OneBag: The Art and Science of Travelling Light
I’ll offer up my one bag take that’s very much against the mainstream of one bag aficionados. I love traveling light, but think the carefully curated list of expensive branded items are counterproductive. I’d much rather the bag and everything in it to be functional, ugly anonymous and replaceable. If the bag gets stolen, I should be able to walk into the nearest mall and replace everything that was in it without a second thought or single shed tear. And rather than plan for every eventuality, I would much rather buy a cheap thing on the spot and donate it as I am leaving if it can’t carry it home.
I've seen this site before. It's, um, zealous.
I travel light. I have since the 90s. I never ever ever checked a bag before 9/11, but since then I've often done so for two reasons:
- Absurd restrictions on liquids in the cabin; and
- Equally absurd restrictions on carrying my Swiss Army Knife.
Once you check a bag, you need another bag to carry some essentials aboard the plane.
Even on a short weekend trip, though, if I buy sample sizes and ditch the SAK, I end up with a small additional bag. It's easier to do that than constantly open the overhead to get a different book, or your tablet, or whatever.
One-bagging is also a poor choice for business travel, since you likely want a smaller computer bag so you don't have to use your much larger "one bag" as your office bag.
OneBag purists also have a WILD hatred of wheelie bags that seems rooted in a refusal to realize that, for many people whose travel patterns are home to airport to destination hotel/home, they're perfect. The extra weight isn't a problem because they roll. There's a great reason why they're very very popular with full-time/very frequent travelers.
Ultralight travel is the best. I was first inspired by this post from 2007: https://tim.blog/2007/07/11/how-to-travel-the-world-with-10-...
... In the 15 years since then I've gone all over the world with just an 25-liter backpack. The biggest benefit I enjoy was the freedom to move from place to place without being tied down to a hostel/hotel/town just because "my stuff is there."
Oh and it's a lot easier to sprint through an airport to catch a flight when you have just a small backpack.
For example here's my packing list for a trans-siberian rail journey (which I would've missed if I had to wheel a suitcase as I ran through the airport): https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/russia-trans-siberian-rail...
An interesting side-benefit I've observed: When you return from an ultralight trip, you realize just how little stuff you need to be happy. All the crap in your closet feels more than enough, if not excessive. So you end up buying less step or even donating a bunch of your existing stuff, thus lightening your life overall.
I bought a Goruck GR2 (40L capacity) in 2013 and cumulatively lived out of it for ~4 years. It's been with me up every mountain I've climbed, on 3 continents, on my back as I rode a motorcycle through a snowstorm. I've slept on it, swam with it, skied with it.
After nearly 9 years, it's in perfect condition, and one of my most cherished possessions. I'm not one to anthropomorphize... but this one bag is my best friend. It has quite literally been with me through everything.
Also, a good bag has got to be the most underrated item in any apocalyptic scenario. Travel and scavenging become the primary methods of survival - a strong, sizable bag allows you to securely store food, water, medicine, ammo, tools, printed and digital media. A zipper breaking as you flee from danger may make the difference in survival.
My favorite travel hack: Wool shirts and wool socks. They need washing less often so you pack less clothing.
And, showering with hand-sanitizer on arm pits.
https://www.woolly.clothing/collections/190-gsm-shirts/produ...
https://unboundmerino.com/collections/socks
https://www.smartertravel.com/unbound-merino-womens-v-neck-r...
One-bagging has its place, but it's not "all the time."
I love to one-bag it whenever I expect to have multiple destinations and am traveling via transit, for example. Flying to Europe and taking trains between a few cities? Definitely! I have a Farpoint55 with a zip-off day pack so I can leave the main pack (with my clothes) in the hotel/airbnb/hostel/etc and carry my laptop with me in the day pack. I bring a minimal set of light, easy-to-wash, fast-drying clothes and pick everything in my pack with care.
