I’m seriously impressed. Could you post your packing list for this?
I hate packing heavy, and I’m a chick. I don’t care if you do, as long as it doesn’t bother/impact me.
I went to Boston for a week over the new year, and the only reason I had more than a carry on was because I was going to a wedding and had to bring my dress and my fiance’s suit. I mean, jeans can be worn 2-3 times without washing while travelling if you’re not doing some heavy duty sweating. Maybe bring two pairs of shoes if you need to; otherwise the ones you’re wearing to the airport are fine. If you’re a chick and there’ll be some nicer place to go to where you need to wear a dress? There are some cool dresses made in this material that will NOT wrinkle. You can seriously just cram it into the corner of a carry on and when you take it out, it looks perfect.
Like sven said, multiple bags weigh you down and can make you an easier target. I also don’t like increasing the possibility that my luggage goes lost, stolen or missing. Easier to control (though not prevent) with just a carry on.
It does seem to be the sort of “I’m a traveller, not a tourist” snobbiness, like how people will look down on tourists who will only swim at the hotel pool, eat at McDonalds, and wander around in organized tour groups buying souvenirs. Backpackers will pack as light as possible because they’re lugging their stuff around the whole time; seasoned travellers tend to know exactly what they need to bring; so overpacking is seen as the sort of thing infrequent travellers do.
I personally lean towards the pack light side of the spectrum. On my month-long honeymoon my husband and I each brought a small carry-on and were among the first to get out of the airport because we weren’t burdened down and didn’t need to wait for the checked luggage (were we smug about that? Annoyingly so!) I think it works very well, but I don’t begrudge someone who brings a lot more because that’s what works for their holiday plans. Not everybody travels like backpackers do - moving from place to place, staying in seedy dorms with strangers, trying to make their money last the distance. For someone staying at one hotel for their whole trip, it might not be such a big deal to pack “just in case” stuff.
I have no idea why people do this.
I tend to pack heavy, and I carry my own bag. I like to have plenty of clothes options, I like to take my full complement of personal grooming supplies, and I like to have clothes that I don’t strictly need, in case of weather changes, nice restaurants, etc.
That being said, I don’t have to pack a huge bag for everything. If I have to do a lot of walking with my bags, or I’m going to be in a hurry, or I know what will be available when I get there (ie. no need to pack shampoo when going to my parents’ place), I can pack one small shoulder bag and be done with it.
But if I’m taking a car trip where I won’t be carrying anything far, why not pack fthree pairs of shoes? I may want them and it doesn’t hurt anything.
The amount of baggage hauled depends on where you’re going and what you’re doing. I’m curious as to even sven’s bookbag giving her more options than the likey two cases we’ll end up taking in a couple of weeks (well 1.5, but you can’t take half a case). Events expected include a football game, a wooded hike, a formal dinner, some museums, and maybe a show.
Bopping around the tropics for a few weeks on a couple of changes of clothes isn’t that difficult if you don’t need to do anything formal. A week where you need to be varyingly formal requires more stuff, even if you have access to laundry facilities (who wants to do laundry while on vacation?).
Your first mistake was paying attention to old-man rants.
I don’t care what people carry, so long as I don’t have to carry it for them and I don’t pack more than I can handle myself.
I tend to travel to colder places, which means bulk and I’m klutzy so I bring redundant items to wear after I spill on myself or fall into something. And for any trip longer than 3 days, the airline restrictions on liquids mean that I have to check baggage. But I can pack for a week long car trip in a single bag.
I like wheeled luggage, but I don’t depend on the road being wheelable.
I can’t believe the things people feel smug and superior about. In the last few days on this board, we’ve had threads on people who feel superior to people who read celebrity news, like their iphones, and carry a large bag on a trip.
On trips where I’ll be schlepping my bag from place to place during the trip, I’ll pack lightly. On trips where I’ll be staying in one place (relatives, one hotel), I won’t be as concerned about paring down to the bare essentials. If I’m not going to be in a hurry when I arrive, I’ll check my bag. I don’t like hauling carry-on luggage and taking up room in the overhead bin if I can avoid it, and I hate putting all my toiletries into the goddamn 1 litre clear plastic bag.
And feeling superior because your luggage doesn’t have wheels? Seriously, get a grip. Do they even sell wheel-less suitcases anymore?
My mom loves to pack a huge load of stuff when she knows that she will not have to carry any of it. When she’s had to fly alone, all of a sudden she doesn’t need all that much. But the second she’s accompanied by a porter, (I mean, a male relative) all bets are off. It’s a form of domination with her. “You have to carry my stuff. If you don’t, you’re a dick and I will make sure everybody knows about it for years.” This seems to extend from her issues with men. She never tries to impose obligations on her women friends.
