There are plenty of good reasons to pack light. You get to haul less weight in a smaller bag. You also get to put in less effort unpacking and repacking at each stop.
While packing light might sound easy (just bring fewer things!), there’s a fine balance to strike. We’ll show you how to downsize your bag without leaving behind your most essential belongings.
Six ways to help you pack lighter
To know how to pack well takes a lot of trial and error. Even today, I make plenty of mistakes, bringing things I’ll never use along a trip. Recent stowaways in my suitcase include a pair of hiking boots, a camera tripod, and a thick cotton sweater.
While I seldom pack the “perfect” bag, I’ve gotten much better over the years about packing light. This list is a culmination of what I’ve learned.
1. Choose clothing that’s travel-friendly
When it comes to our clothes, packing light doesn’t have to mean tossing style out the window. What it does mean is choosing clothes carefully based on fabrics, durability, and versatility. In our view, good clothing is travel-friendly when it’s at least two of the following:
Lightweight and compact
Quick-drying
Adapts to a relatively wide range of weather conditions or layers well
Can be worn in more than one setting
A long-sleeve tee made of synthetic fabrics or merino wool meets all of these conditions. It’s lightweight, dries quickly, layers easily, and works well on a hiking trail or on city walks.
Wrinkle-free button-down shirts and blouses also make great travel wear. They layer well with a jacket in cooler weather and are extremely versatile. You could easily sport one for touring, photo shoots, and on evenings out alike.
Our favorite example of travel-friendly wear is the packable down jacket. I've taken one everywhere in the last five years because they’re lighter than most jackets. They also provide ample warmth in mild weather and pack down into a small footprint. Most are also rain-resistant, making them perfect for most climates.
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2. Limit yourself to a week’s worth of clothes
It’s not enough just to bring travel-friendly clothes. If you really want to pack light, you need to cut down on the size of your traveling wardrobe. Our rule of thumb: bring no more than a week’s worth of changes.
If your travels extend beyond a week, we recommend doing laundry on the road. Chances are, wherever you go, there’s a laundromat or an Airbnb with a washer/dryer unit. And unless you have no access to clean water, you can always hand launder.
Regardless of how you launder, we suggest packing a resealable zipper bag of powdered laundry detergent. The amount you bring should correspond to the number of washes you anticipate doing. Alternatively, you could buy detergent at your destination.
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If you hang dry, you leave ample time. Damp clothes don’t sit well in a dark bag where they’re more likely to mildew. We recommend at least 12 hours of drying time for cotton and 6 hours for quick-drying fabrics. Double this time if you’re in a humid environment.
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3. Get your toiletries at your destination
The essentials—toothpaste, body wash, shampoo, feminine hygiene products, detergent etc.—are universally available. They’re also inexpensive. If you’re straddling the line between carry-on bag and checked bag, it makes economic sense to buy there and avoid a bag fee.
If you do have room for toiletries though, consider replacing liquids with dry substitutes. A bar of soap, for example, is significantly lighter than body wash. Laundry detergent and shampoos also come in powdered form, which are lighter than their liquid counterparts.
Dry substitutes also help you avoid issues with airport and airline regulations. In the US, for example, all passengers (even those merely connecting through) must adhere to the “3-1-1 rule”. Under this rule, you’re allowed to bring liquids in 100mL bottles; these bottles must fit in a quart-sized clear plastic bag. Airport security will ask you to check-in liquids in excess of these amounts.image:tsa-311-carryon-jpg
4. Bring shoes that serve double duty and ball up your socks
Shoes take up a lot of space. If you must another pair aside from the one you’re wearing already, optimize the space they take. For example, we like to stuff shoes we pack with balled up socks. Not only does it make use of otherwise empty space, but it prevents our shoes from getting squished in transit.
As with your clothes, make sure that any shoes you do bring or wear along are versatile. Running shoes are great because they provide ample support and grip. They’re also lightweight and durable, which makes them well suited for long city walks and moderate hikes alike.
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In addition to closed-toe shoes, we always bring a pair of flip flops or sandals. These double up well as shower slippers or as slip-ons for strolls in and around the hotel. They’re also great for wearing to water-based activities (like kayaking and canoeing) and for beach visits.
5. Use packing cubes and compression straps
Most fabrics—clothes, scarves, gloves, and towels—tend to expand and fill up space. This, in spite of how tightly we might fold or roll them. Packing cubes make a huge difference here by keeping our fabrics tightly contained. They also serve as compartments, lending more structure and organization to our bags.
Some bags and suitcases also come with compression straps. Pulled taut, they push air out of our bags and keep our contents compressed and contained.
In general, these straps come in two flavors, but they serve the same purpose.
On backpacks and duffels, you’ll usually find compression straps wrapped around the exterior of your bag. These hug your bag tight into a smaller package. In suitcases, these straps usually snap in place internally, slinging over a compartment.
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6. Get your tech on
On my first few trips abroad, I’d tote along a tome that is the Lonely Planet guide. I loved flipping through it, dog earring pages, circling places I wanted to visit, and imagining how my trip ahead would unfold.
But if you’re familiar with these guides, you know they’re bulky and heavy.
The latest edition of LP’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Budget (I had an earlier version) packs 992 pages and weighs 1.7 pounds. That’s just a smidgen more than 10% of the total weight (7kg or 15.4lbs) you’re allowed in a carry-on for many Asian airlines.
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Digital versions of these guides don’t flip as well. They’re also clunkier to dog ear or mark. Still, they help us fit hundreds of pages of information and images into an infinitesimally small space.
And it’s not just guidebooks that digitize well. Travel notebooks, paperback novels, hotel itineraries, reservations, and boarding passes all shrink down to nothing. If you were already planning on bringing a smartphone or Kindle, let it help you pack light and save space. Where possible, keep it digital.
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