But plenty of trips don't fit this model. If I'm visiting my family or going to a conference, my luggage just goes car to airport, roll to the plane, roll back off the plane, car to destination. Then the same thing in reverse in a week. Weight barely matters - my luggage is rolling on smooth surfaces or sitting in a car's trunk the whole time. And there is value to optionality in what I pack: several different kinds of clothes, chosen to be appropriate at different kinds of events (rather than being super travel-friendly). So I use a suitcase or two and it's fine.
Both models have their place - no need to be dogmatic about either!
Reddit has an active community of Onebaggers. https://reddit.com/r/onebag. They have often great advice, although admittedly expensive taste.
My considerable efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, it is clear to me that some people take the wrong message from my OneBag.com site. Usually they do so as a consequence of a superficial reading of the information to be found there. Arguably the most important advice there is to be found on the "Using a Packing List" page, which attempts to make the case that if you have nothing to measure, you have nothing to control. The section people tend to focus on is the "A Packing List" one, which lists examples of the items that are on MY packing list (note the title's use of the indefinite article); there is no stricture, however, that they should be on YOUR list, only that you should HAVE a list (see first point).
Very cool, another backpack enthusiast here! I built a backpack review aggregator, dedicated to finding the best backpack accroding to the internet. Sources include Reddit, Youtube or Outdoorgearlab: https://baqpa.com
Since 2018, I've been traveling with a 45L GoRuck GR3 and a small backpack for my laptop. I fly carry-on only (1 bag, plus "personal item") and manage to cram a lot of useful stuff in very small space, including a lot of stuff that many minimalists wouldn't carry.
- Two laptops: A company MacBook Pro, plus a personal LG Gram with Pop_OS!
- A Keychron K3 keyboard, Roost stand, Apple Magic Touchpad and USB/HDMI adapter so I can expand my mobile office just about anywhere
- A 30,000 mAh backup battery with solar charger
- A two person hammock
- A collapsible backpack for day trips
- A sleeping bag
- A rain coat and fleece jacket, which combined with two merino wool shirts underneath makes a perfect winter coat, but each piece can also be used separately in warmer weather
- A week's worth of clothing based on merino wool, 1 long sleeve shirt, 1 pair of jeans, 3 jean shorts, 7 running shorts, about 12 short sleeve shirts for different occasions, 8 pairs of boxers and socks
- Running shoes, leather shoes for nice occasions or cold weather, hiking sandals, flip flops
- Elastic bands and a yoga mat for workouts
- Assorted other things: toiletries, medicines, documents, cables, power adapters
I'm probably forgetting a few things.
Most days, I don't miss anything. The few things I miss occasionally are some toys I'd love to play with more: a guitar, a drone, windsurf equipment, a bike. Sometimes I rent these things, but they're a bit expensive to rent, so I don't do it often. I'm thinking about switching to a van lifestyle so I can carry more of those things, and also some kitchen supplies so I can have more control over my diet.
I went the other route: I used to be minimalist, now I even bring my kettlebells, game pads and different pairs of shoes on my business trips.
Even in the moutain, I now have a heavier bag. E.G: my latest knife is way bigger, sturdier and so weights a lot more, I also have a smaller one as a backup now.
Being minimalist is not an end goal, it serves a purpose. E.G: to make your life simpler, easier, to help with focus, or to go green.
But I feel like people are more and more travelling light for virtue signaling at this point. You cannot just travel light. Everybody must know you do.
I found this a particularly interesting page: https://www.onebag.com/wheeled-bags.html ('Wheeled Bags (A Disputation): The Dismal Downsides')
Laundry is one of the biggest hassles of travel, IMHO. Hotels charge extortionate prices to launder your clothes. Many cities don't have self-service laundromats, and even if they do, you don't feel like wasting two hours using one. I personally do not like washing things in my room, but if you do, there you go.
What I've found, though, is that it's easy and cheap to get someone else to do it for you. In Sydney, I got a laundry place to do my clothes for AUS 15. In Chicago, a lot of dry cleaning places will also do your laundry for you, at reasonable prices. That's probably true in any city.
Less obviously: in Rosh Pinna (Israel), there weren't any of either type of place, but my B&B had a cleaning staff person who took the clothes home with her and washed them, using whatever method she uses on her family's clothes.
