The Great Carryon Quandary
How do you fit an entire year of life into a
22.7” x 14.7” x 9.6” bag??
When we first started scheming what the boys came to refer to as ‘our big traveling trip’, in conjunction with defining itinerary was the overwhelming question of what to pack. How do you condense your life into a suitcase for one year, how do you possibly know what you’ll need and what you’ll want, and, almost as important, what suitcase do you choose?! With our Patagonia ties and loyalty running deep, we soon settled on one rolling black-hole bag apiece. No, we never even paused to consider how we would ever fit 4 giant black hole duffel bags into a taxi, a rental car, or a Euro hotel room for that matter, but we’d have plenty of shoe options, not to worry ;) One evening while sharing our idea with my parents, my dad, who is the embodiment of Zen Buddhist minimalist, valuing light and fast over heavy and comfortable after a lifetime spent doing unfathomable adventures in the out of doors, gently suggested that we should consider carry-on instead. This led to a really good, really long laugh complete with a daughterly roll of the eyes, but he stayed his course. What if, he suggested, rather than face all the epic long airport lines, the inevitable days spent hunting for and stressing over lost luggage, and the added cost of having to rent a passenger van just to fit our bags at every location we arrive, we pared it down to the basics, remembering that you really need very little in life to make you happy outside of the people you are with, and that in each place we visited we’d be able to find anything truly missing. Kind of a fun way to get to know a place and get a little taste of the culture when you think of it that way. As horror stories of lost luggage and travel Armageddon continued to fill the summer newsfeed, we realized that Baba was on to something and that our grand adventure just got a little more challenging, and a whole lot simpler as well.
We soon realized that the best chance of success lay in sticking to one general climate or season, preferably summer as to avoid puffy coats, boots and giant sweaters. November in Iceland quickly got 86ed from our itinerary (gotta have something left on the bucket list!). Once we settled on our endless summer (with a touch of late spring and early fall…) journey, the big question became, what makes the cut and, back to the initial question, which bag does it go in. Down the internet rabbit hole we went, reading opinions and reviews, comparing dimensions and volume capacity, eventually ordering 3 different bags, the Patagonia MLC Black Hole, the TravelPro 22” Expandable Rollaboard and the AWAY Bigger Flex Carryon, staging an at home pack off, piling the same clothes into each and figuring out exactly which one would provide us the most space. The Away Bigger Carryon came out far and away on top, so four of them were quickly filed under “the trip” category in our Quicken. Then the real challenge began: what do you pack in a 22.7” x 14.7” x 9.6” suitcase to outfit everything from city wandering to nature hiking to beach exploring to a week on a boat on the Nile river to wandering South Africa to a week living with scientists heading out on a boat every day to study dolphins and another week living in a sustainable agriculture camp in the Cloud Forest trail building and farminxg. We needed something to wear to a fancy dinner out, something comfy enough for many an overnight flight, some clothes for running and pilates-ing, and something for all of the days wandering and exploring along the way.
The boys were pretty darn easy, at least until the homeschool materials started to pile up. It turns out the size difference between kids shoes and clothes and our own is monumentally different!
Each boy got:
a pair of running shoes, vans and flip flops,
4 pairs of shorts and 2 pairs of board shorts
1 pair of pants, 4 t-shirts, and 1 hooded sun shirt
2 sweaters/sweatshirts,
2 button up shirts
an old man cardigan just for good measure.
That filled about half the bag, which had us feeling victorious until our math curriculum arrived…3 different textbooks/workbooks, place value discs and counting blocks, flash cards and number lines, not to mention several journals, handwriting books and an essentials art kit. And then there were the suggested white boards. Really? But yep, 2 clip-board like white boards went in. Other books were quickly relegated to iPads which I can already tell will be the biggest transition of this trip - we love real, tactile, hold ‘em in your hands books. Really, truly love them, and devour them on a very frequent basis. But we figure it will be a fun excuse to search libraries and bookstores along the way and real books are just way too heavey.
Will quickly realized that it was entirely unfair as his one pair of running shoes filled more space than all of the boys’ shoes combined and was generous enough to sacrifice a few extra shirts in favor of a well-stocked med kit with a few z-packs, plenty of kids’ medicines and a pared down kit of the essentials. The rest of his suitcase was filled with:
a pair of flip flops
a pair of kick around shoes
3 pairs of running shorts and shirts
1 cycling kit
1 pair of jeans
2 pairs of light pants
2 pairs of shorts
3 pairs of board shorts
1 pair of pj bottoms
5 t-shirts
2 long sleeve and 2 short sleeve button downs
a light, unstructured jacket for dinners out
a small umbrella, and socks and underwear smashed between all.
His ‘personal item (an old, over the shoulder Patagonia MLC)’ has more cables than you could imagine, a backup battery, holds our computers and ipads, a few emed proctored covid tests (inevitable at some point)and our passports, cash, a few checks, cards and envelopes.
Then came me, the definite weak link in the family. There is no way around it, beautiful clothes are one of gods gifts to this earth and I usually fill well more than a carryon bag for a weekend trip alone. But the idea of losing all my favorite things somewhere between Greece and Egypt was enough to convince me and so the winnowing down began. It soon became evident that my set of travel weights and red light anti-aging face mask weren’t going to make the cut, but I was able to sneak in a set of exercise bands, some foot sliders for miracle workouts along the way and plenty of syrups and creams. The rest of my bag is filled as such:
2 pair of Kamm pants, (because if we’re being honest I can’t live without them)
1 pair of jeans
2 pair of jean shorts and one pair of linen shorts
3 tee shirts, 2 blouses, a body suit and 2 tank tops,
a maxi skirt
2 floral maxi dresses
2 “dress up dress down” dresses
2 light linen coverup/beach dresses
a white kaftan style dress that is airy and good for any culture or location
a black sleeveless jumpsuit
a scarf, 3 bathing suits, a couple pairs of running shorts and tank tops, one pair of leggings,
2 pairs of cotton/linen joggers and matching tops to fill the sweatsuit void for long travel days
2 pairs of PJs,
an oversized cardigan
my beloved jean jacket,
a pair of running shoes, white Veja sneakers, white Birkenstocks, Jenny Kayne strappy sandals and Havaiana flip flops.
Phew! ’I’m not going to lie, writing it all out makes it feel pretty impressive that that all fit inside a carryon bag and that doesn’t even cover all the hylaronic acid, b3, vitamin c etc. serums that got shoved into my dopp kit! Oh yeah, and we each have a Patagonia down sweater/nano puff shoved in the corner of our bags or on our backs, along with the boys’ little backpacks to hold lovies, water bottles and whatever the airport throws at us for flights. I have no doubt that our haul will be a work in progress as we discover what we’re desperately lacking or have that is utterly useless along the way, but we had to start somewhere so here we are. It better stay warm 🤣 .