i've been a one bag traveler for several
years now and believe it or not this is
how i used to pack
for a long weekend trip i'm sure there
are a bunch of people out there that are
in a similar situation to this
here so i thought it would be a fun
experiment as i round out month three
of being at home to take you through
kind of a basic long weekend
travel loadout and some easy ways to
shave weight
and save space so you can get started
with one bag travel or pick up a few new
tips and tricks if you already
are so without any further ado i'm just
going to kind of go category by category
here and
call out all the stuff i don't need so
starting off with clothes as the first
category this
imaginary trip we're planning is for
three nights and four days so think a
thursday through sunday
long weekend trip that's often what i do
a couple times a year to go back to
michigan
and visit my family so assuming i'm
going to have on you know a basic
t-shirt
jeans and a pair of shoes for the plane
uh a lot of people like to pack an extra
pair of shoes say you
think you know maybe i want to wear
something nice out one night out to
dinner
you probably don't need a second pair of
shoes i'm just gonna get rid of this
immediately try and find a pair of shoes
that are going to work
for a wide array of different scenarios
something that is going to be casual
enough to wear with jeans on a t-shirt
but might look nice enough if you want
to go out to a nicer dinner or something
and if you have to pack two pairs of
shoes pack the smaller pair
and wear the bigger bulkier pair on the
plane so getting rid of those shoes
first off
easiest biggest thing you can cull out
of your pack
next up we have pants so we're going we
need to pack for three days
essentially so i have here three pairs
of jeans on top of the ones i would
normally wear
get rid of all of them hear me out i'm
someone that likes to wear
my pants multiple times before washing
for
a number of reasons one it's gonna make
your pants last a lot longer
two your pants really aren't getting
dirty if you're wearing
underwear and bathing on a regular basis
and people think they need to change
their wardrobe out completely on
every trip every day and sometimes even
pack an extra pair of pants just in case
you want to change things up
i have recently started getting into
some more technical
and travel friendly fabrics these are
the slim dungarees from outlier you
don't have to have you know a fancy or
pair of pants like this to wear but
these are my first pair of travel pants
and they're amazing
these will get me through the whole trip
without having to change pants so
four days is totally reasonable these
are stain resistant and odor resistant
and even if you have a regular pair of
jeans you really should be able to get
four wears out of a pair of jeans and
and pack one extra if you need but you
know something like this i would wear
on the plane with me and i wouldn't pack
any other pants
and then moving on from there you know
say you're someone that likes to work
out and you want to have a pair of
sleeping pants so i have two pairs
of um you know just basic gym shorts i
don't know about you but
the chances of me going to a gym and
getting on a full sweaty workout while
i'm on vacation
is pretty slim a lot of people like to
think you know i'm going to work out
this trip and i'm going to pack this
stuff just so i can be prepared and be
healthy
if you're not going to work out don't
pack the stuff be realistic and honest
with yourself when you're packing
the other thing you know i am someone
that sleeps in basketball shorts usually
or has them around the house in the
evenings
you know maybe you can work out in these
and sleep in these if you're something
that's not getting very sweaty when
you're working out
so this is really all i need extra that
i'm not going to be wearing on the plane
for that short of a trip
we're gonna put these back up here next
thing is a sweatshirt you know it might
get cold
i better pack a sweatshirt wear this on
the plane with you
instead of packing it it's big it's
bulky the nice thing with
wearing it is that if you want a pillow
or
a blanket while you're traveling it
works as a great double purpose
outside of getting rid of it out of your
pack so just put this on before you
leave for the airport or before you load
up your car if it's a road trip
moving on to shirts so we have three
days
plus workouts plus sleeping plus you
know
a what if nice dinner type of shirt so
you don't need very many of these either
a big thing that i have recently started
to get into with those more technical
travel pants
is merino wool merino wool is an
amazing fabric it really is odor
resistant and is going to last
multiple wares between washes
so you can really get away with probably
two merino wool shirts
if you have them for the entirety of the
trip
it's also something that's really great
for insulating and staying cool or warm
in different climates so the merino wool
stuff if you can get your hands on it is