Always happy to see OneBag shared, even if the forum doesn't seem to be apt. This incredibly comprehensive work by Doug Dyment has made me into the traveler that I am today. I have been following his guidelines and recommendations for almost 12 years now with great success.
I used to travel every week as a consultant. I did this for about 2 years.
The goruck GR1 26L bag is easily the best one bag travel bag imo.
I'm 6ft tall 200 pounds and I can fit a week and a half of clothes in the bag depending on the weather.
After I left my consultant job I took a couple months and just traveled around Europe with it. Trains, planes, etc.
The open flat design is critical for good packing.
The bag still looks the same as when I bought it. I've had it and traveled with it extensively for ~5 years. It's a buy it for life product.
My current setup is a Cotopaxi Nazca 28L [0], which I think is the ultimate bag for traveling light. It comes in just over (by about half to 1 inch) most airlines' personal item size, but since it is soft, it can, if needed be pushed into their testers. I've never had this happen though of around ~100 flights over 12 months of continuous travel. At this point, I don't pay for a carry on, and if I have to pay the $99 at a gate, its been worth it to not over the previous N flights.
The bag is clam shell and on one side I have a single packing cube with all of my base and mid layers, then tech in the upper section of one side of the clam shell. The other side is my jacket + rain coat + quick dry towel + sleeping bag/sheets if I'm bringing that. If anyone is interested I can write a full packing list. But with this setup I've traveled. 3 x 4 month trips without issue in hot and cold climates in the same trip.
[0]: https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/reviews/travel/travel-backpac...
An entertaining (if not extreme) take on this general topic is the “Vagrant Holiday” series of videos.
I appreciate his dedication to ultra minimalist travelling without any of the hype that is usually involved. Nothing about expensive gear, just actually not needing much.
Alternative if you're flying: two bags:
1) A small backpack for anything fragile that goes under the seat in front of you.
2) A SOFT sided duffel for your clothes. Take than m-f'er and cram it into the overhead bin. It'll fit in the smallest crevice between two rollaboards with enough force.
For minimum clothing volume, pack one set of outer garments (optional if you're wearing them on the flight, which I presume you are. Maybe throw a jacket in instead if you need it) and a daily change of socks and undergarments.
Jeans and a fleece and n days worth of undergarments and socks is super efficient. If you can get away with wearing sandals, you need only one pair of socks (for airport security. I have no desire to go barefoot in the airport).
Edited to add: undergarments meaning something for your bottom half and a t-shirt you can wear without something over it. And bras if you wear them, obviously.
Actually, if you're going to a conference and feel sporting, skip the T-shirts and trust you can get them as swag as needed.
Very jealous of those who can manage this. Personally i have to have one smallish bag just for my medical stuff (CPAP, ergonomic pillow for my neck, bunch of meds, the wrist braces I sleep in so I don't wake up with numb hands....)
I very much misunderstood the title... Was expecting the physics of photons
FWIW, I've used nested soft packable mostly-shoulder bags. Sometimes adding a semi-disposable interior cardboard half-shell, cut from a box, refolded, gaff taped, and edge mashed to transit size restrictions. So bag number and volume compress for transit, and reinflate at destination.
I envisioned adding optional shoulder pads, backpack strapping, waist belt, and even packable strap-on wheels... but the need hasn't been pressing.
I'd hoped instead to find a one true travel backpack, but the diversity of personal-item size restrictions, a brick of thinkpad, and a tech load tightening the volume budget, had me failing to find a bag which fit the constraint space, didn't regrettably narrow it, and leveraged opportunities (eg, with the laptop as pack frame, another would be excess - and it already barely fits flat as a United free personal item).
Off topic, I just saw a baggage size checker in an unexpected place: a NYC public library local branch. Together with additional luggage-in-the-library restrictions. I assume it's targeted at homeless, but seemed potentially problematic for travelers seeking wifi. I use public transit even in places where it's very class segregated, and the line between digital nomad, and impoverished homeless with nice kit, can be though-provokingly narrow. With an associated need to easily alter class flags, depending on who's inclined to hassle you as being out of place.
