This is a guest post by Craig Martin.
You’re back from vacation and looking ahead to 2009′s business travel. If there’s one thing you learned from lugging your luggage around, it’s that you need to start packing lighter. I’ve been traveling full time since February 2006 and I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way: let me share some tips for short trips.
Buy one small bag
Buy one bag and use it exclusively. Try to find one that’s carry-on size and save yourself both time and money by not checking in a bag. Whether you’re traveling overnight or for a week this should be enough to keep you going. If weather is extreme, wear your coat onto the aircraft (or over your arm) rather than filling half your bag with it!
Digitise
Do you have to carry paperwork for work? Do you really? Wherever possible carry digital copies rather than hard copies. See if you can photograph or scan receipts and email them in to cover your expenses. Refuse paper whenever you can.
Depending on your company’s data guidelines you may be able to store documents “in the cloud” using a private system or public tools such as Google documents. This can be problematic if you have no internet, also means you don’t need to carry your computer to access them.
Leave the electronics at home
Electronics are the heaviest part of a modern traveler’s kit. Try to leave behind as much as possible. I’ll assume you need a laptop, but perhaps you only need a phone with a wireless keyboard for this trip. You definitely don’t need a spare battery if you’re only flying for a few hours!
Try to find tools that charge over USB and you’ll be able to leave dozens of adapters at home, replacing them with a simple computer to device USB cable.
Clothe yourself well
Pack clothes that are going to complement each other and be suitable for any occasion you can imagine yourself in. Try and match your base colours and pack a spare scarf or tie to add some class. Some people forget a basic fact: you’re also taking the clothes you are wearing!
In some countries laundry services are dirt cheap. In other cases, I strongly advise hand-washing items in your sink or during your shower. You can use normal soap or shampoo or carry a small amount of anti—bacterial travel wash. Either way, you’ll only need to carry three days worth of garments at the most.
Leave the “travel” junk behind
There’s a huge market surrounding travel equipment…and you don’t need any of it! Traveling intercity isn’t entering a different world. Changing country often isn’t either. Leave the “stuff” at home — if you really need something it’ll be easy enough to find there.
It’s unlikely you’ll need a water sterilisation kit in your conference centre! If you don’t use a Leatherman or pocket-knife each day, when do you think you’ll use it when traveling? If you don’t use it at home, leave it behind.
If you found these tips useful, please drop by the Indie Travel Podcast where we focus on tips for independent and budget travellers. You can read articles, watch on-location video and hear my wife Linda and me discuss all sorts of rubbish useful travel information.
- You may also enjoy these related posts:
- Five favorite travel hacks that cost just pennies
- Packing Light: a gram here, a gram there – after a while it adds up!
- Business Travel Light: 4d/3n, 1 bag, w/ computer, 13½ lbs.
- Top 10 ways to avoid lost luggage – or survive if the worst happens
- Minimize risk, maximize peace of mind when traveling with credit cards!
January 6th, 2009 at 8:26 AM
Good article.
One small bag – which small bag – aye, there’s the rub!
The one technological advance of the past few years that I applaud, that is of value to light travelers, is “anti-stink” treatments for synthetic fabric-based shirts (wool has always been naturally odor resistant, and SmartWool has a very usable, inexpensive line made from “micro” merino which doesn’t itch). Patagonia and Marmot both have versions – Marmot’s is based on silver, which is harsh on the environment (the processing steps), while Patagonia claims it’s non-silver method is non-toxic. I expect the treatments will make it mainstream, I believe the Champion line of polo shirts sold at Target are already treated.
These new methods work – if you are stuck wearing a shirt two days in a row (or on a long transpacific flight after a long day at work) – you will still be blissfully odor free.
On the water issue – while in Beijing, I treated tap water at the hotel with a water purifier. It quickly gunked up on the pollutants in Beijing tap water and I had to scrape it (the maintenance method). Bottled water wasn’t that easy to find at the hotel center, except the pricey bottled water in the mini bar, and I didn’t trust Chinese bottled water anyway.
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January 6th, 2009 at 5:04 PM
Yes, the new generation of synthetic fibres are really fantastic. I make use of Smartwool socks all the time now. They didn’t even smell too bad during the 950 kilometre Camino de Santiago I did in 2008.
Interesting to hear about your water problems in Beijing. The only place I’ve felt uncomfortable with the water was Poland, where my friend developed a large rash after her first week on tap water! It certainly pays to find out about local conditions from trusted sources but I think a lot of people take sterilisation kits and never use them.
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January 6th, 2009 at 6:02 PM
I didn’t sterilize the water in Beijing, just ran it through an MSR ceramic-based filter to take out particulates and hopefully any heavy metals. I wasn’t so scared about water borne “bugs” in the heavily chlorinated public water supply, as I was scared about pollutants.
BTW, imho synthetics are super on the ground – they are light, wash and dry quickly, and usually don’t wrinkle – but a part of me gravitates towards natural fibers like wool and cotton for the flight portion of my trips. Synthetics have been documented by the U.S Army as not only not providing any protection against flames when troops are hit with incendiaries (or from the heat incidental to most explosions), they actually make burns worse by literally melting into the skin. For that reason the Army warned troops not to wear the very popular UnderArmour rashguards under their military issue uniforms, even though the rashguards do an excellent job of wicking off sweat and keeping the troops cooler.
While as mere travelers we don’t have incendiaries to worry about, I’ve read about enough take-off and landing fiascos which lead to emergency evacuations to make me ruminate on what’s safest to wear, with the conclusion that wool socks (preferably with no “blend”), heavy denim jeans, all cotton shorts, an all cotton tee shirt and a SmartWool zip neck long sleeve pullover are probably the most fire resistant types of clothing that are also items I would probably wear anyway, as a casual and not business traveler.
I also seem to recall the flight attendants’ association grousing about requiring female attendants to wear nylons for the same reason – fire hazard.
Remote concerns like these shouldn’t change our basic dressing habits, but I also rationalize wearing my natural fibers on the flight, rather the synthetics, for another reason you mentioned – try to wear your heaviest clothing items rather than packing them. Weight worn feels much lighter than weight carried. So my denim jeans get worn, my nylon travel pants get packed, my cotton tee shirt gets worn, and the synthetic polos get packed.
I do have one request – please spill the beans, what’s your favorite “one bag?” Kevin has some great articles on this blog about good candidates for “one bagging” it on either short or long trips, but since the insights in your article indicate you also have a lot of experience traveling, it would be fun to hear some of your personal choices, and not just the principles.
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