The stuff that earns the space
I don’t believe you need to buy a bunch of shit before you can go see the world.
You don’t need seventeen special travel gadgets, a coordinated capsule wardrobe, or a suitcase full of things TikTok swears will change the way you travel forever.
I travel with one 40L backpack.
That means everything I bring has to earn the space it takes up. Some of these things make traveling easier. Some help me pack lighter. And a few are here simply because they make traveling more fun.
These are things I actually use and recommend.
It all has to fit in here
This is the whole damn suitcase.
No checked luggage. No roller bag bouncing over cobblestones. No standing at baggage claim wondering whether my underwear is currently vacationing in another country.
If it doesn’t fit on my back, it doesn’t come.
See It on Amazon🎒 It all has to fit in here
“I’m traveling with one backpack” and “I would still like to wear clean clothes” occasionally have competing interests.
These help.
Compress the bulky stuff, reclaim the space, move along.
Once the backpack is at the hotel, hostel, or apartment, I don’t want to carry the damn thing around all day.
This is my everyday wandering-around-town bag: enough room for what I need without carrying my entire life.
Also, it looks like it belongs in an old European train station, and I’m not pretending that didn’t influence the decision.
👕 The glamorous world of
I’ve bought these four times.
That is probably a more useful review than anything else I could tell you.
They’re comfortable, inexpensive, and they’ve survived the kind of days where “let’s just walk over there” somehow turns into ten miles.
Yes. We’re discussing my underwear on the internet now.
Lightweight, comfortable, easy to pack, and they take up practically no room.
When you’re carrying everything on your back, even your underwear needs to pull its weight.
🧺 Four pairs of underwear
I don’t pack enough clothes for the entire trip.
I pack enough clothes to get me to laundry day.
No bottle. No measuring. No hauling liquid detergent across Europe.
Toss a few sheets into the backpack and wash what needs washing as I go.
Sink. Detergent sheet. Wash the clothes. Hang them up.
Is washing your underwear in a hotel sink glamorous?
No.
Does it mean you can travel for weeks with one backpack?
Absolutely.
🧼 Tiny toiletries
Solid toiletries are one of my favorite packing-light tricks.
No bottles taking up space. No leaking shampoo all over everything. And they don’t have to live in the liquids bag when you’re flying.
Wet shampoo bars shoved into a container are gross.
These let the bars breathe and dry between uses.
Tiny thing. Surprisingly useful.
Once everything is dry—or dry enough because checkout is in twelve minutes—the bars go in here and back into the backpack.
Because apparently even my toothbrush needs its own tiny travel system.
Compact, easy to throw in the toiletry bag, and one less full-sized thing taking up space.
For nights when I’ve walked 20,000 steps, eaten something wonderful, had a drink, and decided that an elaborate skincare routine can absolutely fuck off.
Tiny, weigh practically nothing, and easy to keep accessible when I’m traveling by train, plane, ferry, or whatever questionable transportation decision I’ve made that day.
I keep one handy because my stomach and I occasionally have different opinions about adventure.
🔌 Power on the road
If I’m traveling specifically in Europe, this is the simple option.
One adapter gives me room to charge several things instead of carrying a collection of plugs and adapters around.
Going beyond Europe?
This is the more versatile option.
You probably don’t need both. Pick the one that matches where you’re actually going and save the backpack space.
✒️ Completely necessary to me
This is the part that has absolutely nothing to do with efficient packing.
And I don’t care.
I can take a thousand pictures with my phone. But there’s something different about sitting in a café, slowing down for a minute, and actually recording where I’ve been.
Tickets. Receipts. Things I overhear. What dinner cost. Something ridiculous that happened. A place I stumbled across. A few sentences about a day I don’t want to forget.
Trips shouldn’t live exclusively in a camera roll.
Do you need a fountain pen to travel?
No.
Do I enjoy writing in my travel journal with one?
Very much.
And that’s enough reason for it to earn a little backpack space.
Completely unnecessary.
Completely beautiful.
I’m traveling Europe on a budget, not taking a vow of aesthetic poverty.
Sometimes I want to do more than photograph a place.
Sit down. Order a coffee. Make a terrible little watercolor of the building across the street.
It doesn’t have to be good.
That’s not the point.
This keeps the fountain pen, watercolor stuff, and other little creative bits together instead of letting them migrate into seventeen different corners of my backpack.
Roll it up. Throw it in. Done.
🪙 You really don’t need much
I’m not suggesting you buy twenty things before you’re “ready” to travel.
You are already ready.
Start with what you own.
Buy the things that solve an actual problem. Leave behind the things that don’t. Spend the money you save on a train ticket, a weird little restaurant, a museum, or another night somewhere you aren’t ready to leave yet.
Everything I need is on my back.
Come on. Let’s go see the world.