Start with a list
Packing goes wrong at the moment you open the closet and start wondering what you might want. Write down what the trip actually contains, day by day: two dinners out, one hike, four days of walking around a city, a travel day at each end. Pack for those events and nothing else. The item packed just in case is the one that comes home unworn, and nearly anything you forget can be bought at the destination for less than the cost of checking a heavier bag.
The numbers that work
Pack for one week no matter how long the trip is. Past seven days you do laundry, and that is cheaper than hauling a second week of clothes. For that week, a workable count is five tops, three bottoms, two pairs of shoes and one warm layer, plus underwear and socks for each day. Keep everything within one color family, such as navy, gray and white, so that every top goes with every bottom. Shoes are the heaviest and least compressible things you own, which makes the two-pair limit the rule that matters most. Wear the bulkier pair on the plane.
Loading the bag
- Put shoes and other heavy items at the bottom, which means the wheel end of a roller bag and the panel against your back on a pack.
- Stuff socks, chargers and other small items inside the shoes, which would otherwise carry air.
- Roll soft clothes such as T-shirts, knits and underwear, and fold stiff items such as dress shirts and blazers flat on top.
- Sort by category into cubes or plain zip bags, and reserve one for dirty laundry.
- Seal liquids in their own bag near the top, where a leak does the least damage.
What stays with you
Anything you cannot replace by tomorrow morning rides in the bag under the seat, not in the hold: prescription medication in its labeled container, glasses, keys, documents, chargers, and one change of underwear and a shirt. Spare lithium batteries and power banks have to travel in the cabin anyway, because they are banned from checked bags. Weigh a checked bag at home on a bathroom scale. Most US airlines set the economy limit at fifty pounds and charge steeply above it, and the counter is a poor place to start repacking.
Tip Keep a permanent toiletry kit that lives in your bag, already stocked with travel sizes, and refill it when you get home. It removes the most forgotten category from every future trip.
