I’ll do my wash at the destination. I have extras and spares for most things, but not to an extreme. Tech includes a laptop, tablet, Kindle, and chargers/cables.
I usually pack one pair of pants (plus the pair I wear to travel in); one pair of shoes (plus the pair I’m traveling in); running clothes for each day of travel; and entirely too many pairs of underwear.
Yes, I am one of those freaks that assumes I am going to shit my pants six times on a three-day weekend trip.
Yes, you do have anxiety issues. 
And Spirit Airlines probably hates travelers like you, because being a minimalist packer is about the only way to avoid paying any of their extra fees. Well, that and not caring where you sit.