Tips for Packing Lightly for Travelling Shared at LA Travel Show
Ansliee Bigbee speaking on travelling lightly
With most airlines charging for checked luggage these days, there is a financial incentive in packing lightly. To help with such a topic, one speaker at the recent Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show dealt with this issue. “Travel Light by Packing Right: How to Carry On” was delivered by Annslie Bigbee, a woman who has done a fair amount of travelling, herself. A big reason to travel lightly, Bigbee opened with, was that it “frees you up” to travel more and that “it’s easier all around.”
When thinking about what to pack, Bigbee suggested to “assess and edit” what one plans to pack. The most important tip she said was to lay out clothes a few days ahead, “so you have time to think about it and change your mind.” In thinking about what you want to pack, you probably want to pack for enough different outfits that you don’t, for instance, look like you’re wearing the same outfit you did at the Eiffel Tower as you did at the Tower of Pisa. “If you want to look differently” at different places for different pictures, Bigbee said to pack multiple shirts, etc. An important consideration is that clothing with “darker colors will hide stains” more easily than white or more lightly colored shirts. Thus, if one were to spill something on a more lightly-colored shirt or pants on a trip, you would have very few other options for clothing to wear.
Bigbee showing a method of travelling lightly with luggage
When beginning to pack, she recommends packing in pants long across the short edges of luggage, but not folded yet. This way, one can then pack things inside of them – like a sandwich wrap. When packing t-shirts, she suggested rolling them, although she did say there’s not much of a difference between rolling and folding, “but, sometimes, there are spaces that fit better with them rolled.” She highly recommended to “always pack pajamas” because you never know about what can happen with a fire alarm at night. Bigbee also recommends bigger shoes on the plane as well as bigger jackets to save room when packing. For the shoes that do go in the luggage, she suggested packing socks inside of shoes and packing the shoes inside of shoebags in one’s luggage. Another way of reducing what one packs is wearing a reversible belt, such as those that are black and brown, so that you “only have to take one belt on your trip.” Finally, one can take the pants one had laid out on the bottom of everything else and fold the pants over everything inside, which also results in the pants not having sharp creases on them.
Bigbee demonstrating packing one’s pants on the outside of the rest of the clothes
Bigbee did mention that “a women’s bag is a little different” than a man’s in what there is to be packed, as women have more items.
Pointing out that “the dirtiest thing in your hotel room” is the floor of the hotel room, Bigbee highly recommended wearing flip-flops in one’s hotel room. Also on the topic of dirtiness, Bigbee suggested to pack one’s dirty clothes in a separate bag within one’s luggage.
Brochure of tips
In moving on to a smaller bag to be packed, Bigbee said that, when going to stores, it is very useful to ask for samples, as you can pack them in your toiletries, since they’re small and disposable, leading to freed up space on the trip. With some hotel bathrooms, there may be a very tiny amount of space, so it is quite useful to find a toiletry bag that hangs, so one can easily place it somewhere in the bathroom, even without the requisite counter space. Also, when you’re carrying on luggage on an airplane, one can only use one wet bag, so even if one has two wet bags in one’s toiletry bag, one can use the second one for other items while on the trip.
Bigbee, the regional director of South Pacific sales for Briggs & Riley, the last family-owned luggage company in the US, also handed out brochures to the attendees of her talk with travel tips for packing lightly. The brochures, which she pointed out, are “tips, not rules” for travelling lightly, which is pictured here.
