March 23, 2011 Is one bag travel for everyone?
Last night, I attended a meeting of current and wannabe travel writers. I, of course, took the opportunity to promote this website and wanted to know how many of them were currently one bag travelers.
Not one.
Not one person, some of whom were busy travel writers visiting such out of the way places as the jungles of Southest Asia and Central America, even said they traveled without wheels let alone with just one bag. Oh, some were proud that they used “carry-on” sized wheelies and had a second bag that was ‘slightly” smaller for the rest of their stuff.
Yet they were all intrigued and thought how wonderful it would be to travel so light. Was it possible? Could it be done? Could I teach them how?
Sure I could, but would they really use it? What does it take to be a one bag traveler and is it for everyone?
I gave it some thought and came up with the following:
Being a onebagger is a mindset. It’s the desire to travel with only one carry-on size bag and be willing to make some changes/compromises/sacrifices to reach this goal.
Is it for everyone? Absolutely not. Some people are just not willing to make enough compromises to reach that goal. Nor should they.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t judge how anyone packs. It’s completely personal and everyone must do so in a way that makes them comfortable and happy.
And for many, onebagging it isn’t going to make them happy. Oh, they may like the idea, but the actual implementation is something else.
Even on our own bulletin board, I’ve read many contributors who I can honestly say are nowhere near ready to be onebaggers—and that’s what’s right for them at this time. They may never make it. And that’s fine too.
On the other hand, there may be people who decide to give onebagging a try and absolutely hate it. And you know what, that’s fine too.
But what does it take to be a true onebagger.? To all who have experienced it, why not post what changes you had to make to go from “heavier” way of packing to the onebagging way. For you non-onebaggers, this may be an opportunity for you to truly ask yourself if this form of travel is really for you.
(Frank II)
Reader Comments (27)
If there is one day-to-day thing I gave up to travel one bag style, it is my traditional wet shaving. I like to shave with shave soap, badger hair brush and an old fashioned safety razor, but lugging this kit along is impractical so I leave it behind and instead shave with regular old disposables for a couple of days (or weeks or months depending on the trip). For those of you who know what a pleasure it is to shave with a traditional safety razor will understand how this falls into the sacrifice category.
I think the other big deterrent from people who I have talked with is the laundry thing. I have no problem taking 15 minuets at the end of the day to do some sink laundry, but many very much dislike this idea. Especially if they are on vacation.
Like Brandon, I wet shave with a brush but use a cartridge style razor.
The question to ask is what I chose to pack; will it
hinder my mobility and ability to enjoy my trip.
I am reminded of a friend who traveled to Europe with
his wife a few years ago. Each had 3 suitcases. Their
trip was a nightmare tying to haul their luggage to the
train stations and airports, etc.
With the advent of light weight / quick drying clothing,
one can pack light and enjoy greater mobility.Whether
one choses a wheeled or non-wheeled bag, is up to each
traveler and the nature of their trip.
For me it has been a refining process over the years.
Quite often I would discover that I would end up not using
some of my clothing that I had packed. On my next trip I would
eliminate those items.
Part of it is human nature to pack stuff to possibly cover every
conceivable emergency / need.But once I realized that I could
make do with less; it was a freeing sense.Most of the time one could
purchase items at one's destination.
A) drag all that stuff again? Not bl##dy likely. B) by myself, watch over a large amount of stuff? Extremely difficult. Alone or with travel companions, carry-on brings enough stuff along.
* Leave behind my terry cloth robe and fuzzy slippers. The fleece jacket and slipper socks are not quite the same thing.
* Only have one pair of dress shoes and one pair of walking/hiking/whatever shoes
* Having to decant all my product (I do this at the end of the trip now, so that my toiletries are ready to go the next trip. I'm baselined at a 2-1/2 week supply of toiletries.
* Having to wash every other day or so.
* Leaving behind the big brush. I have thick hair, so a larger brush is nicer.
* Spending time planning my wardrobe - getting all the pieces to mix and match and layer with each other. (OK, this is kind of fun, but it still takes time to do it)
* I like a wide variety of clothes - especially different color schemes, so sticking to 4-5 shirts and a couple of pants is hard.
* Taking the time to store all my documents electronically. I'm a tactile person, so I'd rather have a real book than an e-book. I also like to print out documents and write over them with ink, instead of making notes electronically. But I'll go electronic to go light.
* Not taking the super pretty fancy dresses, because they are one-shot items.