The site focuses too much on the bag and not enough on the context that determines how you travel. For some kinds of travel, you don't need a bag at all. For some you have to compromise on what you bring. For some, carrying more than one bag is just optimal.
Most of my international travel has used one bag. In many cases I use hacks to avoid even paying the carry-on fee, and very rarely I'm caught and have to pay for the carry-on. But for my last long trip, I checked my bag, and carried a small bag onto the plane. I wanted to be able to transport stuff they won't allow as carry-on, and it was just less hassle to check it.
My favorite bag is a small soft roll-top backpack with a waist strap. Because it's a roll-top it can expand or be packed down tight, and it's narrow so it ends up fitting more places when it's packed tight. Outside straps and mesh water bottle compartments let me carry an extra pair of shoes (or water bottles). One exterior zip pocket, one interior zip pocket. I think one version of this bag has a padded laptop sleeve with zip, but I don't really need the feature. And I found one that has an internal frame which makes it more breathable and easier to carry when heavily packed.
I've been a one bag traveller since approximately forever. One hitch I encountered after getting married: the spouse's family has a tradition of bringing back gifts for everyone from any major trip. I understand that back in the olden days, rare and exotic items (an orange? for me? really?) could only be shared via travel. But those days are gone. There are nearly no other remaining friction points left our otherwise awesome marriage.
Interesting to see all the "It doesn't work for business travellers" comments. I'm now retired, but was a business traveller (read: million mile flyer) for over forty years, and it has always worked well for me.
Also, there are MANY reasons (not just "less weight") to avoid wheeled bags ( https://www.onebag.com/wheeled-bags.html ).
What’s your favorite one-bag carryon? My partner and I have used an MEI Voyageur, a classic which was recommended by Onebag.com for recreational travel, but in black it still works for business travel. It didn’t disappoint and has held up so well over time and many miles and trips. For 3 lbs you get tough ballistic nylon material, durable zippers, well-padded hide-able shoulder and waist straps and a shoulder strap, internal aluminum frame stays for support and internal straps to stabilize your contents - all at a great value that can be half the cost of similar bags that are heavily marketed. The pack is still made by a small California shop and I’ve given it as a gift to students. My only real complaint is at my 6 ft height I’d appreciate a slightly longer torso, which can be done by asking the maker to attach the hip belt a few inches lower on the pack. I’m sure there are some newer bags out there with a bit sleeker design, but also certain they don’t approach the value of this bag.
I wonder (aloud) how much of one bag ethos is linked to being a man. Culturally (my experience is US/EU/Latam) women are expected to change clothes often. And in some countries that also means changing belts and shoes. If traveling for business, even worse: few professional clothes designed for women are compressible/washable/fast drying.
This reminds me of the book, The Accidental Tourist by Ann Tyler, also a movie in which William Hurt plays a travel writer who specializes in travel guides for reluctant business travelers. It is to travel writing what Castaway is to survival, not particularly useful but still a lot of fun.
My life is in my carry-on plus personal item allowance. Contrary to what I expected, this has not been the dramatic shift in personal affairs I expected. Perhaps this is because it was mostly accidental and not intentional. It has enabled me to live on my friends' couches for the last five months though.
But I'll read this since what I've always wanted is an easy way to use my top-quality hardware and travel with it as much as possible. Some sort of easy organizer is probably all I need.
However, I'd strongly recommend the two-bagging since the "personal item" (my backpack) is something I can take on a day trip or whatever. That's one meaningful learning for me.
I don’t think you need to buy expensive brands (although I have some) to successfully one bag travel. My progression when I started out to now was just a succession of YAGNI realizations until I got to a point where my trusty Z28 backpack is spacious.
The biggest factor IMO is becoming confident and comfortable with skirting some social norms and either planning your trips or establishing yourself in such a way that it is acceptable to do so. Once that’s out of the way it’s fairly easy to make 3 outfits mix-match into a week, and launder as needed on the way. Clothes are the bulkiest items and everything else is tiny by comparison.
