Tips on How to Travel as Lightly as Possible
Travel is a wonderful experience; the old cliché is true - traveling broadens the mind. However, if you don’t prepare properly beforehand then traveling can end up being stressful and uncomfortable. The following travel tips can be used by any traveler who wants to take a load off and travel as light as possible.
Find a Smaller Suitcase
Perhaps the simplest thing you can do to travel light, other than not bringing any luggage at all, is to find a more compact suitcase that enables you to easily carry your clothes and other luggage in a smaller package. A smaller suitcase will usually mean less room (although there are some suitcases that are remarkably efficient in terms of space usage), but this in itself is a good thing if you are trying to travel light.
When you have only a limited amount of physical space to work with, it forces you to think more carefully about how you use whatever space is available. Only permitting yourself to work with a smaller volume of space means that you will have to travel light.
Use a Packing List
Many of us will begin packing our holiday bag by gathering up all the obvious essentials. After that, we go through our wardrobe and pick out the things that we think we will need. This is a perfectly logical way of approaching your holiday packing, but it is not a perfect method. Even if you rub your eyes over everything that you own, you will inevitably, and literally, overlook something.
A much better approach, and one that minimizes the chances of your forgetting something is to use a packing list. As the name suggests, this is simply a checklist of everything that you think you will need to bring with you on holiday. Once you have put together your list of what you need, it is much easier to check both it and your luggage to make sure that you have remembered to bring everything with you.
Only Pack the Clothes You Will Need
A common packing mistake when preparing for a vacation or business trip is to try and account for all situations. If you are going on a relatively long trip, it is tempting to pack a set of clothes for every eventuality. However, this is rarely necessary and usually just means that you end up bringing a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t need.
Instead, do some research before you leave. Check what the weather forecast is for the time you will be there, as well as how likely the weather is to deviate from the forecast. In some places, the weather is very easy to predict and the forecasts are reliable. However, there are some places where the weather is more unpredictable. If you need to pack clothes for other weather conditions, try and pack as few as you can.
This is especially important when it comes to footwear. It is well worth investing in a pair of shoes specifically for traveling that is lightweight and resilient. Unless you need specialized shoes for the terrain or activities you are expecting to encounter on holiday, try to stick to only one or two pairs of shoes in total.
Prioritize Lightweight Items
If you are traveling somewhere cold and wet, the temptation is to bring big thick clothes with you that will obviously keep you very warm. The drawback is that these clothes often require a significant portion of the space you have available in your suitcase. Instead of bulking out your luggage with bulky clothes, look for lightweight alternatives.
If you are planning a backpacking holiday and won’t be staying in a hotel or similar, you will inevitably need to bring more equipment with you than you would otherwise. However, if you shop around you can find what you need without adding too much to your overall weight. For example, a backpacking tent should be lightweight, otherwise, it will limit the amount of traveling you can do in a day.
Wear Your Largest Items
If there are any large items that you need to bring with you for your travels, a simple way of minimizing the impact they have on your overall space is to simply wear them as you travel. Of course, this won’t always be feasible, but it is a simple and effective tip you can use with many types of bulkier clothes.
Don’t Pack Laundry Items
Another simple way of reducing the number of clothes that you need to bring with you is to do some laundry while you are there. Washing the clothes you bring with you means that you can wear them again, meaning you won’t need to pack as many with you. Obviously, make sure that there are laundry facilities available at your destination.
However, if you end up having to pack a whole bunch of extra stuff just for doing your laundry, this will negate the benefits of not bringing extra clothes with you. Naturally, if the extra clothes take up less space and weigh less, you should just bring them instead.
Traveling light means that will be more comfortable and have greater freedom. The more stuff you bring with you, the more you will need to remember and the greater the chances of something going missing. Once you have some experience under your belt, traveling light will become second nature.