amazing this is also from outlier
they sell those together in what's
called a travel pack
this isn't sponsored by them but they
did send me those out to test and try
i've been very impressed so far but
rounding back to the rest of the
t-shirts here you don't need
a new t-shirt for every day plus a sleep
shirt plus a workout shirt plus an
extra you know plan on wearing your
shirts out a couple days in a row so we
have you know four days
i'm gonna pack one shirt and i'm gonna
wear one shirt
and i'm gonna pack one extra shirt to
sleep in i'm gonna get rid of the
workout shirt and i'm gonna get rid of
the extra shirts just in case
and i'm gonna be honest with myself i'm
not going to want to dress up when i go
out to dinner so i'm going to get rid of
my button-up shirt as well
so culling down here we have a sleep
shirt and
a day shirt you have the one on your
back plus the extra
it's going to be more than enough you
can re-wear them twice and they'll be
smelling
just fine moving on from there we have
socks and
underwear socks again merino wool
is going to wear multiple times without
smelling or having any odor
it's also going to be able to wash out
really quickly
and dry really quickly so if you do need
to wash them really quickly in a sink
for some reason you can
these are both two different styles of
smart wool socks i'm going to be packing
these
and getting rid of the extras you know
if i'm not out backpacking i'm not going
to be super cautious about socks
just for normal like city traveling
you know couple pairs of merino wool
socks are going to do you
amazingly same goes for underwear except
i don't have any fancy technical travel
underwear so i am going to pack
one pair for each day and i'm going to
get rid of the extra
all the years i've been traveling i've
never needed my extra pair of underwear
so i'm gonna ditch this and go down to
the three that i actually
need these are from tommy john they're a
micro modal
from what i remember i bought these
years ago they
have held up incredibly and they're very
comfortable but they are not that merino
wool so i want to be able to wear
and switch these out every day so
calling down all of that clothes this is
all you really need for that long
weekend sort of trip
it seems crazy but i promise if you give
it a shot it's going to be
a much more pleasant travel experience
not to have to lug around all that extra
stuff so it's kind of the first category
there
we've cold most of what we're going to
call though i'm going to shift this over
here and move on to the next category
and that
is tech i run my own business i'm on my
laptop
quite a bit if i'm on a really short
casual trip i've been recently trying to
go
more with just using my phone much much
easier
and a lot less cumbersome than having my
laptop so i'm going to bring my phone
with me
and i'm going to skip out on the laptop
this is going to be something that's
different for everyone you might not
have the option
but more and more as technology advances
we can do more and more work on
our phones so i'm gonna leave this at
home
as crazy as that sounds and uh
just focus on this and i didn't put this
in the layout here but same goes for
dslrs and bigger cameras like this
lately on my normal vacations you know
i'm not doing a ton of photography so
i've just been leaving at home
and it makes it for a lot lighter more
pleasant
experience so i'm gonna pack this and
i'm gonna need a charger for that
as well and then moving on from there
headphones you know people like these
big noise-canceling headphones for the
plane
they're so big and bulky i just travel
with airpods
the sound quality is not quite as good
being completely honest
but the size difference is just insane
um i just can't put myself up to wearing
these out i usually edit my videos in
these
they're not that great of video editing
headphones they're more meant for travel
but they're just so big
and bulky i haven't ever brought them on
a trip with me they're just
too big so i'm gonna bring these and i
can also use the same charger for my
phone
for the headphones i'm going to bring
and then outside of that you know i
bring a kindle sometimes but
i don't half the time end up getting the
chance to read so i'm going to leave
this at home too
a lot of this quick side step a lot of
this is about being honest with yourself
you know
maybe i'll wear this outfit maybe i'll
get a chance to read
be realistic if you're not going to use
it don't bring it
so leave this at home too and because of
that we can
leave some extra chargers i'm going to
pack my external battery
that's still a pretty important piece
for me so we're going to downgrade the
tech
to these few items here instead
and because of that we don't need to
bring all of this extra junk
so getting rid of all the extra chargers
and dongles
look at how much we've pulled down see
how easy this
is it just takes some experience and
practice and
you live and you learn and you kind of
test and try the more trips that you go
