Our Travel Bags
I have a special travel bag from Baggalini (company formed by 2 flight attendants) and I love it because it has so many compartments. I put my iPhone charger and universal cables, headphones, FitBit cable, PowerBeats ear buds, country travel adapters in a zipper compartment that can be accessed easily from the bottom of the bag. We sometimes take a Insiq Bluetooth phone speaker if we are at the beach. It has zippers inside where I keep my foreign currency. And special slots for a pen, lipstick, parking lot ticket, and keys. I can also fit a 15″ laptop. The front of the bag has a small zipper where I keep my passports, nexus card and iPhone. It’s easy to access and is separate from everything else in my bag… no scrambling to find them and protected from loss.
When we travel to a warm climate (beach) I pack: 2 bathing suits, 2 nice dresses for dinners, 3 shorts, 5 tops, 1 pair of underwear per day (unless I’m gone longer than a week), 2 bras, 1 pair of long pants, 1 comfortable pj and 1 for Jamie , 1 beach coverup, running shorts, bra and shirt plus socks and track shoes plus flip flops, walking sandals, and a pair of nice shoes for those dinners. Then the typical toiletries plus sunscreen (see our recent post), and Band-Aids.
Because we are both runners, we take along our Brooks Ghost 11 running shoes. If you’re counting, that four pairs of shoes. (What can I say? I love my shoes!)
The Best Suitcase By Far!
To minimize our travel footprint, we travel with carry-on suitcases only from Briggs & Riley (I have the blue and Jamie has the tan color–which shows the dirt by the way).
Here are some of its features that should wow you:
- Lifetime warranty including airline damage.
- Expandable (1/3 extra room after you’ve landed)
- Easy Travel Document Pockets in Front
- Handles on outside of luggage
- Pocket for standard computer adapter in back
- Place for suit, pants or clothes needing to be washed.
I like to take a Kindle Paperwhite for reading… it’s light weight and if I run out of reading material I can always download something. Jamie likes the black background and purchased the Kindle Oasis.
The name of the game is to reduce your traveling footprint and pack ever smaller amounts of stuff. We now have special combs instead of brushes, 1.5 ounce travel size tubes and plastic bottles for contact solution or hair gel. Color coordinated Packing Cubes are a must when trying to get away for two weeks.
This list is a work in progress and every once an a while we realize we need something else, like a tensor bandage when I twisted my ankle in St. Lucia.