My personal issue with packing too much is just being in an airplane with people carrying more gear than a paratrooper and being unable to stow it all.
My husband likes to pack everything but the kitchen sink, while I’m an extremely light packer. At one point, I spent my summers living out of my backpack (which included my tent, a solar shower bag and all my clothes), so I have a strong aversion to carrying anything I don’t absolutely need. This is why, whenever we have to take an overseas flight, I usually do most of the packing, especially for what we’ll need on the plane. I’m usually better at guaging what we’ll use and what we won’t.
That said, I don’t really care if my husband (or anyone else, for that matter) packs a ton or not - now that we have a kid, if we’re flying, we usually check bags anyway, and it only takes about 30 extra seconds for the attendants to pick up our bags, slap a tag on them and toss them on the belt. I’m actually a little jealous of people who aren’t as prone to packing minimalism as I am. Not only am I obsessed with taking a little as possible, I’m also obsessed with getting it into the most compact suitcase possible, which leaves very little room if we decide we wanted to buy something while traveling.
Previously I have associated this with the sort of mean spirited Lockhorn tyoe gebder stereotypes.
Of course ladies don’t carry anything other than their makeup cases so the men have to ask “What did you pack?!?!?!”
My sister travels quite a bit for work and at home or away wears black pants to almost everything. She’s a pretty light packer. Her husband has size 14 feet and uses a small suitcase just for his shoes when they travel.
Oh wait…none of that has much to do with the OP
The “why do they need that?” makes me guess that he was perhaps in the military or an Eagle scout and learned early in his life that you could survive without having everything you want right when you wanted it and that’s the thing he’s latched onto as what he notices. I have an older relative who was in the Navy, and learned to take a shower keeping the water on for only 11 seconds. (give or take) and that became his thing. “What the hell is he doing up there it’s been three minutes! He’d never get away with that on board a ship…”
I usually pack a shoulder bag with one extra set of clothing, and I plan on buying a cheap bag and some clothes at my destination, which I will check on the way back.
Living in the SFBay area, most stuff costs at least twice here what it will in Texas, Iowa, or Missouri, my usual destinations.
My ex used to pack the kitchen sink, and while it was nice to have every possible thing we could ever want for every eventuality, it was not needed, and with the new bag charges, would be cheaper to just go buy said item if in aforementioned locations.
For a weekend (2 nite) trip I’ll take my purse and a carry-on gym-style bag.
Does it offend anyone that I’ll probably have 3 pairs of pants, a skirt, a dress, 4 or 5 shirts, 3 pairs of shoes, undies, PJ’s, and my toiletries in that bag?
Should I only pack 2 pairs of pants and 2 shirts? Should my bag, instead of a gym bag, be more the size of a makeup case?
I like options. I don’t have an itinerary; I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing or where I’m going and I would like to have something appropriate to wear regardless of what happens.
If that means I’m “fussy and needy” then…shrug more room in the overhead bin for my bag if I’m sitting next to you.
I’ll admit to some strange small superiorities on my part about a few things–I tend to think less of a person if they don’t ever read for pleasure, if they wear clothing/accessories with visible logos, if they drive a Hummer, if they drink white zinfandel, etc…–so I guess I can’t argue with someone feeling superior to me because they pack less than I do, eh?
That’s how I pack, too. Meh, I like options, especially if I’m not sure what i’ll be doing, and I’m not making anyone else carry my stuff, so I think it’s a fairly silly thing to judge a person for how much luggage they carry. It seems like people will make up all sorts of “reasons” other people do things, so they can feel superior to them, even if those reasons don’t have any basis in reality.
I find it odd anyone would even notice what someone else was packing, unless they were expected to carry it or something. Is that really something people notice? And think about that much?
I like to pack light but as others have said, if I’m not going to be burdened by it then it’s not going to bother me. I may find it amusing that the person in front of me is lugging a ton of stuff for an overnight trip but to each their own.
My issue with overpacking often comes up on things like camping trips - a few years ago several of us flew out to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons for 10 days. My buddy and I both like to backpack so we know to pack appropriately (in terms of what to bring and how much). Our other friends, not so much. We’d given plenty of advice, told people not to bring heaps of cotton, suggestions on how to pack light and so on. Predictably, some guys showed up with HUGE suitcases jammed full of what was basically worthless for this trip - you’re camping for a week in a location where we all know nighttime temps drop below freezing? Six pairs of bluejeans and a bunch of cotton sweatshirts are dead weight. That’s a random example. We were car-camping, not backpacking, so all the stuff that everyone had needed to be jammed into one minivan. Some of those some folks also did food shopping; if one guy out of six likes s’mores, and we all know from previous experience that approximately three s’mores will be eaten, total, there is no need to buy the ingredients at Costco.