on
because i moved out to portland a few
years ago like i said
i go on a lot of these long weekend type
of trips so i've had a lot of experience
for the shorter
stints of travel to know what i need and
don't need
so next up we have dopp kit
this is another one this pack here is my
old
toiletry dopp kit bag that i used to
have i got this when i was like 12 years
old
but i have in here a ton of stuff i'm
just going to kind of dump everything
out
and explain and i thought the best way
to demonstrate this was just to show you
my new dock kit
and explain how i uh swap this out so
this is all the stuff that
you know a regular person might want to
bring with them on a trip you know you
have your
toothbrush and toothpaste and deodorant
i don't have shaving equipment but i
have beard oil and a brush
shampoo body wash sunscreen
ibuprofen in case you get headaches you
know allergy medicine i have really bad
allergies
you know just in case i get a hang nail
i'd better bring my nail clippers
you don't need most of this stuff
grabbing my new dopp kit let me just
move some of this stuff out of the way
so deodorant
i still have deodorant um i haven't
gotten the chance to really test the dry
deodorants
i've tried to go without deodorant and i
just can't do it i've tried the crystal
deodorants and i couldn't do that either
i end up just thinking too much so i
still do travel with regular deodorant
instead of bringing a big thing of
ibuprofen and a big thing of allergy
pills
get one of these smaller reusable pill
bottles you can put a couple of
ibuprofen in here you can put a couple
of
vitamins if you normally travel with
vitamins put some allergy meds in here
this nice little tube
is going to be able to house all of the
pills you might need for your trip
so you can ditch this stuff i'm going to
pull this
out as well off to the side
and instead of if you're a bearded
gentleman um instead of this big brush
you know go with a little bit of a
smaller comb here the form factor
is just much easier to pack so we're
gonna move that out of the way
and this next one is big so this is dr
bronner's this is one of those like 18
in one type of soaps
and i absolutely love it for traveling
because
this bottle of soap here is able to
replace
my toothpaste my shampoo my body wash
all of that stuff is gone for this one
little bottle
you know you can get these smaller
containers and then you can get a big
one to refill it so you're not having to
buy a bunch of little plastic bottles
all the time
they're refillable and great moving on
from there we have sunscreen
i burn in like 10 minutes out in the sun
so you might not need sunscreen but
i am constantly worried about sunscreen
when i travel
instead of bringing the big bottle
nalgene makes these little one
in two ounce bottles that are like a
dollar fifteen
and uh they're much smaller you can
refill them again and travel with this
much lighter much easier
so you can get that out of the way too
toothbrush
this was a newer purchase of mine
several months ago that i'm just stoked
on
a foldable toothbrush toothbrushes are
big and bulky
and annoying to travel with and
yeah this one's just really lightweight
and foldable which is very nice
beard oil is another one of those things
i normally like to use this when i'm at
home but realistically three or four
days i can go without without any real
bad
repercussions i can still comb my beard
and i'll just
continue my oiling regimen when i get
home
nail clippers you don't need nail
clippers for three days
just skip it big toothbrush you can skip
that so
all of this stuff is all this extra junk
that you probably don't need to pack
with you so
just skip all of this i'm just gonna
that was really loud oh sorry to my
neighbors below me so let me get this
pack back
up here
so those are the main categories i felt
like would have the biggest
savings on what you can skip as you can
see here it's just much
easier and smaller and this is going to
fit in a backpack really nicely
you know this is barely anything
practically you can fit a
15 liter backpack you can travel for
three days with it and i am missing a
few things like my water bottle but
i just wanted to focus on those
categories that had the biggest impact
you know the less that you have with you
when you travel the less burden you're
going to have to deal with and the less
hassle you're going to have to deal with
which will allow you
to travel more freely and move around
more freely
explore the city that you're in or
explore the country that you're in
and it just makes things a little bit
more enjoyable it's
a more extreme version of minimalism in
everyday life
the less that you have the less
responsibility that you're going to have
to deal with with having and owning
those items
so these are some of the ways i save
weight when i travel hopefully you
learned a couple
of new tricks i'd love to hear though
what you do down in the comments
thank you so much for watching and i
will talk to you next week
have a good one
you