I haven't done much one bag travel myself, just a couple weekend or five day long trips, but one important thing is that it's a whole lot easier when you're not obese. I've lost nearly 200 lbs and it has become so much easier to fit everything into a single bag because my clothes are just so much smaller. The bag weighs less too. Or I can fit an extra camera lens in there since that's the primary reason I travel these days. A lot of the one bag travel advice I've encountered assumes that you're in relatively good shape.
I once did a three week trip to Africa that involved a light aircraft flight into the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We were allowed one small backpack and a small non-rigid holdall that they supplied prior to the trip. So okay, two bags, not one, but still a significant limit given that I wanted to do some serious big-lens wildlife photography. I managed quite well although I had one day of wet very feet when I flooded my only pair of boots. I also grew a beard so that I could leave shaving kit behind.
I have traveled with checked in luggage three times in my life: once when moving to the other side of the world, another time when going on a trip from Greece and bringing back presents, and again when going on a two-week business trip on another continent (traveled there with carry-on only, came back with a couple of gifts checked in). Most of the time whether it's business or pleasure, I hate having more than one bag with me and just take carry-on.
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I have a Fugu[1] that goes from carry-on to a full-valise. I travel light when I travel alone, but like knowing that I could expand it if I needed to.
I travel light for pragmatic reasons, but don't mind check-in if I have a reason to. Flexibility is an asset.
Full disclosure: Am not affiliated with Fugu, but am friendly with one of the founders.
One of the most impressive folks I ever knew with this, was a Japanese manager, at the company I used to work for.
This guy had been everywhere. If you mentioned a country or city, odds are, he could tell you a good bar, there.
He would go on these marathon business trips, lasting weeks or months.
He always took just one bag: A fairly big Zero Halliburton carry-on.
Once he got promoted to a VP, though, he had to start wearing suits, so he had to add a suit bag.
I always enjoy these sites that look like they came through a time machine. Such an interesting window into past web design trends.
It's interesting to me that GoRuck keeps showing up in the comments. I've seen it show up in several other contexts (geocaching, Ingress, etc.), and ... It seems like a "lifestyle brand", but are they also focused on one-bag ergonomics?
Not at all skeptical, just looking for an accessible intro to GoRuck.
I worked with a guy who was a bag junkie, he'd get a few new bags every month, and had bags to carry other bags. The bags carried bags, and he'd carry a bag.
I have a nice size bag I usually use. If going away longer, I carry an extra one. I'm into some things. Bags is not one of those things.
I am not associated with that company, but the nomatic (original) backpack completely transformed my travel experience to something hassle free - I got it years back right in the aftermath of their kickstarter campaign.
I fly with my Osprey 40L pack, and it works ~when it fits in the overhead~ if it doesn't I'm Shit out of luck because checking a backpack SUCKS and completely defeats the purpose.
This website has taught me so much about travelling when I was in my early 20s, and I've been living out of a backpack ever since.
http://artoftravel.net is the original and still the best.
Would have been good in a previous life. As it is, travel is pretty much a past time. Luggage is the least of the worries.
I met a man who travelled the world with three socks. Two to wear, one to wash and dry. Rotate.
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Is the escort eVest still a thing?
I thought this site was going to be about photons. Not disappointed
I did the "ultralight travel" thing with my partner in 2018 for a 3-week trip to England and Europe and a 2-week trip to Japan. In short: There were times we were really happy all we had were our backpacks, and there were times it would have been nice to have "that one thing, that one time," but it wasn't the end of the world. Given the fact that we were in Europe and Japan, it's not like we couldn't run to a corner store for anything we really, really needed.
Both times I took the same 19-liter backpack. The primary thing that this did for me is it forced me to be very selective about exactly what it was I really needed to bring with me. I bought the latest and greatest cell phone with the best camera on the market, and I used the phone for all pictures, navigation, and all the great things modern phones do. All guides were in the form of audio files that I would play through my Bluetooth earbuds. I was able to pay for almost everything using my phone -- except the Tokyo subway. (Seriously, Japan, let's get with the times).
