Traveling by plane used to be so easy back during those days when airlines gave free checked-in baggage allowances. However, now-a-days, policies changed checked-in baggage are now for sale; and not only that they are expensive as well. This makes your travel way too much expensive especially when you’re on international flights and need to take connecting flights. Therefore, to solve this dilemma it is best to travel light.
The following are the things one needs to do before his or her scheduled travel:
1. Plan ahead.
Check with the airline how many pounds or kilos is allowed for a hand carry baggage and what are or are not allowed to be hand carried.
Information such as weight of hand carry baggage and commodities allowed on a hand carry vary from one airline to another airline. Therefore, it is important to check with one’s airline matters as such. In addition, some airlines give one 50 pound luggage allowance checked-in for free.
2. Less is more.
Bring clothes that are just enough for the number of days and activities during the trip and for longer trips, one might want to consider doing laundry.
For short trips such as a 2-3 day trip, one can bring clothes enough for the trip. However, for longer days, one should take into consideration doing laundry; but one must make sure that there’s a laundry shop near the place where one would stay. Laundry in hotels cost much. Thus, it is important to weigh expenses of checking in baggage and doing laundry.
3. How to travel light: Keep personal care products light.
Toiletries and other personal care products should be stored in smaller containers. They should be less than 100ml to be allowed on a hand carry baggage.
Most airlines allow hand carried personal care products up to 100ml per product. More than that, these items should be checked in. If one’s planning to have a hand carried baggage then he or she should make sure personal products do not exceed the limits.
How to travel light: keep your toiletries below 100ml per product.
4. Limit gadgets.
For instance, bringing a laptop would add more weight to one’s luggage. Therefore, if one had a laptop and a tablet, it would be preferable to bring the tablet instead. Another gadget is the camera. Between a professional camera and a good digital camera, it would be preferable to bring a digital camera that’s smaller and lighter.
5. Prepare for unpredictable situations.
Emergency medicines are important as well. Medicines such as anti-histamine, anti-diarrheal, anti-emetics, analgesics, and other important maintenance medications if there are. Other paraphernalia such as umbrellas, hats and sunscreen for summer, or sweaters and umbrellas for cold weather.
6. Do your research.
Not all things are alike, thus it is important not to maximize the weight of one’s luggage when mastering the art of learning how to travel light. There are a lot of important stuff that should fit in one’s luggage. Therefore, it is important that one’s back pack or luggage does not weigh much or else it would eat up weight that could have been for other important items. There should be at least 200 grams more, just in case the airport scale differs from the scale one uses at home.
Consider the weight of one’s backpack or luggage because it can consume weight that could still be used to add more items of importance.
