We all know I love to travel! Most recently at the last minute we went to visit friends in Florida (as my older daughter was going there with friends and it was nice to see her and her friends for a bit anyway!) For the record no matter what trip I take I never check a bag. Yes, even for our 11-day Italy trip we all brought carry-on luggage.
This trip I had to be strategic as we didn’t pay for a checked bag or a carry on so all of my items had to be in my “personal” bag. I used packing cubes and my newest purchase my “neck pillow”. Yup! I had two dresses, my bathing suit, two shirts stuffed into that sucker! SO with my personal bag (it was 17 inches) and my neck pillow I was good to go!
I found my personal bag, compression bags and the neck pillow on Amazon. You can use the link to purchase *Affiliate Link – I receive a small payment when you purchase.
I love the neck pillow because in addition to storage, you can use it as pillow so make sure you purchase one that is soft velvet – there are others that are more nylon based so those are not great. The tote bag is key as if you do use it with luggage, it has a sleeve to pass through the luggage handle. Plus, there are mini compartments in the bag itself. It really does store a lot of items (well for me anyway with the compression bags it stored 6 days worth of outfits) My outfits consisted of black and white and cream colored styles as yes, you can’t pack everything, so color blocking and styling is the way to go. For the record I had packed 5 dresses, 1 pair of shorts, 6 tanks/t-shirts, one white pant and two skirts and one pair of sandals. I wore black pants and a white tank top and shirt over that on the plane and with a sweater over that – layers people!
The compression bags are great as you can put a full days outfit in them or store like items together. Plus this one zips up again so it further compresses!
Happy Travels!