The Hunt for the Perfect Bag
I usually don’t go anywhere for more than a week so when I travel I generally I take enough outfits for the period I am away. This means I don’t have to do any washing until I get home. My trip to Europe is a little different from any trip I have taken before because I am off for 36 days. Because I’m moving around so much I want to travel light which means don’t take as many clothes and wash them more often.
I have been putting a lot of thought into the best luggage solution for me. Currently I own two wheely suitcases, a small carry-on size one that I normally use, and a giant one that I got to move 20kg of my life from New Zealand to Australia. Wheels are perfect when moving from airport to car to house. Not so much when there is much walking to be done, and they’re also not brilliant on anything other than the smoothest road surfaces. Cobbled streets? Forget about it.
This leaves me with one option: buy new luggage. This leaves me with two options: buy a backpack, or buy a holdall.
I pretty much vetoed a backpack straight away. I don’t want to be a backpacker. They always look so uncomfortable. Everyone I know who has done it has been away longer than a month, so even though it’s probably the most convenient way of carting my stuff around, I said no. Plus, those things are expensive!
So this left me with a holdall. Now I really do have to travel light because too heavy and I won’t be able to carry it. I finished work early today and set out on a luggage hunt. This is the one I decided on. Nothing says ‘buy me’ more than a 50% off Christmas sale. It holds 60L which is plenty, and it folds into a little storage bag. Of course the first thing I did when I got home was pull it out to play with it, so now I’ll probably never actually be able to get it back in. Red is also a colour that I’ll spot on a luggage carousel in amongst everyone else’s black luggage.
Because one can’t just buy one thing in a sale, I also got a sleeping bag liner because I’m staying in one camping ground, some cheap hotels and a couple of hostels and their sheets can be nasty. My final purchase for the day was a padlock. I have plenty of travel padlocks but they are all ones that use keys and over the years all the keys have been lost. Combination lock? Problem solved.
Since my last post I’ve also purchased my ticket to Monza. Look out for me at the first chicane!
Why are you going to take 60L of water to europe? We have water here you know
nowhere did I say water! How do you know I’m not bringing 60L of feathers?
Sounds great! Looks like some good purchases there, very good stuff!
Just one thing though – you say that
Funny thing is, we have a red suitcase and said exactly the same thing. Trouble is, no matter what colour you have, there always seems to be an identical one on the conveyor belt. And luggage straps don’t work either as they get destroyed in Transit. The best thing to do is to tag it and keep your eyes open, I guess
ah yes, red is the second most common after black for sure. This is quite an orangey red so I’m hoping I’ll get away with it a bit more. Probably not though!
I would have to weigh up the probabilities of losing a key or forgetting a combination. I’m not sure which would be more likely.
You’re not in the movie ‘Spaceballs’ are you?
Does the bag fold in a small enough storage bag that you could bring me one too?