Packing5 min read
Carry-on only on a long-haul, without suffering
You can do twenty-four hours out of a cabin bag. You just have to be ruthless about it.
Checked luggage costs you an hour at the other end and a low hum of anxiety the entire way. Carry-on only is worth the discipline, and the discipline is mostly about volume, not weight.
The rules that make it work
- Packing cubes are not organisation, they are compression. That is the whole reason to use them.
- One comfort kit, not six loose items rolling around the bottom of the bag.
- Liquids in one clear bag, at the top, always. Never dig at security.
- Wear the bulkiest thing you are bringing.
What lives in the seat pocket
Decide before you board. Pillow, mask, earplugs, gua sha, toothbrush. Everything else goes overhead and stays there, so you are not standing up at hour fourteen rummaging above a sleeping row.