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How to travel with just a personal item - 4 days in Bologna

Roaming Remote

• 5 min read
How to travel with just a personal item - 4 days in Bologna
Photo by sterlinglanier Lanier / Unsplash

One of the ways to save money when flying, is to fly low cost. You find a cheap flight and you think "great"! Then, as you are booking, you realize that in order to take a carry-on bag, you'll have to pay about as much as your whole flight.

To avoid having to spend extra money on luggage, you can take your clothes in a personal item, which must fit under your seat. This may seem like a daunting task if you are not used to travelling with one bag.

In this post, I'll show you not only that it is doable, but that you don't need any special gear to do it. Have a look at my experience travelling for a weekend with only an under seat personal item, what I learned from this trip, and how you can do it too!

Packing List

Tech

Clothes

Worn

Packing breakdown

The Decathlon NH Escape 500 23L actually feels more like a 30L backpack. In fact, I measured it against a 30L bag of a friend, and the size came out to be pretty much the same. I'm convinced I could squeeze a few extra days out of this bag.

Packed bag

The packed bag

With everything packed, there was still some space left at the top and the bag wasn't too bulky. Definitely not enough to call attention to the fact that it was over the allowed limit. The extra space brings two advantages.

  1. It makes it possible to compress the bag a bit, to try to fit it in the measuring box.
  2. Bring back souvenirs. It allowed me to bring tortelloni home, which is much better than empty space.

Bag contents

Bag contents laid out

When taking everything out of the backpack, it's clear that it can fit quite a lot for such a small volume. It fit a large packing cube, a pair of flip-flops (in the black bag under the large packing cube), a dry bag (between the large packing cube and the backpack), a small white packing cube, a down jacket (above the small packing cube), the hanging toiletries bag (on the top right) and tech pouch below it.

Let's take a look at the contents of each packing cube.

Large packing cube

Large packing cube contents
  • 3 t-shirts
  • Sweatpants for lounging and sleeping
  • Chinos

This is where I kept the highest volume items, there was still some space in the packing cube, so it didn't really compress too much.

From these items, I'd leave the chinos at home because they got no use. I packed them because rain was forecasted, and I wanted to switch pants while the others were drying, but it never rained, so one pair would have been enough.

Small packing cube

Small packing cube contents
  • 4 pairs of underwear
  • 1 pair of socks
  • Merino wool sweater

I typically bring one pair of underwear per day, plus one extra, but keep it under 5 pairs. For periods longer than that, I start doing laundry.

The merino sweater was my daily wear. It doesn't pick up any smell and is quite warm for its thickness.

Tech pouch

My tech pouch contents, plus my watch and earbuds
  • Baseus 65W GAN charger
  • USB-C to USB-C cable
  • Garmin Forerunner 245
  • Sony Linkbuds S

I got the 65W charger to replace my bulky laptop charger, but now I carry it with me, even if I don't take my laptop.

Okay, the Forerunner and the Linkbuds weren't actually in the pouch, but I included them here to give an overall picture of the tech I carried.

Worn

Clothes I wore on the plane
  • Bomber jacket
  • Hoodie
  • T-shirt
  • Pair of socks
  • Underwear
  • Jeans
  • Thermal pants
  • New Balance 500

I wore the bulkiest items on the plane to save space in my bag.

My legs get quite cold, so I took thermal pants with me. I wore these the whole trip, and they held up quite well, no smell whatsoever. If I had done some physical activities, I could see them getting a bit sweaty, but it was not a problem for me.

I also took a hoodie (mostly for lounging), a water-resistant bomber jacket, for the rain, and packed an extra down jacket. In hindsight, I would probably leave the hoodie and the down jacket at home, as these barely got any use, although the down jacket packs quite small.

Packable down jacket

What I would do differently

I think I was able to pack quite efficiently for this trip, considering I didn't buy any of these items specifically for one bag travelling (I guess except for the backpack). There are some things that I would do differently, however:

  • Not pack an extra pair of pants.
  • Not take a down jacket and a bomber jacket. One would have been more than enough.
  • Leave the hoodie at home and only take the merino sweater. I basically only used the hoodie on the plane.
  • Not pack the flip-flops. Even in the hotel room, I just walked in socks, could have saved some space by not taking them. This would not be the case if I was staying at a hostel or somewhere with shared bathrooms.

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