Backpacking 101: Leave The Suitcases At Home

There are no truer words in the English language than "travel light." How often we've gone on trips only to find that when we got home, we were unpacking clothes that never saw the light of day. With all the best intentions in the world, believing we'd really need those six pairs of pants, five pairs of shoes, ten t-shirts, and numerous other accessories, we over packed again for another trip. As the super-sized suitcase came on the market, our problem didn't get easier, it became much more difficult. Those large suitcases could hold enough clothes for a trip around the world without wearing items twice (I'm reminded here how our oldest son really did travel around the world with just a single t-shirt or, at least, that's what he was wearing every time he was in a photo!). In addition, as size increased, so did the weight of the filled suitcase. I'm a big fan of those little wheels on suitcases, but try pulling a couple of them down a cobble stone street for any distance. It doesn't work well! So, we found that the best way to travel light was to control the size and type of the container we were using. The solution: the backpack!

As you can tell from the photo, that's not a large backpack on Nancy. But, she had all the essentials for three weeks of travel in Mexico. It is easier to travel light in a warm area of the world, but, nonetheless, we've learned how to avoid taking really unnecessary items by being required to carefully choose what items we travel with.

We've arrived in many cities where we planned to go from the airport to the hotel by subway or public transportation. Have you ever seen folks lugging suitcases through those security turnstiles? Yikes! At rush hour, which is going to be crowded anyway, it's much easier to get on and off a subway with a backpack on than try to push your way through the crowd with a suitcase in both hands before the door closes again and you're off to the next station where you didn't want to get off. As much as we always try to stand by the door for ease of getting off, as the crowd gets denser and denser, the laws of physics push you further into the car.

Another advantage of traveling light is that it will also often save you time and help you avoid certain headaches that you just don't need particularly at the end of your trip. Last year at the airport, as we were leaving Mexico City, we had to stand in an hour long check-in line to get our boarding passes. Why you ask? If it had been as simple as just traveling with our backpacks, we could have gone straight to the ticket kiosk for travelers with no baggage to check. However, on this trip, because of all those newly acquired souvenirs, we had to buy a suitcase in the capital before leaving just to haul home our goodies. All of our travel stuff would no longer fit into our backpacks that we had arrived with. Well, that one suitcase required that we, too, join the mass of humanity checking in bags. The hour plus wait almost caused us to miss our flight. Of course, I'm glad to have brought home all those cool mementos of our travels, but they came at a price.

Our best advice to you our friends - always travel light!

Tomorrow: Visa Requirements for Egypt.