Economy, necessity, size & scale

The luggage for our recent trip (me, wife, and son) barely fit in the trunk of my old Toyota Echo. This typical Roman street view (from the window of our group coach) makes minimizing look less like an option an more like an eventual necessity. These microcars wouldn’t begin to hold the luggage of a typical American couple, let alone family. In fact, you could probably put a pull handle on an old Fiat 500 - still seen in abundance - and check the darn thing. The alternative in cities like this would be an expensive cab ride or the subway. Taking less looks better all the time.

CHECK ME!

The tiny 500’s “child” may be headed to US markets in 2010 thanks to the shotgun marriage of Chrylser and Fiat.  More buzz from the NYT.

Update on June 19, 2009 by Frank@OBOW

And if you had to limit your earthly possessions to what would fit in your trunk…(Thinking on the Margin).

Comments

[Miguel Marcos]

Just to be fair, those *are* typical cars used by people to drive around but taxis are generally 4-door sedans with a trunk, a fair bit larger than the cars in the photo. Tourists are not going to navigate in the small cars in the picture. The taxis, however, are nowhere near as large as, say, taxis in NYC.

[Brad]

I'm just trying to picture myself getting to the airport in Rome with two steamer trunks - and I don't like the picture. Getting on the Tube in London with much luggage is also a no-no.

[Joelle]

Heavens, are you all driving Humvees? The cars in the the picture.are the
automotive equivalent of the Tom Bhin Western Flyer, and we'll all be driving one soon for the same reasons we're packing light in order to continue traveling freely and inexpensively. Only in this case it will be the decreasing supply of fuel and the rapidly increasing global demand for it that plays the villain.

Okay, YOU will be driving one soon. But it won't be my beloved VW Golf turbodiesel that gets 50 mpg on the highway and could at least fit a small steamer trunk in the hatchback.

[Esther]

If I wanted to fit a steamer trunk in my 50mpg Prius, it wouldn't be a problem. I just found out the capaciousness of my car when I hauled all the components for my elfa wall--even the 84 inch standards--in one trip.
My belief is that eventually some people learn about the foolishness of carrying around too many big bags. Granted, some don't, but there will be others who do.
When my friend and her husband went to Ireland, the husband packed a rolling bag, a carry on and a personal bag. All for a two week trip. She, on the other hand, packed a single bag. They had been arguing about him bringing the luggage. Finally, she said he could bring it, but he had to carry it.
After that trip, he's decided to stick with the one bag philosophy.

[kit]

One of the things keeping me honest about packing light is that getting to the airport involves walking over loose bricks and nasty pavement to the subway stop, the stairs to the subway, the ride on the subway, the stairs from the subway to the bus, the always packed airport bus, and then the nice easy walk to the terminal. I did it ONCE with a roller and that was enough. The airplane seems like a piece of cake compared to getting to it!

I still can't imagine anything short of a massive cab trunk fitting multiple 29" rolling monstrosities. How can those be everyone's standard suitcases?

[Frank@OBOW]

Where I live probably half he vehicles are SUVs or pickup trucks. I have 17 acres and two rental houses and live on hill - so I have one of each myself, plus the tiny Echo. Anyway, I noticed in Switzerland that the dairy farmers in the little village we stayed in didn't even use trucks. Most of them carried their 10-15 milk cans to market each morning in a little two-wheeled aluminum trailer pulled by a sedan, tiny SUV, or occasionally, a Land Rover. I counted fewer than 20 honest-to-goodness pickup trucks in 11 days between Zurich, Rome and Paris. There is another way to do it, obviously.