* Leaving behind all the pretty jewelry and taking only a few key simple items. (Jewelry is heavy)
I've never felt that I've sacrificed anything to one bag. I'm used to handwashing certain clothes at home so extending that to laundry in hotel rooms is nothing (and I quite enjoy it). I'm low maintenance.
I used to pack far too many clothes when checking my luggage, I was wasting precious time choosing what to wear each day. Now with what few items I pack, dressing takes seconds and what I wear is a no-brainer.
Being uncluttered is liberating.
Through choosing clothing for travel I have slowly changed the clothes in my closet. Modal reigns supreme on my hangers. Rayon is another favourite. The bonus is.....I haven't had to use an iron for ages.
I prefer being hands-free when travelling.
I enjoy the freedom to upsticks and move on if I feel like it and free to use any type of public transport.
Most of all.......I like that it tests my own imagination and inventiveness. :-)
When I first came across the compleat traveller (Doug Dyment's old site), it was a paradigm shift for me. No longer did I strive to take more stuff; now I wanted to bring less.
Granted, it's tough to break myself of old habits, but that's why it's great to have a resource like this available.
I've got a flight with Spirit Airlines in May and one with AA in August. My goal is not only to carry on, but to go lighter as well.
Now, after a couple of years, we could never go back to hauling all those extra bags.
I don't really think we have sacrificed anything going down the one bag route, we just take less with us.
As time passed, I added quick dry clothes, fewer clothes and replaced big items with smaller travel size items. I even figured out that you could buy what you needed once to hit your desination.
All of this required a change in mindset; I don't mind not packing around a big suitcase, I don't mind that I'm not fasionable, I don't miss the anxiety of wondering if my bag will make it to my desitination too.
The reason I'm mentioning this is so I can give a huge "Thank You" to Brad and Frank and the thousands of participants in the blog. You comments and recommendations have been wonderful, and I will be using them without shame.
What we are going to do is pack up our bags, get dressed for a journey and say, "Here we are and this is how we do it". Right now we are working on a rather lenghy handout that will be a list of sources, OBOW included, of course, and equipment and packing lists.
This being a small place, I don't anticipate needing more than a dozen cookies, but there are a number of farmers who have travelled during the off season, as well as some university people. so we might show up with them beating down the door.
Thanks again to everyone.
Cheers to a big success teaching others and showing them it can be comfortable and not a stress too!
One of the reasons I appreciate just one carry-on bag....certainly less stress. Less to carry, less to worry about, less risk of loss, etc.
When I travel, I don't expect to pack as if I'm moving in and I do intend to return home again so no need to bring everything I own. Plus - leave room for anything I may pick up along the way - shopping, gifts I receive, things I cart back for others....
Is it necessary for anyone's mental well-being to be able to call themselves a 'true' one-, two- or threebagger, let alone carpetbagger?
Can one be proud if one does a three week Europe trip on ten pounds? In a way, perhaps. But it's more of an exercise in asceticism than an achievement in travel efficiency.
The latter is a sliding and rather subjective scale with common ground only at the extreme ends, like three weeks Europe with ten pounds and one bag or a weekend at the lake house with three steamer cases.
I think what onebagging does is show the possibilities of traveling more efficiently, thus affording the onebagger less hassle and more fun. Once you've understood the principles and dealt with the mind and practical challenges onebagging creates (I really enjoy this kind of challenge, others won't), it is quite likely you will be a more efficient traveller all around, even if you decide or need to travel with more than one bag. You'll be able to be the judge of what is required, useful or desired, and pack accordingly.
Personally, the only sacrifice I see are shoes and books. It happens that I bite the bullet and just buy the books anyway and then I have to check the bag because it would now be to heavy to carry. Sending the books would be even riskier and possibly costlier than checking the bag.
Shoes are the other thing. Men's shoes are awfully heavy and bulky. Mine are only size 9. I pity the blokes who wear 12 or 13. Shoot! Yet a good Goodyear-welted pair will be easily three pounds. Sure I could wear those and put the lighter pair in the bag. But the good lace-ups aren't as practical for the darn security check. Now, fortunately, my Cole Haan Air Jackson Two Gore shoes can be worn with practically everything and are alright stylish. Still, if the trip is longer than 5 days I usually take a second pair of shoes. And, frankly, for something like a two-week trip I'd love to have a third pair. I can do two weeks with one bag and an extra pair of shoes (total two). But I can't really swing that anymore as soon as I add a second pair to the bag. Driving mocs maybe but those are only good in the summer.
