A chaotic year has passed at airports, and baggage handling problems have left many travelers struggling to be reunited with their luggage. Air travel is more desirable than ever. But for a single traveler, even this is not minimal enough. One female passenger was able to travel with a small 12 liter (3 gallon) shoulder bag.
Brooke Schoenman is an American woman living in Australia who is the publisher of The Packing List, a website she uses to convey her advice when it comes to cutting back on what to take on the road.
Traveler Schönemann's path to lighter bags and weights began when she studied in Italy before embarking on a postgraduate trip around the world. Along the way, I explored Guatemala and later worked as an English language teacher in Ukraine before moving on to the under-13s.
"I think I had a 55-liter backpack and a daypack that I wore in front," she told CNN Travel about her first trip. A 55-liter package can be the maximum volume - or extra large - for a handbag. “And I was really trying to pack the light.” I don't know how people do that with a 30 liter bag. "
"It was literally carrying things that started to tire me out. Every time I had to walk through this airport or find my way to the bus, train, airport or something else."
This realization was one of the reasons why she started her packing list in 2010. The site's goal is to help all travelers, especially women, better pack and plan their trips with packing guides and insider tips. The website got its name from checklists that Scheunemann says is an important tool in preparing for travel.
"Preparing for a trip was the only thing you could do to set aside your time before you left," she says. "So thinking about it and thinking about all the things you can bring and pack, it was exciting."
The website wasn't always all about simple packing, initially offering advice for travelers checking baggage, but it has evolved over the years as Scheunemann herself has been doing less than that.
"When I first started the site, I didn't talk all the time about packing," she says. “It was like you were checking a bag and your bag was the things you had with you in the cabin that were really valuable or breakable like an extra outfit and an extra pair of underwear, that kind of thing. And then I started packing lighter.”
Scheunemann reached her peak of simple packing in 2016 when she departed for three weeks of international travel with just a 12-liter handbag and a US itinerary that included Portland, Vegas, Chicago and San Francisco, and three days on an Amtrak train.
"I got in an Uber on my way to the airport in Sydney," she recalls. The guy was like, 'Where are you going? What station? And I was like, 'Where's your luggage? How long is your flight?” Three weeks.
Her friends and family were also amused by her lack of luggage. "My mom kind of laughed when she saw my bag and realized it was all my luggage." Inside her laptop-sized handbag, she packed the essentials.
This included a packing cube of clothes that can be worn in multiple ways, foldable shoes, a small keyboard for her smartphone and small containers of basic toiletries. She's visited a variety of environments, so wardrobe planning was important.
"I traveled in April and was absolutely stunned when temperatures in Portland hit the 80s (20 degrees Celsius) on that trip," she recalls.
"Fortunately, I packed a wardrobe designed with layering in mind, so I had lighter pieces that suited warmer temperatures. It was very cold and windy when I visited Chicago on that trip. So layering was very important."
