How To Series: Step One--Getting Started

Over the next few weeks, months, or maybe even years, we’re going to publish a series of “How To” articles on onebagging.

These will, we hope, not only help those who wish to enter the realm of one bag travel but also those with more experience to streamline your voyages.

To start, I suggest everyone read the “Intro” to this site located in subheads at the top of this page. This was eloquently written by the founder of this site, Brad Isbell, and concisely states what this site is about.

To make it easy on  you,  here’s a link:

Introduction to One Bag, One World

If you look up onebagging in the dictionary, you won’t find much. You definitely won’t find any definition because there is none. One bagging is described differently by each and every one of us.

For the sake of this website, we will go with the belief of using non-wheeled luggage. I know many of you use wheels, and that is your right and privilege. One bagging is not a law, a rule, or set in stone. You have to decide what it means to you.

However, most of what we discuss will pertain to wheeless bags no larger than standard carry-on size (22 x 14 x 9). That’s doesn’t mean you can’t get something out of this site if you carry your stuff a different way. It just means you have to modify it.

Okay, you’ve read the introduction, you’ve checked out the blog and reader’s forum. Now what? Well, we’re one baggers so it must be buying a bag. Right?

Wrong.

Buying a bag is not your first step, it’s not even your second step.

Your first step is to……

Decide what kind of traveling you’ll be doing.

Is it for business? Pleasure? Urban or Rural? Resort or Adventure? Or perhaps a combination.

Packing for a business trip with lots of high tech equipment is different than packing for a hiking holiday in the Alps. Not only can it affect what you pack but what kind of bag is best for the situation.

You also want to think about the modes of transportation you’ll be using. Are most of your trips via car or are you someone who jets around the world and then hops on mass transit to get to your  hotel or appointment? Are you a train traveler responsible for your own luggage?

Without knowing this, the rest is meaningless.

Your assignment is to spend some time thinking about your future trips and categorizing them. Once this is done, you’ll be ready for the next step: Deciding what to take.

See you there. 

Comments

[Kalle]

Solid advice. You can't buy yourself out of overpacking and you can't make sound decisions unless you know your goals and your situation.

[elizabeth]

Remember that one-bagging is invaluable when dealing with family travel involving walkers, wheelchairs, and strollers. (Perhaps all in the same vehicle on the same trip--erggg.) It is not always a fun European tour or a luxurious cruise. I pack my stuff lightly in my TriStar, then can just put it on my back when I'm dealing with the tiny tots or the elders in the clan.

[Frank@OBOW]

Please stay on topic.

This posting is not about buying or choosing bags and I have removed those that were written about them. (I have saved them and will post them under the proper topic when published.)

This posting was the first step for newcomers on how to become one baggers. That first step is not about buying a bag. It is not time to talk about bags. Please wait until that is the subject to talk about them.

You do not help others by having them think it's just about getting a small bag.

[Wendy]

Being a one bag traveler is more a state of mind rather than an opportunity to shop for the perfect bag. (Though I keep searching!) It all started when I had to take only carry on for a trip to Europe because I was using a restricted "buddy" ticket from an airline employee. Since then I have always been a one bag person for a wide variety of trips and have converted others to this way of thinking. You have to decide it is ok for your travel companions to see you in the same outfit more than once, choose to use a laundromat or bathroom sink at least once on your trip, and think carefully about whether you really need to take the whole guidebook, extra shoes, 2 jackets, travel pillow and blanket etc.

[Jay]

Like you mention I believe that "getting started" is a process. A good forum post would how did you come to the one-bagging approach? Then cultivate a post with various backgrounds so people can see how to get from here to there.

For example I'm a one-bagger depending on the trip, but most trips I'm a two-bagger (messenger and larger carry-on). I learned from my father who had a bunch of trips to Asia when I was young before that he was a backpacker so it was natural for him. The big lession that I learned was to be flexible, the ticket you buy will get you someplace but route isn't may not be what's on the ticket. Carry-on only ensures you can take the early flight (most airlines don't like you taking a different flight then your bag) and also ensuring you'll have your bag(s) when you get there (lost luggage).

[Esther]

For me, one bagging started with the question, "how do I take less stuff?"
However, I think this is a very good jumping off place. You don't know how to take less stuff, unless you know where you're going.

[Mark]

I'm a newbie here after looking for a new bag to travel with for work and stumbling on this site.

'One-bagging' is certainly a state of mind more than just having one bag. Reading threads and posts on this site has opened my eyes to a whole new way of traveling. Packing with purpose is part of that. Taking advantage of some of the products available to assist is part. Overall I'd sum it up as being, for me, far more deliberate about my travel.

The funny thing is that I've VERY (read anally retentive) organised around my work and the work in the travel but far less deliberate about the travel itself. From reading here (and similar sites) this will change and I think I will enjoy the traveling more. Thanks for all the information and advice!

[Andrew]

There is a perfect corollary between one-bag travel and the transition from 'car camping' to ultralight backpacking. In both cases 'less is more' and the realization of that is a gradual process of stages.
And yes 'gear' selection does matter, but it's more about the psychological lightbulb realization that to be safe and comfortable we don't have to shlep all this impedimenta around with us. Because once you realize that everything else, all the lightening up and letting go and leaving behind falls into place in due course and in good time (and much more easily with all the accumulated wisdoms to be found here at OBOW).

[junelee]

I consider it a major failure if I pack something I don't wear/use - or wear only once or twice. For me the choice represents freedom. And besides, it's fun planning and color-coordinating my wardrobe and bare essentials. Just returned from a 2-week trip first-time to Japan with my husband and a friend. We have refined our one-bag techniques over the years, but for our friend it was the first time, and I have to say she doesn't quite get it. Hopefully she has bought into our minimalist style, seeing the advantages firsthand. First step: I think people like that have to get over the security blanket type of thinking.

[tucsoncarol]

I have had a vague idea since I first felt the itch to travel that I should be able to take less. I just never knew how. I am getting there one good idea forward two lousy ideas back. How much easier it is to decide on Thursday that you will travel on Friday evening after work when you have only one bag and it is at least mostly packed already. A last minute invite is no longer a time to panic (or worse, refuse the invitation), just grab your bag and go. The increased opportunities and sense of freedom in onebagging are hard to explain until you try it.