Pack Light, Stay Sane: New Luggage Rules for 2022

by Robert McGarvey

For decades I have lived by an unbreakable business travel rule: use only carryon luggage. For me that’s long been a (rather battered) Travelpro 22″ rollaboard that I got for under $100.

And then there are personal trips that generally are longer, often involve wardrobe changes (from, say, hiking clothes to appropriate attire for a fine dining restaurant in a stuffy city), and I never use hotel laundry facilities – honestly cannot recall ever doing it – so I need to bring all I need. That load may involve a couple big bags and, yes, they usually get checked because they are too big for carryon.

And now I have a 26 night trip coming up to Portugal and Spain and here’s my resolve: all I bring will fit in a carryon bag.

The logic is simple: Europe’s airports are scenes of disordered chaos and lost luggage is the new normal.

The only way around this is to not do it, that is, to revert to the old business travel rule. I will bring everything I need in a 40 liter Osprey Farpoint backpack that is acceptable carryon. According to REI that size pack is good for a 1 to 3 night trip. My plan is to make it work for 26 nights.

Last year the same bag worked for a similar trip but of only 19 nights. There’s one more week this year lived out of the same 40 liter bag.

That was not my original plan. I had conceived the trip with me bringing a 60 liter L.L. Bean backpack that I have had for years but never used because, well, it has seemed too damn big but for this trip it seemed ideal. Now it has been deleted from the script and a more compact bag will take its place.

How?

The enveloping question: how can anyone travel on a long trip in 2022 with only carryon?

A personal complexity is that on this trip I will be walking around 150 miles of the Portuguese Camino, from Porto to Santiago de Compostela. Many pilgrims wear their backpacks for the full walk. I do not plan to and will instead use a pack service that for maybe 5 Euros per day will transport the pack to my next lodgings. For me, the walk is enough. I don’t also need to be a pack animal. But…if there are any doubts about the reliability of pack services in 2022 I want to be able to wear the pack which means the total weight should be no more than 20 pounds. And the Farpoint weighs 3.17 pounds empty. That leaves 17 pounds.

The other complexity: this year’s trip involves many nights in two European capitals, Lisbon and Madrid. The scruffy pilgrim look needs to be spiffed up for the big cities.

The first step is to tightly edit the packing list. The bag is small, it just won’t hold that much. Here’s what I envision stuffing into it:

*3 shirts (2 dress, 1 hiking)

*2 pants (1 dressy)

*3 underwear

*2 undershirts

*3 pairs socks

*1 pair sandals (sorry, no dressy shoes in the mix)

Much of this will be hand washable in a hotel sink.

There also will be European plugs, phone chargers, the usual stuff.

How to organize everything? Traditionally I pack a business travel suitcase simply by dropping things in it, zipping it up and off I go. That won’t work on a trip this length and with me literally moving just about every night to different accommodations.

So I have become something of a nerd about backpack organizing devices.

For instance I have an Osprey Ultralight Garment Folder that will hold a couple shirts and a pair of pants. It keeps them neat and pressed.

I also have an Osprey three piece packing cube set: 1 for socks, 1 for undershirt, one for underpants.

I have a large toiletry bag that will hold everything from a toothbrush and paste through prescription pills.

There’s also a 14.5 liter Eagle Creek clean/dirty cube with two compartments, one for soiled clothes.

The backpack also has a sleeve for a tablet – I may bring a very old iPad – and a security pocket with a mesh organization panel.

Call me Mr. Organized.

You don’t like my array of inserts? Understandably. Each of us has to personalize his/her own set and that will hinge on the trip itself and the gear we are packing.

My inserts will differ from yours. But poke around Amazon – or specialty outfits like REI or manufacturers like Osprey – and you will find many thousands of inserts to choose among.

Choose wisely because you will need the proper inserts. The reality is that there is no other way to do long trips carrying so little luggage.

Understand, too, that although many peregrinos – walkers on the Camino – start off carrying huge and stuffed backpacks, some 75 liters and more. Most soon regret that and start tossing stuff, literally on the first day.

Small is beautiful on the Camino but it also is beautiful in just about all European travel if you want to arrive with your luggage.

Buen Camino.