The thought of packing your travel essentials into small carry-on luggage or backpack may seem limiting. But it’s really not. In fact it’s incredibly freeing. Imagine not having to queue at luggage drop-off, not having to hang around at luggage collection praying your precious bag is on the clunky carousel, and not having to drag your belongings behind you as you navigate the streets of a foreign land…that’s what freedom feels like.

one·bag·ger n

1. A savvy person who travels the world with a single carry-on bag without checking any hold luggage, thus avoiding excess fees and unnecessary faff.

My own journey to travelling light

JUMP STRAIGHT TO THE TIPS… (I don’t mind, I’m not offended 😢)

If you’re not sure this is for you, let me start with my own journey to becoming a ‘one bagger’ - a traveller with a single, manageable bag - because I definitely didn’t start out as a minimalist. Not even close. My one-way trip to packing paradise started out with a single fateful trip to the US to go on a cruise. Two luggage-changing moments happened on this trip.

Firstly, there’s no limit on how much luggage you can take on a cruise ship, so I bought a giant (and I mean giant) shiny red case. My cruise was boarding in Florida and ending in the UK, so only a couple of trains and one flight to navigate... What the hell, sounds easy enough, right? Uh huh… 🤦🏻‍♀️

I was so excited to get this gorgeous scarlet suitcase, I whirled it round and round the house - fawning over the magical manoeuvrability and the enticing gleam of the wine-red outer. I meticulously stuffed it with over 20kg of luggage (23.5kg to be precise) and I boarded my first train without issue - there was space on the bottom luggage shelf, thankfully. I travel solo and it was already apparent that there was no chance of me lifting the 99L case too high, but who cares?!

I had to change trains at Reading so I hauled the suitcase onto the platform and realised I had to take an elevator to get across to the next platform. I confidently strutted towards the moving mountain of stairs - I consider myself an experienced and competent traveller so I didn’t give a second thought to the fact that this was the biggest case I’d ever hauled. I shuffled the suitcase onto the step in front of me and proudly stepped on behind it. Trouble is, I hadn’t realised that the beloved case wasn’t fully on the step. As the stairs began to rise and separate it began to shift towards me. It’s like somebody hit the slow-mo button; I still vividly remember the red case looming over me, giant, as I tried, frantically, to get a grip on the situation (literally). I lost the battle and it toppled onto me, pushing me backwards onto my behind 🍑. The look of the lady a few steps ahead is still imprinted in my memory - her face told of the terror of the situation, but with the best will in the world, she could only look on as she, and the steep escalator, continued to rise above me.

The worst was still to come… if you’ve ever fallen down a flight of stairs before, you’ll know that the relief when you hit the bottom and you stop falling. This doesn’t happen on an elevator. Nope. There is literally no relief - this mechanical mountain of stairs just keeps giving. They kept climbing as I literally bounced on my delicate peach each time a new stair opened, still trapped beneath the whopper case. It was only when some guy picked me (and the case) up that the embarrassing nightmare finally eased. Physically and mentally bruised, I scuttled off on my journey, relieved when I finally checked the damn case in at the airport. I was even happy to pay the excess luggage fee (£45 on top of the £25 I’d already paid) just so they would take it off my hands.

On that same trip I happened to meet a group of American guys. They were one-baggers - each was only travelling with a single backpack. As I disembarked the cruise ship in Southampton - 14 days later - with a scratched case and the bruises on my bum still fading, I watched them all strolling off, carefree, to their Ubers. I was, yet again, pissy about the whopper case. I hadn’t even worn most of the clothes in it. That was when I knew I needed to make the change.

Today, I am committed one-bagger and my bag of choice actually fits beneath the seat on planes, so I don’t even need to battle for overhead locker space. Here’s how I did it…

There are a number of things to consider when you travel with just cabin or hand luggage. In this guide we’ve got it all covered. You’ll be travelling light with just one bag in no time.

What you’ll learn:

✈️ Step 1: How to choose the best carry-on bag?

💪 Step 2: Travel packing tips - how to pack light?

💧Step 3: Travel liquids - best ways to carry your travel liquids

🤓 Step 4: Some other cool travel hacks

✈️ Step 1: Choosing your flight-safe carry-on bag

The best carry-on bag will be personal to you, but the main thing I want you to keep in mind is that it may not be a typical trolley case. Shock horror! Yeah, I know but bear with me - I’ve been on a bit of a journey finding the right carry-on bag for me. There’s a lot to consider:

• Flight allowance

  To start, check what size carry on bag your airline will allow. All airlines differ. When it comes to free hand luggage, one of the most stingy airlines is easyJet who announced at the start of 2021 that they would allow just one small cabin bag, maximum size 45 x 36 x 20 cm (including any handles or wheels) and it must fit under the seat. Otherwise, customers who have booked an ‘Up front or Extra legroom seat’ can also bring on board one additional large cabin bag, maximum size 56 x 45 x 25 cm (including any handles or wheels), and it must fit in the overhead locker. easyJet Plus cardholders and customers who have bought a FLEXI fare can also bring two bags on board. There’s no maximum weight for hand luggage with easyJet, but many airlines specify this, so check this too.

