Traveling isn’t what it used to be. Back in the last century, it wasn’t uncommon to pack a whole slew of suitcase trunks, complete with every conceivable wardrobe option. But times have changed, airlines have cracked down on excess checked luggage, and people tend to look for a more minimalist approach to traveling these days.
Enter the “one bag” movement, a philosophy of traveling and of packing that has caught on with many people online. In this post, let’s look at this burgeoning community, as well as how you can travel light on your next trip.
What Is One Bag?
Perhaps best known for its popular Reddit community, One Bag is the art, and philosophy, of traveling with – you guessed it – one bag. Proponents of One Bag traveling try to fit everything they need for an upcoming trip, including clothing, toiletries, electronics, etc., into just one carry-on bag (or maybe two carry-ons), often using ingenious hacks and clever products.
Why Travel Light?
It’s not just for the hell of it that people constrain themselves to one bag. There are a few great reasons one might want to pack minimally:
- You avoid those high checked bag prices, as well as overweight costs
- With on carryon bag, you save time by skipping baggage retrieval
- When you travel with one bag, you feel freer
- When you travel minimally, you have less things you can lose
How to Be a Minimalist Packer
There are a few great resources outlining ultralight one bag travel tips for beginners but let’s give you a few key tips here:
- Pack a couple merino wool outfits; merino wool works in virtually any climate, and its antimicrobial properties keep the garments fresh for a long time, meaning you can pack far fewer.
- Wherever possible, pack multipurpose toiletry items — body wash that doubles as shampoo, for instance. Or, better yet, don’t pack toiletry items, and buy them at your destination.
- Be smart with your space. Roll your clothes to be more compact, and choose a backpack with good compartmentalization.
- Keep electronics to a minimum. Use the camera on your phone instead of bringing a bulky camera, and, if possible, consider leaving the laptop behind.
Quality Over Quantity
An important doctrine of One Bag is that it’s better to have a few good quality things than a bunch of low quality things. This is ecologically beneficial, since it stifles the proliferation of “fast fashion”, but it also makes sense from a minimalist point of view, since it removes a lot of the clutter from your life.
For more information on the One Bag community, to check out posts that people have made about their own One Bag experiences, and to post your own experiences, visit the Reddit r/onebag page. It’s a great place to explore this fantastic new philosophy, and meet like-minded people eager to travel the globe with as little impediment and carbon footprint as possible. Next time you book a flight, leave the boxy suitcases at home, and strap a single, sleek bag on your back instead.
Love traveling.
