Many women pack shampoos, conditioners, and everything they have in their bathroom at home. You don’t need all that. If you’re visiting relatives, friends, you don’t need those. If you’re staying in hotels, you don’t need those. The days of packing a dozen underwear are gone. You only need 5 underwear and wash them by hand in the hotel. Also you only need one formal wear, be it a dress or a blouse. Mix and match. Shoes, 2 pairs are enough. One pair to walk in and one pair to party with. I’m planning a European trip for one week in the summer with one backpack. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Bring your passport if you’re going overseas or driver’s license if domestic. Be sure to make make copies of the IDs and put them in the suitcase. Bring health and travel insurance document and vaccination documents depending on your destination. Print out all the confirmation number and contact number of your hotel, air tickets, car reservation, and itinerary. Don’t forget the address and direction to  your hotel or car rental place.

But if you want to pack all your belongings in one carry-on and skip the checked bag, you need a larger carry-on bag. The bag should have a total dimension of 45 inches. Use space saver travel bags to pack all clothing in order to save space. For one week in Europe, I suggest that you bring no more than 3 shirts or blouses; a light outerwear depending on the weather; 2 pairs of slacks since you’ll be wearing one on the plane; 4-5 days of socks and underwear; toiletries in smaller containers; some medicine; an umbrella; one pair of shoes; one dressy wear; and sleep wear.

The secret behind packing and traveling light is hand wash. Wash your clothes as you go and dry them in the hotel.

Many savvy travelers I know have been shipping their bags to destinations in advance. Or if you have one of those award programs, frequent flyer miles or airline credit cards that allow you one free luggage, then you can still pack all your essentials like the old days.

But for most travelers, the old days are gone. Plus I’ve never been a big fan of large check in bags anyway. I’ve gone to Europe and Asia with one carry-one even before the airlines started charging fees. If you’re just going for a trip, there’s no need to bring too much. Knowing what to pack and use all packed clothing is the key.

Be expected to hand wash some of your clothes in hotels. Bring wrinkle-proof and light, fast drying clothes. Take advantage of space saver bags to pack underwear, shirts. Avoid jeans as it takes too long for them to dry. Just pack enough for 5 days of clothes even if you’re going for 10 days. You can re-wear and hand wash.

Here’s a little trick that I have learned throughout my traveling. Buy the travel sized space saver bags. Depending on how long you will be gone, get 3 of these great bags and you won’t regret. Use one for all your under wears and socks. One for your shirts and one for dresses.

Fold your clothes normally and put them in the bag and vacuum seal it. It’ll compress the space by 75% less. Although they will weigh the same, you have more room. My experiences with them are: a full suitcase can become half full. Don’t put jeans, hats, and such in the space savers as they don’t compress as much. Usually it’s the soft and bulky items like sweaters compress the most.

With the increased fees at the major airlines and limited carryons, we really need to pay attention to what and how we pack. The most important rule is that never pack the things you don’t even wear at home. There’s a reason why you don’t wear them at home, because they’re either uncomfortable or impractical. Unless you’re taking a luxury cruise, there’s no need to pack all fancy dresses, gowns, and black tie stuff. Pack what you wear everyday. Count the days you will be traveling and add one formal wear on top of that.

Who

Who exactly are you taking to the beach? If you’re planning on bringing 5 children or more, then you’re in for some heavy duty lugging around. But if you’re just going with a friend or two, then you could just go with the bare minimum.

It’s a given that travelling light can be quite expensive specially if you’re going to be taking children with you. But if you’re group is composed of only two or three adults, then you could simply opt for the things that only you need.

Where

This may be a no brainer but if you live near the beach, then you could forego bringing a lot of things. After all, you only need to walk home to get what you need right? But if you’re going to the next State or the next country, you might consider packing things which you could subsist on for at least three days to a week. Again, the first question on who are you going with applies.

It’s more difficult to bring children across great distances than it is to move yourself. To be honest, as a parent myself, I sometimes don’t even think about what we need to bring. I just get the essentials which are clothes, towels, toiletry and money. Always those four. Anything, other than those are not needed.

Always remember, the closer the beach, the less stuff you need to bring. The farther the beach the more things you have to bring.

What

Family members in particular have that tendency to bring a looooot of things when going to the beach because of the perception of boredom. You’d have to understand that kids sometimes can have very limited imaginations about family excursions. Little Joey over there would probably not like the idea of being away from his computer for two days without Internet, that’s why he is going to bring his Laptop. Sandra doesn’t like to lose contact with her friends so she’ll bring her iPhone, iPod, iPad and iWhatever kit. The baby’s the most demanding. You’ll have to bring disposable diapers, feeding bottles, more than extra amount of clothes, umbrella, the milk can, a lot of clean water, powders and lotions. That’s why it’s highly inadvisable to bring babies to the beach.

How Much

Here’s the most important question of all. How much money are you going to spend? I’m not talking about your budget but rather your willingness to burn that cash. If you can afford to buy new clothes and everything you need near the beach then by all means, carry as little stuff as you could.

If you’re on a tight budget and you’re constrained to work around it, then you can expect to bring more things since retail outlets near beaches, wherever they are have a reputation of selling things at three times the price that they would normally fetch for!

At the end of the day your situation would determine how efficiently you can pack things. The basic rule is, bring only what you need.

Rolling your clothes rather then folding them always makes more room in your suitcase. If there is any room left, I then add the things from my “want” to bring pile. Make sure that you put any liquid items in a zip lock bag so that if it does open up during your trip you won’t have toothpaste or shampoo all over your clothes.

Also, don’t forget to save room in your suitcase for souvenirs that you will want to bring home!