How To Pack a Single Carry On Bag for a 2-5 Week Vacation Part II

Previously, in Part I of How To Pack a Single Carry On Bag for a 2-5 Week Vacation, we ran through all of the clothing items, shoes, accessories, makeup and even the travel bag style you will need to accomplish your goal.

Now on to packing!...

Choose your clothing items, referring to Part I, and lay them out somewhere to see them with your shoes, jackets and scarves, while you sit down, and write or sketch out the number of different combinations you can make with them.

You may think of something else that you have in your closet that would be better, and you will most likely have something that doesn’t give you as many combinations.

Get your bag, and start with your shoes.  Your underwear, socks and nightgown can fit down into your shoe cavities, and then pack your shoes at opposite ends and different sides of your bag for balance.

Fold your pants only in half with the legs long, and roll them from the top waistband down to the leg as tightly as you can like you would a sleeping bag.  The neater and cleaner you roll, the less wrinkles you’ll have.

An easy trick for wrinkles on location is to just gently wipe a wet cloth or your damp bathing towel over them while wearing them.  They will dry and fall out on their own.

Take each rolled pant and place them on end, as close to your shoes as you can on opposite sides, keeping balanced. Always work from the outside corners of your bag moving in, and place your heavier weight items first.  

Your sweaters and extra jacket should be rolled and placed near your pants, then place towards the center with your leggings, tee-shirts, tops and blouses. You’ll be able to compress your bag in the center more easily to zip and close it.

Be aware of your corners of your bag that have hidden spaces.  As you get down to your last items, you might find an extra space between your shoe and the edge of your bag.  A scarf, underwear, sock can fit there, etc. 

Keep the external pockets empty until you have zipped everything closed.  Once closed, these pockets can now fit things like your extra scarves and necessary papers. Keep very important papers like your passport, in an inside pocket.

If you are finding that you cannot fit everything, take a look at your paper or sketches of outfit combinations, and get rid of the item(s) with the least. 

You can also try rotating your items a bit in the bag to see if one way fits better than the other, but editing down will make your life easier on your trip, and you’ll discover that not one person notices that you wore that pair of pants over and over.

Check, and practice packing to make sure that if you switch your shoes or jacket that the other ones will fit as well.

Most importantly, give yourself time to figure out your highest potential clothing items, and practice packing until you get it right.  Work with your combination of outfits a couple weeks before leaving, so that you are confident when rested in your seat, and taking off that you have everything you need to enjoy yourself and your newly found freedom of traveling with only one carry on bag.

Koblenz, Germany on The Rhein River

~Courtney