  
  National airlines like British Airways, on the other hand, are typically much more generous. They currently allow 1 handbag/laptop bag and 1 standard carry-on bag FREE, for example. And the size restrictions are less…restrictive - Personal item: 40 x 30 x 15 cm, up to 23 kg, Standard carry-on: 56 x 45 x 25 cm, up to 23 kg.

  
  Essentially, just because your bag was fine with one airline, or the Amazon listing assures you it’s ‘flight safe’, it doesn’t mean it is… do your research!

• Weigh it up

  Weight matters. You want your luggage to be as durable and as light as possible. Even just a few grams here and there add up. Trolley cases look great but the extending handle mechanism alone weighs a fair bit. Most ‘cabin luggage’ suitcases on Amazon weigh between 2.5kg to 3.4kg. If your hand luggage weight allowance is 10kg, your bag could use a third of this alone. My current bag of choice - GORUCK’s GR1 - weighs just 1kg. If a rucksack isn’t for you, a travel duffle with wheels is typically a bit lighter that a hardshell trolley case, these usually weigh around 2kg.

• Easy access

  You’ll be carrying everything in a single bag so you’ll need easy access to all the essentials such as phone, wallet, laptop and liquids for when you go through security. Take a moment to think about what you’ll be carrying and where it needs to be. If I am planning to store my bag in an overhead locker I also think about what I’ll need during the flight so I can get this out super quickly when I board - laptop, charger, earphones etc. Nobody likes to be that person causing the aisle jam when everybody’s boarding! I keep most of these things separately in a pouch that attaches to the webbing on my rucksack so I can just unhook this.

  
  Like my favourite travel buddy Tynan (author of the Life Nomadic & Forever Nomad), I’m a fan of a ‘clamshell’ rucksack design that is full front-loading design rather than a classic ‘top-loading’ design that makes it hard to get to stuff at the bottom. I once had an embarrassing experience at Amsterdam airport security where I had to get to some shoes right at the bottom of my old top-loading rucksack which meant unloading all my underwear.

  
  If you’re travelling with a laptop, Gate8 do some amazing cabin bags with purpose-built detachable laptop cases - perfect for business travel.

• Mobilty

Think about how far you’ll be travelling with your bag and how you’ll be travelling - will you mainly be taking Ubers or are you getting a busy tube train? Will you be hunting through the pedestrianised streets of Lisbon for your hotel? Or being driven straight there? What about your own mobility? Will you need to carry your luggage around for a while once you’ve checked out on departure day? Will a rucksack work for you, or is trolley functionality essential?

💪 Step 2: How to pack light

This is a whole massive topic of its own! Let’s just look at some general ideas for now:

• Be open to laundering things

  You can tonnes of space by not taking a new outfit for every single day of your trip. I often give things a light wash in the sink or shower of my accommodation, or I opt to book an AirBnB with a washing machine included. If you’re going somewhere warm, your clothes will dry super quickly.

  
  Otherwise. research local laundering facilities - in Brazil I got a whole sack of washing laundered and ironed for £3.50. Be honest with yourself, really think about whether you’ll get a lot of wear out of it.

• If you don’t absolutely love it, don’t bother taking it

  Life is too short to wear things you don’t absolutely love. Sometimes I think we take loads of outfits because “people will notice if I wear something more than once”. The reality is that people don’t really care, they are too busy worrying about themselves. And if they do care, so what?

  
  If wearing certain things makes you happier than wearing others, why even take the others? If there is something I really like I’ll buy a couple of different colours and take both. I allow myself a budget of up to £100 for every trip so, if I get somewhere and genuinely don’t have the right thing I’ll buy something - like the time I went to ‘carnaval’ in Rio and, well, sequins were essential.

• Try to stick to a cohesive colour palette

  Everything I take tones well with everything else in my bag, making all elements interchangeable. I can build a whole selection of different outfits from just the same few items.

• Packing cubes are your friend

  Not really about reducing weight, but they do make it easier to pack things keep them compartmentalised. My favourites are from LiteTravel because their double compression squishes your stuff making it up to 66% smaller. They are hardwearing and light too.

💧Step 3: How to carry your travel liquids

Aside from the amount of stuff you put in your bag, packing your travel liquids might be the biggest hurdle to travelling with only carry-on or hand luggage.

The amount of liquids you can travel with can vary from country to country. You don’t want airport security to confiscate your liquids, so it’s best to check the country you are flying out of (e.g. the UK) as well as the country you are flying home from, just in case they are different. And it’s not just about how much liquid you are allowed to carry, it’s also important to know what kind of bag you need to carry them in. The UK Government’s travel liquid guidelines currently state that:

• Travel liquid containers must hold no more than 100ml

• Your liquids must be in a single, transparent, resealable clear bag, which holds no more than a litre and measures approximately 20cm x 20cm; contents must fit comfortably inside the bag so it can be sealed

• The bag must not be knotted or tied at the top

• You’re limited to just 1 plastic bag per person

• Makeup in a lotion, gel, paste or creamy form, counts as a liquid and must be in your bag (this includes mascara). According to security at Gatwick airport, a lip gloss counts as a liquid, but a lipstick does not…but this is not consistent at all UK airports.
  

