25+ Tips and Products to Travel Light and Compact
It’s hard to imagine what people (oops, I almost said ladies) take with them on a short business trip. Their luggage looks like they plan to travel around a continent for the next six months. A real vacation luggage assembly, in its turn, makes you consider calling the movers instead of the taxi company.
A golden tip that I read long ago goes as follows: Place everything that you want to pack on the floor next to your luggage. Then pack half of it and take twice as much money as you’d originally planned to. Traveling too heavy is no fun, and can be expensive if you exceed the luggage allowance. Worse, airport fluid restrictions can force you to leave your stuff at the security check, so you end up flying to your destination without your contact lens fluid or shaving foam.
How to travel light and compact
The above tip does make sense. Unless you plan to spend your vacation in the Kalahari desert, it doesn’t make sense to pack commodities such as soap. Foreign shops do sell shampoo, you know. Sure, you don’t want to spend time in a local shop while on a short business trip. But for longer vacations, why wouldn’t you spend an initial half-hour at your destination buying the little things that you left out when packing, if it saves you room?
Here are some useful products and tips, with links to articles with more detailed information or places where you can buy them and find more information.
Liquids
If you do need to take toiletry items with you on a short trip, consider lighter, smaller alternatives than your regular packages.
You can, for instance, take a tiny bottle of shaving oil , using one 20th of the volume of a can of shaving foam. Just four drops per shaving session lets you go a long way. If you really can’t live without real shaving foam, there’s even a razor on the market where the handle doubles as a shaving foam reservoir.
You should also consider solid alternatives to liquids, which are available for many products. Some examples are tooth powder, bar shampoo, sun protection sticks, mineral makeup and dozens of other products for him and her.
Other liquids for which there are no easy alternatives, can be repackaged in smaller containers. If the product needs to stay clean and pure, you might consider buying leak-proof bottles specially made for traveling, for instance like these from Amazon.com. For the regular liquid soaps, you might want to keep those tiny bottles that you find in hotels to reuse them when empty.
Fabrics
Of course, look out for clothes made of light fabrics. Even in the shape of reversible clothing, which offers more clothing choices for the same volume.
If you do need to take sheets with you, try to find one of those silk travel sleeping sacks. They’re incredibly compact, hardly bigger than a soda can, and they’re incredibly light. If you really, really, need to take towels, get some microfiber travel towels. They can absorb lots of water and still be folded in a very compact package, even if they're the size of a beach towel. They dry very quickly, and once dry, they hardly weigh a thing.
If you need to take pullovers or other thick fabrics, put them in a vacuum bag to make them less bulky, though not less heavy. There are models, such as the pack mate, that don’t need a vacuum cleaner to suck out the air – remember, there will be no vacuum cleaners in your Kalahari desert lodge.
Luggage
Yes, your steel-reinforced Samsonite suitcase will withstand the raw abuse of the average airport baggage handling team, protecting your precious China vase inside. But it’s heavy, and in most cases, all that’s inside are clothes that need to be protected, so a heavy suitcase is overkill. Consider a nylon fabric suitcase, which is a lot lighter.
Wheeled bags are not terribly efficient, with the wheels and retractable grip making them heavier and taking up a good chunk of storage space. But for business travel, I do love them. If you have such a wheeled bag and you need to take a toddler on your trip, have a look at this seat that converts the average rolling luggage in a travel stroller without adding much to the overall volume and weight.
We don’t want to keep this compact luggage scale from you, either. It doesn’t make your bag any lighter, but it can help you to decide whether to get rid of an item that would mean you’d pay more for your excess baggage than the thing was worth in the first place. Or it can help you to reshuffle things to different bags, before you’re at the check-in counter with a line of impatient travelers behind you.
When traveling by car, try to avoid bags as much as you can. I package all sheets, underwear, towels and other uncritical stuff in large plastic bags that I buy for the garbage container. They don’t weigh a thing, don’t take up any space and can take any shape to fill available space in your car.
Electronics
Get rid of chargers! Travelers can take five or even up to ten rechargeable devices with them on trips, and self-assured electronics manufacturers are eager to point out that their device needs a custom charger. The amount of chargers can quickly become a pain. They don’t pile up very well, the cables are a real mess and the weight is considerable. First of all, when you buy a new device, make it a criterion of choice whether or not it charges through a USB port – that’s one less charger for each such device. Then consider one of these multi-chargers. With a bit of luck and careful choosing, just one of these may replace all the others on your next trip.
Or you may consider a solar charger, allowing you to even charge your gear while on the go. Hey, this little Bluetooth headset even has the solar charger incorporated. With a solar charger, you don’t need to worry about the availability of outlets or the country’s electric grid properties. This Freeloader Pro solar charger even charges the proprietary battery of your camcorder or digital camera. Need something really light and compact for more basic gear? Then have a look at this Eneloop USB Booster Stick.
Do you need to take a laptop with you? Do you really? Sometimes you do indeed, but in other cases it’s possible to take both your documents and your applications with you on a tiny USB stick, to use them on a local computer at your destination. Portableapps.com offers a complete suite of free, open-source applications that can be run directly from a USB stick with any computer, leaving no trace on the computer once the stick is removed. A tiny USB stick is easy to lose, so you may consider a secure one if you’re afraid to expose sensitive data.
Use the mail
When you go back home, consider mailing some of the heavier stuff to your home address. On business trips, I’ve done that many times, for instance with large binders full of training material. In the case of a multinational company, you might even use the internal mail distribution system for free.
Take care with large souvenirs, though: The shipping charges might be assessed before they ship, but customs may add a hefty import tax to the overall bill, meaning it’s not worth your while.
Tips
Have a look at some other clever travel products & tips that don’t necessarily fit in the light & compact category but that can still make your travel easier.
Any other great tips that you use? Fire away in the comment section below.
Categories: space-saving, travel
In regards to charges we always have the same phone so one charger does for both of us.
One thing the wife can't do without is she has to take her hair dryer because she reckons the one in hotels just aren't good enough.
As to shavers, I can go without for a few days as I don't mind the extra growth.