As I have stated before, I do a lot of travelling. I am usually in one, sometimes two different places each week. I spend a lot of time on planes. And one thing I will not suffer is baggage claim or anyone ever telling me there is not enough overhead space. My bag is the biggest part of the secret. (See my previous travel post, I discussed my bag).

But with a small bag comes new rules for travelling light. One way to live out of a small bag is to pack everything efficiently, carry only what you need and use small stuff:

What you see in this picture is:

1. My fairly large 17” laptop in the top compartment zipped open (furthest from the camera).
2. A roll and squeeze space bag – compressed with 5 days of clothes. 2 pans, 5 shirts, underwear, socks, gym clothes, and an extra T-shirt.
   NOTE: I wear one pair of dress pants on the plane with me. This gives me 3 for the week – over 5 days.
3. Adidas Martial Arts shoes that look just like sneakers, but a smaller sole, fitting tighter and more neatly in my bag.
4. My, uh.. ahem, uh… iPad   (yes, I know who I work for).
5. A pouch that came with my bag that I keep my cables in (I had already removed most of them by the time I took the photo.

Here is what it looks like all ready to go (minus the cable bag, but it fits right on top of all this):

Some folks then ask me:

• Don’t your clothes get wrinkled? Yes – but they are dry wrinkles, unlike wet wrinkles from washed clothes. Simply spray a little water on them and they straighten up. Plus ironing is not all that hard or time consuming.

Just for ease, I carry a little water bottle:

• What about toiletries? I keep them in a little pouch and place them in the front zipper pouch of my bag. I carry a 7 day dispense vitamin container, small round folding brush, mini-toothpaste, toothbrush and mini-deodorant. I also carry a tiny first aid kit with ibuprofen, band-aids, q-tips, aspirin, alcohol swaps, and antibacterial. Already discussed my micro shaver Norelco HQ40, but I also carry a mini-beard trimmer the Remington MPT3500:

• What about batteries for your shaver, mouse and beard trimmer? I use a travel charger that came with an old camera. It is just a little wider and taller than a credit card and less than an inch thick:

• You  carry workout shoes? In your tiny bag? Really?  Well, Tai Kwon Do shoes to be exact, but yes. A co-worker turned me on to the product. Here is where I got them:

http://kimpacific.com/adsm.html

They compress real tight. One down side it that they have almost no arch support. However, they do nicely for using the cross-trainer, stationary bike and lifting weights. It beats not working out because you do not have the shoes or having to carry around a set of clunky huge tennis shoes that fill up half your bag.

And, yes, all this stuff fits nicely in my bag. I do not over stuff the bag or have to sit on top of it to zip it up. For me it comes down to simply packing EXACTLY what you need and nothing more. And also trying to find the most efficient, smallest form factor of anything I use.

Some folks are shocked I can live like this out of a tiny bag, week after week. Well, I can say you get used to it, but another thing that helps is the consistency you get the your favorite hotel chains. Mine is Hilton. But more on that in another post…