Lightspeed Ahead: Minimize Your Suitcase to Maximize Travel
By guest blogger, Cassie Steele
“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light.” This snippet of wisdom from Cesare Pavese comes from his own experiences (good and bad) with traveling through his life. It is also all you need to keep in mind when packing for a trip. Lugging around extra bags will only slow you down and frustrate you. While there are certain things you’ll need on your adventure, making sure you don’t pack too heavy is integral to your happiness. Here are some tips and tricks for packing everything you need, without taking up too much space.
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Keeping Clean on the Road
While you may be able to pare down most other things, toiletries are absolute necessities. The only problem is that your full-size containers are bulky and inconvenient to store in a suitcase. Instead, you could consider having miniatures shipped to you. These are in their original packaging, so they’re less likely to leak—and the tiny sizes allow you to bring more items with you. There are options for everything: skincare, haircare, and cosmetics. You can even repurpose the boxes they’re shipped in to keep your items safe in your suitcase.
Another option is bringing solid versions of your toiletries, so you don’t have to worry about airplane standardized items. It’s also fairly easy to make your own shampoo and conditioner bars. Since these items aren’t liquid, you don’t have to worry about anything leaking or being over the volume limit for your trip.
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Make Looking Good Easy
Simply folding your clothes and throwing them in your suitcase might be acceptable if you’re in a rush, or going out of town for a weekend. But they’ll be bulky if you’re traveling for a long time. You can use a few different techniques to fit more items in your bag. First, make things easy on yourself by picking items that can be worn with various other items you bring with—kind of like creating a mini-capsule wardrobe. This way, you can bring fewer items and have more options for outfits. Next, pick a folding technique—it can be helpful to fold designated outfits together, so you don’t have to dig through your bag every morning. It also can save space and avoid creasing and wrinkles if you roll your clothes after folding them together. Make sure to put larger items in your bag first (shoes, bags of toiletries or cosmetics, and electronics) so your rolled items can be fitted in around them—just like Tetris.
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Be Prepared for Uncertainties
Besides cleaning, grooming, and clothing yourself, there are other things you may need. Depending on where you go, sunscreen, water bottles, first aid kits, and electronics may come in handy. But again, these things can be bulky. Smaller tubes of sunscreen, a refillable water bottle, and a small towel are good ways to conserve space. Rather than buying a first aid kit, make your own—you can predict what you will and won’t need, so you can customize it, and organize your supplies into a smaller bag. Various sizes of bandages, gauze pads, cotton swabs, a small tube of pain relief ointment, medical tape, and latex gloves all may be useful—personalize this into an emergency kit by including a lighter, knife, and a paracord.
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Now that you’ve cut down on the number of things that you’re bringing, and conserved as much space as possible, you’re able to travel anywhere and everywhere with ease. Be comfortable knowing you’ve prepared for emergencies, and that you will look and feel good the whole time—without bringing too many bags that can drag you down. Safe travels!
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About Cassie;
Cassie formerly worked as a flight attendant for over a decade, taking her all over Asia, including South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India, among others. The combination of exciting cultures, low prices, and delicious food was the reason why Asia became a favorite stop of hers.
A couple of years ago, Cassie took a step back to spend more time with her family and became a freelance writer and editor in which she uses her vast knowledge on Asian destinations to further inspire other travelers to witness the beautiful continent.
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