Hack Your Suitcase!
Hello Friend! Welcome back and welcome to the Thanksgiving season!
If you read my last post, I got a little vulnerable regarding a memory that decided it needed to be processed last week and we came to the conclusion that practicing gratitude was the way to go. So let me sum up this week’s Thankfulness Challenge IG posts
November 1: I am starting off easy and I am thankful for my partner and my family. We have out hard moments but we always talk things out and make sure the other is listened to. My family has made big strides in the past few years to communicate better with each other and I am very thankful for that.
November 2: I am thankful for my dog, Waffles. Like irrationally so. She brings me so much love every day and she helps ground me when my emotions want to take a dip.
November 3: I am thankful for the time off I’ve had to rest and build myself up again. The circumstances and the money are always rough, but there’s a silver lining and that is that I’ve been able to get some much-needed rest. Especially since I was really getting burned out and my creativity was draining away.
And now for today November 4th! Today, I am thankful for you, friend! Really! I am so grateful that you are here and that you read my words and my thoughts. And for those who leave a comment, I am so very grateful for your words and thoughts too! I definitely struggle with the courage to be seen and heard and this blog is an outlet for that. So thank you for being open and accepting of what I put here. For this, I am truly grateful.
So, it is probably likely that many of you are traveling for Thanksgiving this year. If you don’t already have your travel plans set, I strongly recommend you do it immediately. Especially if you are flying. As a former pro traveler myself, I became very skilled at packing my suitcase and using up every possible inch of space while staying below a weight limit. Back when I was flying out to various cruise ships, I would have 1 piece of checked luggage, a carry on, and an under seat bag to haul around my sewing machine, all of my thread, notions, sharp tools, measuring tools, and other sewing necessities plus my clothes, toiletries, shoes, electronics, and whatever other creature comforts I needed to travel with in order to live on a ship for up to six weeks. Sounds pretty nutty, right? It kind of was. I had to pack really smart and I had to keep ridiculously organized about it. And I’m sure some of you are wondering about where the sewing machine went. It went in the carry-on. And yes, it passed through airport security every time. (And they swabbed it for bomb residue every time too.) Turns out a lot of TSA agent’s moms are seamstresses. There’s your sweet fact of the day.
Six weeks stuff and a whole sewing kit fit into these 3 pieces.
Let me show you some packing tips that I use reliably every time I pack now.
Lay out everything you plan to take with you.
I do this every time I travel. I pull out all of the stuff I WANT to take with me and as I pack things up I end up editing out some of the stuff that is too expensive to pack (by expensive I mean takes up too much room or is too heavy.) If there is a special occasion that I want a particular outfit for, then I make sure I pack that and the accessories and make that a main priority. By laying out all of the clothes I can see the big picture and see if I can re-wear any pieces for other outfits later in my trip. I’ll re-wear skirts with different tops or change up a sweater look. Then, take a photo or a video of everything you’re taking. This is proof of what you took with you and if your luggage doesn’t come back to you, you have a photo or video diary of everything you are claiming. (Southwest didn’t believe me when I claimed my sewing machine and a lot of other stuff that added up to a big claim and they denied my claim after ignoring it and I couldn’t fight it because the denial was like a day before the expiration and I was on a ship again already. I won't fly Southwest anymore because of this unless I have no other choice.)
Use packing cubes to organize and compress your soft items.
I love these. I fold my clothes the Marie Kondo way so most of my shirts and smaller items are already folded into neat little rectangles that I just shingle into the cube and zip shut. Pants are a little different. Sometimes I lay them more like a flat square and allow the cube to compress them together, if it is a lightweight pant or a short then I see if rolling them like a swiss roll is more effective at saving space. The packing cube helps keep all of your like items together and contained making for easier unpacking and also acts as a bit of protection for your clothes in case a shampoo bottle explodes inside your suitcase during transit. (The first time it happened to me I was on a high school trip to Disney for a “Music in the Parks” festival. I played clarinet. My uniform blacks were a mess.)
Fill in the empty space.
The bottom of your suitcase is not flat, there are 2 rails that run along the bottom and split your suitcase into thirds. If you fill in the bottom with smaller squishable items, you can create a flat surface for your larger packing cubes without losing out on any space. For socks and undergarments, I neatly place those in the bottom half of my hardshell checked luggage and fill in around the handle extension housing. As you fill your suitcase, look for any place that could hold smaller items. You can store some socks inside the empty space of your shoes for example.
I fit my safety pins, straight pins, sewing needles, and more into the empty spaces of my thread holder.
Some items should NEVER be checked.
Even if you have a lock on your checked bag, if TSA or a foreign security agency has to inspect your luggage, they might not always lock back up after themselves. You don’t want to have anything in that suitcase that might tempt a thief. I’ve seen more than my fair share of reports and videos of luggage handlers rifling through people’s luggage INSIDE the plane before unloading the bags and I can only imagine how many more times it goes unreported or people don’t get caught. I’d rather not risk it if I can help it. Things I do NOT recommend checking are any and all electronics, medicines, sentimental items that you cannot live without, money, jewelry, and important documents. (No identity theft please!) You should also pack into your carry-on some bare essentials like a change of clothes, toothbrush, and basic toiletries just in case your suitcase does get lost or arrives later than anticipated.
Tracking Tiles or Apple Air Tags will give you extra peace of mind
I put a tracking tile in every piece of luggage and into my purse so I could track it on my phone. If an airline doesn’t track luggage (Honestly, they all should at this point. The technology isn’t new anymore.) then you can use your tile to find out if your luggage is nearby after you’ve taken your seat on the plane and before takeoff. It can also notify you when your luggage is nearby at the airport and help you locate it more easily if it isn’t exactly where you expected it to be. Sometimes there are luggage handlers at the airports removing luggage from the collection belt and putting it in a special holding area to make room for more flights.
I was able to pack a LOT into my suitcases when I was working on ships and it was entirely due to being really organized and perfecting the art of filling every nook and cranny in my luggage. Next time I travel I will take photos of how I pack to give better insight and do a follow-up to this post.
Happy gratitude month! Please leave a comment with one thing you are grateful for!
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