First night, the guys in cotton are freezing and miserable (as we told them they would be). They also have to rummage through a mountain of apparel every time they look for anything.
Second day, they head off to the local store and come back with proper fleece jacket, thermal undies, wool socks. Comfort and enjoyment of the rest of the trip ensues (although we’re still hauling the other crap around).
Next trip those same people packed far better - less bulk, appropriate gear for the conditions, right amount of stuff. We were all much happier and able to travel better.
So basically I save my packing snootiness for my friends when I’m travelling with them.
I can’t believe that anyone could possibly be bothered to care how much I pack. And I’m the fussy one? Wow.
My last couple of trips I had NO idea what kind of weather to expect. Or what my itinerary was going to be, since I’m not a planner. Was I going to eat a nice restaurant? Maybe, maybe not? Was I going to need shorts, long pants, a nice dress? Ah, who knows. Throw in a little of everything at the last minute, and anything I forgot, they probably sell somewhere. I find it somewhat amusing that this would label me as over cautious. That is definitely something I have never been accused of. Hell, on a trip last year, I suddenly decided to get married. Luckily, I had a pair of dress pants in my suitcase.
Frankly, I had no idea that I had any choice other than to haul around my own luggage. Who on earth would carry it for me??
I used to be a big packer, but in the planning of my upcoming honeymoon, I’m all about packing as light as possible to reduce costs. We’re taking the Amtrak out there, so no paying for checked baggage. We’re bringing stuff we can leave, throw away or reuse all week. I’m packing old t shirts to sleep in, almost empty shampoo bottles that I can finish up and throw out when I leave, etc. For a week, I’m bringing one pair of jeans, one pair of khakis, one dressy outfit for going to nice restaurants in New York. My shirts will all be layers in colors that can be mixed and matched: one warm sweater, one lighter sweatshirt, one cardigan, one t shirt. (Okay, maybe a camisole.) I can wash panties and bras in my hotel sink. I’ll bring enough undies to wear one pair, have the others drying in the bathroom. … and so on…
If it’s a honeymoon, I’d skip the undies.
I agree with this. I find a lot of frequent flyers look down on heavy packers. Not me. Until the economic downturn hit, I was top-tier on American Airlines (I’m based in Australia, but AA’s frequent flyer scheme is much more generous than Qantas’s) but I couldn’t care less how much stuff someone else packs. I tend to pack heavy - I like having flexibility, and given that my trips generally took me to both hemispheres I needed both warm and cool clothes. As it was business, I also needed to look presentable for meetings.
There is also an obsession with not checking luggage. Sure, genuine road warriors might have issues with waiting an extra 15 minutes for their luggage, but for most of us it doesn’t matter. It’s much better than taking the kitchen sink on board with you - that impacts everyone and pisses me off.
There are quite a few things that a good proportion of people think are admirable which I don’t understand. They include:
[ul]
[li]Packing light (clearly)[/li][li]Sleeping for the fewest hours a night[/li][li]Watching the least amount of TV[/li][li]Having the thermostat as low as possible[/li][li]A bunch of other things which naturally escape me for the moment[/li][/ul]
My feeling is that if something makes another person happy and doesn’t impact me, why on Earth do I have any reason to either be smug or pissed off about it?
By request- Mali packing list-
1 pagne (African cotton) dress- pagne folds up extremely small and is well suited to the climate
1 pagne skirt
2 pagne shirts
1 Macabi Skirt- expensive, but it dries in seconds, has great pockets, and can be dressed up as needed.
1 cotton slip with hidden pockets for my money and passport
3 regular cotton tank tops and tee shirts
1 pair pagne shorts to sleep in
1 pair lightweight pants that convert to capris
1 small lightweight rain jacket
5 pairs of undies- a few of which are quick-dry fabric
2 lightweight bras- I had some light bras designed for very hot places
1 pair of socks
1 pair of hiking sandals
1 large prayer scarf (used as sleeping cover, sunshade, mat, towel and whatever else.)
1 silk sleep sack (essential- keeps the bedbugs away- silk is the best in both hot and cold climates, can be washed and dried quickly, and packs down to nothing.)
1 solar powered flashlight
Contact solution and case
Comb
Doc Bronner’s soap washes skin, hair and clothes (not very well, but it works for a few weeks.)
Toothbrush and toothpaste
1 small make-up kit- I use the Hard Candy Take-Out kit, which is the size of a deck of cards but has eye-shadow, gloss, concealer, blush, eyeliner and mascara.
Deodorant
Sock full of medicine
Camera and charger
1 very dense book
The “Mali” section torn out of the Lonely Planet
It was one hell of an adventure!