Some guys have mentioned shaving. I agree that this is a challenge but a minor one, IMHO. There are excellent travel shave brushes that scew into their handle and there are small safety razors. There is also the wonderful Schick Quattro Titanium with Trimmer. Blades are good forever, no need for extra blades unless you are gone longer than a month an shave every day. Trimmer takes care of facial and body hair. You can shave with castillian soap. It works. Not great but it works. But you CAN also wash yourself with a nice shaving soap. That is actually the better way to do it. More expensive, obviously. But nice, try it out. Even if you take a full kit of heavy Merkur Futur equipment, it weighs not half as much as a male dress shoe. So why not indulge in this little pleasure and look good?
For me the idea is to find what works best for the task and best for the traveler. Not to be true to any dogma.
Then she asked to borrow my bag for a trip. After a couple of trips I had a Tom Bihn Western Flyer waiting for her when she came home. Man can she pack that bag. Sometimes it looks like a beach ball!
She loves her WF but still wonders out loud if it is worth the hassle.
Then last month we went to Baja for a vacation and she decided to try to pack lighter.
While we were there She didn't like having to do laundry and wondered out loud if it was worth it. I assured her that I would gladly wait for luggage any time she wanted to start checking in again and told her that one bagging was my goal and did not have to be hers.
Then on the flight home if we would have had to wait for checked bags we would have missed our connection coming back into the country. That's when she saw the light. We have a trip in May that takes us to Boston and then by train to NYC. Where we will use public transportation to get around. When it was all booked she said " I think I'll trim down and only take a small backpack this trip".
So there you go.
And I am interested in how the family Monte presentation goes as well.
* I can wash clothing where I'm going. This is most applicable for underwear, socks & tshirts, but also applies to any other non-dry cleaning required garment.
* If I don't have something, I can buy a replacement. This is primarily true for toiletries, but also applies to evolving weather conditions. If it happens to rain, I can buy a cheap umbrella. If it gets really cold, I can buy a hat.
* How I pack matters tremendously. When I'm not wasting space, I don't need as much of a suitcase. While I still alternate between bundling and rolling/packing cubes, I've been able to pack into spaces efficiently. This enables me to do things like consolidate my laptop into my suitcase, along with whatever other tech gear I required.
* As much as possible when traveling for work, I try to operate off of an iPad & iPhone and not use a laptop. Getting Pages for the iPad lets me do wordprocessing, which other than email and web browsing, is all I use my laptop for on a business trip anyway. This has more to do with weight than anything else.
* Most of all, it's about thinking strategically and planning what I will need, but not packing as if every scenario necessitates its own unique clothing set.
I'm still improving, but I've been consistent with one bag travel over the last four months.
I have some very lightweight bags (Patagonia, MEC and North Face) which help. I don't exactly one-bag it though - I like having a small bag for under the seat during flights.
The only sacrifice has already been mentioned - books. I don't have an e-reader yet - maybe for Christmas!
As for jeans, while we've had a good thread on them, I think the fact that one can wear them for quite a while without washing and that they are so practical, makes up for the long drying times and the weight in most situations where you are not trying to eek out every last ounce.
Whisper, I knew that I wasn't the only one bagger that wears jeans on every trip. Till is right.Last trip my wife and I both wore our jeans on the plane and for the next five days. For wash day the place we stayed charged $5 per load, so we decided to splurge and let them do all of our clothes except what we were wearing and what we did not wash buy hand in the previous couple of days ........ the load was so light, they didn't charge us. When we came back the clothes were dry, folded and at our room.
There a lot of similarities here to the movement from "traditional" backpacking to light & ultra-light styles. Not only taking less stuff, but switching to lighter, multi-purpose items when possible. They say one good way to shave a pound is to drop an ounce in 16 places.
Althought I did not weigh it, the bag was probably at least 25lbs. It fit in the overhead of a CRJ, and I never had to check it (of course!). I even managed to put a wooden tribal mask and carved nativity scene set in for the trip home.
I LOVED IT. I am hooked. And yes, I probably could have packed fewer things. I had many on my team drill me with questions about the concept, and at least one who I think is gonna try it. Nylon is my friend. My nylon shirts and pants are great - lightweight and dry quickly. I feel sure I will continue to simplify the load on future trips.
This is the appeal for me - to simplify. It is amazing once I get out there on the road how little I really need to get by with. Thanks to all for providing info, insight and inspiration! I think I'll go post this where it belongs - in the forums!
jwc