A one-bag mentality

My best friend CDL has mastered the one-bag mentality for traveling. No matter where she goes or how long she's staying, she always manages to pack everything into a single bag and never checks luggage. I, on the other hand, am notorious for overpacking.

Take, for instance, the cruise vacation that B and I took last year. The cruise was 7 days long, and we tacked on an extra two days beforehand to make it a 9-day trip. I fit most of my stuff in one bag, but the bag was Big Suitcase. And she wasn't light. I packed two outfits for every day because I needed daytime wear as well as evening wear (for dressing up for dinner). We also packed water so we wouldn't have to buy it on board or in port. Oh, and we brought some cans of coke. And snacks. And emergency lunches (you never know what you're going to get for food in Mexico and Jamaica).

Several porters commented on the weight of my luggage. I chose to ignore them but have decided perhaps I ought to change my tactics for our honeymoon. We'll be carting our suitcases around a fair amount (at the airports and in the train stations and in transit from Paris to Nice and back again).

I stumbled upon a website dedicated solely to the concept of the one-bag mentality, and I liked the theory behind it. Pack an item and wear it several times--not rocket science, but certainly not a theory I've ever prescribed to.

The site advocates the creation of a packing list, which I've used for a long time, and it simplifies packing a lot. Of course, if your packing list is several pages long, you've defeated the purpose of its creation. The idea is that if an item isn't on the list, you're not allowed to bring it, thus preventing the "Well, maybe I ought to bring [item x]--you never know when you'll need one of those!" conundrum.

I've created my one-page packing list (of course, it's created in Excel, and you can make just about anything in Excel fit on one page--whether the text is legible is a separate issue), and I'm going to try to stick with it when I pack. It won't be easy, but I'll be glad I did it when we land in France and have to schlep our stuff all over the place.

I feel it's necessary to point out that while I agree with the theory, the actuality of not checking luggage is simply not an option. I'll simply...pack less. :)