There are two ways to flex and optimise your travel allowance: (a) reduce the amount of liquids you’re carrying and (b) reduce the size (volume) of the liquids you’re carrying. You can reduce the amount of liquids you travel with by sharing, going solid, or by shopping savvy:

• Pool your allowance

  If you’re travelling with somebody, do you both need toothpaste? Just take one tube.

• Seek solid travel-friendly substitutes

  Solid bug repellant, solid sun screen, solid shampoo, solid deodorant and solid perfume are all available and none of these need to go into your bag of liquids. The same goes for make-up wipes. Can you sub out some things for powder versions? Setting powder as opposed to spray, for example?

• Avoid packing ‘just in case’ products.

  Lay all your desirable stuff out and consider each product individually. In the run-up to a trip try to simplify your routine.

• Top-up after security

  Once you’ve made it through security you can buy additional liquids. Airports are a great place to top up on products; further more, you may be able to find brilliant new products, cheaper, at your destination. I tend to pick up a cheap nail varnish every time I’m at the airport and my favourite sunscreen is one I discovered in a chemist’s in Dubrovnik.

Now that you have reduced the number of products in your clear travel bag, you need to dial down on the size (volume) of the liquids. Start with how much product you actually need - the maximum capacity for any single travel bottle is 100ml, but if you only need a couple of squidges of shampoo for a trip, then only take that. Here’s how to reduce the size of your products:

• Shop for travel size products

  Lots of places sell great travel-size products, Boots regularly have a 3 for 2 offer on all kinds of mini products. Feel Unique is also great, you can buy travel size products or build your own beauty bag filled with five tiny high-end products for just over a tenner.

• Buy refillable travel bottles

  This is a real sweet spot, but choosing the best refillable travel bottles can be a minefield. Start by thinking about what kind of liquids you have, how much you need, and how you need to access them. For example, take liquid foundation. You may only need a tiny bit and you need to be able to dab it with a make-up sponge, so a small pot would be best. Shampoo on the other hand, you might need a couple of squidges for each wash and squeezing it directly into your hand is fine.
  

  Many refillable travel bottles are made of silicone. These are heavy and rigid. It doesn’t matter how little product you have in them, they still take up a lot of space and you can only get around 4 in a travel-compliant clear bag. The best refillable travel bottles, on the other hand, have a squeezable design that reduces in size as you use the product. That way you can fill them only as much as you need, and use every last drop, saving space and weight.

🤓 Step 4: Some other cool travel hacks

This is just a jumble of some cool travel hacks I’ve picked up in my travels. Every little weight-saving matters when you’re a one bagger. These are some of the other ways I save weight and space, without compromising on stuff:

• Bumbags & packable rucksacks

Confession time: I don’t always travel with just one bag, I often have up to two others with me. Firstly, I have a leather waist bag that I’ll carry my money, phone etc in (and, if I’m at the airport, my passport). It means I can get things easily and they’re very safe. I have never been challenged at an airport about this being a ‘second bag’ and, if I was, I could just put it in my rucksack. It’s more for convenience - I am terrified about losing stuff. This helps. It means I don’t need a handbag either. I also take a packable rucksack for hikes and beach days when I need something smaller/lighter than my GORUCK GR1 rucksack.

• Travel towels

  I absolutely adore my travel towel from Dock & Bay. It weighs 300-400g, squashes down to a tiny size, and dries three times faster than other towels. If you need to take a towel, this is a great choice.

  
  

• Water bottle

  I always travel with a water bottle. It’s just useful. This foldable pouch design from Vapur saves space and weight. It weighs around 50g (empty).

  
  

• Charger cables & batteries

  It can be frustrating if you need a few different types for your devices. Try to keep the cables themselves as short as possible. I pack this 3 in 1 magnetic cable with interchangeable ends and this 3-in-1 keychain cable as a backup (or, if you only need micro USB rather than USB C, I’ve been lusting over this Belkin keychain charger). I keep all cables etc in a small bag so I don’t lose them and I travel everywhere with an Anker Power Bank that gives me 3-4 full charges.

  
  

• Travel toothbrush

  I love, love, love the simplicity and small size of this Colgate Pro Clinical 150 Battery Sonic Toothbrush. It runs on AAA batteries and was less than £10. I use USB rechargeable batteries and one charge typically lasts about three weeks - brushing morning and night. No extra charging cable required.

The Bottom Line

If you want to pack light, there’s not just one magic shortcut you can take, it’s a combination of saving space and weight across all your gear, and it’s worth it. Travelling with just one hand luggage bag means you can get on and off flights like an absolute road runner. It makes adventuring so much easier (and cheaper!)

Author: 🦹🏻‍♀️ Helen, One-Bagger Extraordinaire
Have I missed anything? Please feel free to leave your comments below!