✈️ Packing like a wizard

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☞ The first thing about packing is to be minimalist.

☞ The second is to select the travelling equipment you need.

☞ Here are my must haves for any trip.

Compression bags

What is a compression bag? I’m talking about the ones that don’t need a vacuum cleaner to take out the air. They are the single most useful item you can bring.

⟹ How can they help?

For winter travelling, if you pack bulky items like coats or sweaters, these will save you so much space.
For regular travelling, they will reduce the space taken by your clothes, allowing you to add content to your luggage. They will also help reduce the weight ever so slightly, but enough that it’s helpful.
For those living in nordic countries, they are a good way to store away clothes and covers not used during a season.

These are the ones I have been using for several years now. After countless trips (more than 10) over the last 7 years, of the 15 bags I bought only one tore (I should have applied my body weight incrementally 😅). They are sturdy.

To use, just fill them with you clothes, close the bag, roll out the air, and voila: smaller compact packs.

**Pro tip: If you don’t have compression bags, the next best option is to roll your clothes. It’s crazy how much space you save thanks to this simple technique.

Packing cubes

Aside from your toiletries bag, you might want to add maybe an electronics kit, but most importantly packing cubes. These are helpful to organize your items in your bag or to separate things like dirty laundry or shoes from your other clothes.

I feel they were most useful to me when I was backpacking. In the past I had tried many methods to separate my clothes: compression bags, ziplocks, drawer organizers, and furoshiki (a square scarf). They were useful, but with time I found the packing cubes to be a better option. They can help compress space usage, they make it easy to access and retrieve items, and, most important to me, when you don’t have storage at your destination they are great for having your clothes neatly organized.

I built my kit bit by bit, but here are suggestions if you are starting yours out:

⟹ If packing cubes are too expensive use my suggested alternatives: ziplocks, scarf bundles, drawer organizers, or go full DIY 🪡

Microfiber towel

The best way to avoid wasting space in your luggage is to avoid bulkiness and the towel takes tops. My way to cut that is the microfibre towel. It is a game changer. There are various thicknesses, but the thinest barely takes the space of a rolled shirt and they dry super fast.

Here’s a comparison between a normal towel, the first yoga microfibre I bought (I didn’t know any better), a thin microfibre towel, and a rolled shirt.

Aside from reducing bulkiness, a microfibre towel dries faster, is light and easy to carry along even for a weekend away, it’s easy to shake the sand off of it, and for those with curly hair: it reduces friction and leaves more moisture in your locks—don’t worry, it dries the body just fine—your hair will have less frizz 👩🏻‍🦱✨

Luggage scale

This item is indispensable to avoid being overcharged at the airport for carrying too much weight. Believe me, investing a couple bucks on this item will prevent you from paying at least 75$ or more on extra weight. Airlines are just ridiculous with their fees 😭

I use this analog scale. It doesn’t require batteries which is one less worry.

Final words

I’ve travelled as a backpacker, a city explorer and as a visitor to my family. The one true constant is that you will, at some point, be accommodated somewhere uncomfortable. If your luggage is minimal and well organized, at least you have a pocket of familiar order with you.

Questions/Comments 😄💬 Let’s chat

☞ Do you feel like a packing wizard now 🧙?

☞ What’s your best take away from this post?

☞ What’s a tip you’d add?

The ESL Teacher C · Nomad Educator