How many times did you go on a travel with a heavy suitcase, only then realizing you need twice as little stuff with you? If the answer is “pretty often”, it’s time to improve the situation. After all, maybe you don’t need as many things at your home or in your regular bag, or even in life, but you don’t notice that.
Let’s see what you can do to make sure you become a minimalist traveler with a light suitcase but no worries that you forgot something important.
Three Tips on Minimalist Packing
Tip One: Pack Only Essential Things
Think whether you really need that much clothing for the time you’ll be traveling. Think whether you need that second and third bag to match an outfit. Think whether you need that much self-care items if you go for, say, a week.
Also, don’t forget about the actual weight you will have to carry all around with you. It will jeopardize your good time, because instead of having fun while meeting you people and seeing new places all you’ll be able to think about is how heavy your bag is.
While you’re packing, everything you put into the bag seems essential, but it’s not. Eliminate everything you have even a slightest doubt on.
Tip Two: Don’t Reduce the Value, Reduce the Weight
Opt for the most useful things when packing, the multifunctional ones. If it’s clothes, choose the comfortable and flexible enough by their design that you can use them for many different occasions. If it’s self-care items, opt for smaller sizes and make sure they are multifunctional.
This will reduce the weight of your luggage dramatically, but you’ll still have everything you need for your trip. If there are two things similar in usefulness, choose the more compact one, with a more comfortable design.
Rule Three: Don’t Go to the Extremes
There are a lot of tips nowadays that show you can save space or increase the functionality of a thing by doing some extreme stuff. You can buy a travel sweater with 20 pockets and forget about a bag at all, but will you feel comfortable in it? Will you look good in it? I doubt that, so keep the balance by choosing design and comfort.
The things you wear and take with you have to look good, be pleasant to touch and comfortable to use. If you’re able to put all these three characteristics together when thinking whether to pack this or another thing, go for it.