The cell phone pictures turned out just fine. Sure they weren't emaculate works of visual art you might get from a dedicated $1k camera with interchangeable lens and what not, but they were more than adequate, and it was really easy to just whip out the phone and snap a picture no matter where we were or what we were doing. That ended up getting us some really ad-hoc pictures that added a ton of character to our trip album. Look back on the pictures now, I really have no regrets about that, and I still wouldn't add a separate camera to my (very parsimonious) list of things to stuff in the backpack.
For each trip I had 5 pairs of undies, 4 pairs of Merino wool socks, 3 Merino wool tshirts, 2 pairs of board shorts, 1 pair of pants, and 1 pair of shoes. I brought a few ounces of liquid detergent, which at one point put me in a ridiculous position where I was washing my clothes in the sink of a ritzy downtown hotel in Paris. I had a combo battery/USB Anker charger that works on 120v and 240v circuits with some plug adapters. Worked fine everywhere in England, Europe, and Japan. No laptop -- the phone can run a terminal app just fine if I really needed to SSH home for whatever reason. And I'm not going to be wanting to bang out novels or anything while I'm traveling. (I did buy a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard ahead of time just in case, but I ended up deciding it wasn't worth the weight and space). Google Fi for the carrier, which worked great and was cheap. A synthetic down jacket and GoreTex shell took care of variations in weather, and they both compressed down to fit in one of the zipper pockets. Carabiner clips ended up being pretty useful once in a while. Bought an umbrella from a corner store in whatever city I was at if I felt I needed one.
Both going there and back I'd get flagged for a manual bag inspection at the airport. I guess traveling overseas with no checked luggage is a security flag? The worker would open the zipper, see the top part of a compressed mass of clothes, shrug, and then close it up again. I didn't care about the "boarding crunch" to try to jocky for overhead space. The backpack easily slid under the seat in front of me with plenty of foot-room too, although I'd just pull the backpack out after liftoff.
While the backpack had only 19 liters of volume, it was pretty dense, and so carrying it around for more than an hour or so would start to get tiring. The padded waist clip helped, but occasionally there were times I wouldn't have complained if I could set it on the ground and wheel it for a while. But then there were times in train stations when we would zip around tourists heaving several huge suitcases around and jockying for space to put them on the cars. When we stopped places on the way to the hotel we never had to stress out about leaving our stuff in rental cars to get stolen. Just grab the backpacks and wear them to wherever we were going. Most of the time, we would unload all the extra clothes at the hotel room and head out with mostly-empty backpacks at our destinations.
One time we decided spur-of-the-moment to watch a play in London, and the only shoes I had were my black sneakers. I had a button-up synthetic shirt (rayon and cotton I think) and a dark pair of pants, so I mostly "fit in," as long as you didn't look to closely at my feet. But at the end of the day, I didn't really care that much, and I wouldn't have tried to haul around multiple pairs of shoes just on the off-chance I'd want to go to the theatre and be "completely" dressed up.
In short, I'm hooked on the 19-liter backpack way of traveling. The space and weight scarcity really forces you to be thoughtful about exactly what you really need to take with you, and you can focus on the experience rather than stress out about all your stuff. (I'm sure there's a broader analogy that can apply to all of life here.)
how did this make it to the homepage? :O
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I nomad. Travel with a multiple bags and planning to buy another one during the next Europe trip so I can bring back beer and licorice.
Also, if you have status with an airline you can bring a checked bag free. That sometimes means you can bring comforts and supplies that are unavailable or more expensive at your destination.
I do 3 packs currently:
- a 44 L osprey
- a 25 L dakine w/ 15” laptop sleeve
- a 2-3 L small pack... satchel. $10 here in Mexico.
Bought the last one recently for day hikes to hold water/keys/wallet/phone/small battery for charging phone.
Great for traveling & living abroad, 1 month+, while working remotely.
I carry the big one on back, midsize on front, and store smallest in the big one until I arrive at accommodations and am ready to go out for the day
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Flying in America is horrible with all the people bringing huge bags into the cabin. Everyone is fighting to get on first with their massive luggage banging around. I wish they'd enforce a 20lb weight limit like in Europe.