8 Things Experienced Travelers No Longer Pack (and you shouldn't either)

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I agreed with everything except the travel scale. We check our luggage and I like to buy souvenirs, the travel scale gives me peace of mind. I pack it on the trip and we shuffle things around our suitcases depending on what the travel scale says.

The trick with a travel pillow is that you don't put it around the back of your neck. You put it around the *front*, with the opening in back. That way, when you doze off, your chin doesn't sink down into your chest. Between it and the headrest on the seat, it keeps your head more upright.

While I agree that a bag can be weighed on a bathroom scale at home, a luggage scale is good to have for the RETURN flight, when you will not have access to said bathroom scale. The return home is also where those plastic compression bags, (at least one), can come in handy for compressing DIRTY clothes, where creasing won’t be an issue - and perhaps making room for bringing back some vacation purchases. (For which that luggage scale will come in handy to make sure your bag isn’t too heavy.) 😉

I use a passport cover all the time. It's fantastic as a travel wallet specifically for travel centric documents. Sure, you have to remove the passport, but from an organizational standpoint, it works great. Can keep passport, Vaxx cards, luggage tags, car park tags, tickets and ticket stubs...and any other number of travel documents handy and well kept/organized while traveling.

I agree about the vacuum sealed bags causing wrinkles; however, I pack an empty vacuum seal bag to use for my dirty clothes on the way back. It saves space if I buy stuff on my trip.

I use my quick dry towel a lot. It can be my blanket if I’m cold, my pillow when folded if I’m sleepy and dry me if I’m wet. Multi use item! Love your channel.

I'm a frequent flyer and I fill the small plastic containers from larger containers to take along moisturiser, toner, etc on my flights so that everything is there in my liquid and gel bag. Sometimes, my brands are not available at my destination or the travel size purchases cost an arm and a leg. Just ensure that the plastic containers and jars are sturdy and not soft & breakable. To prevent leaks, I cover the openings of containers with a double layer (tear a strip & fold over) of cling film, before twisting the cap over. To prevent contamination, leave the cling film in the lid or cap. Bin it when you're home. Doing it for more than 3 decades and never had a leak ever, even with cabin pressure.

Well, I travel with most of these things and many of them are a “must have” for me. I like a brightly colored passport case so I can easily find it in my crossbody bag. I’m always obsessively checking to make sure I have my passport and a quick glance at the cover gives me peace of mind.

My travel scale has been a lifesaver and my memory foam Cabeau neck pillow does not push your head forward at all, and rolls up into a small pouch. As a person who suffers migraines and painful neck/shoulders this has been an absolute blessing, especially on the long flights we Aussies have to make to go anywhere! I also disagree with not taking a Lonely Planet guidebook (in paper form) - they are worth their weight in gold and have everything you need to know in one up to date book without needing to use your data or battery power constantly to look up things online.

I find the suitcase scale to be very useful. It’s so small and very accurate. We buy a ton of stuff when we travel and we take it right up to the 50 pound limit. We’ve also flown on Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines where they actually weighed carry on bags. So unless you’re flying without checked baggage or in Business Class with a 70 pound limit, I think the strap type luggage scale is essential.

I disagree about guidebooks. I use them all the time. Quite often they are pocket-sized and their design and layout have become extremely practical. They have been compiled by experts and can save you a lot of time. You can decide which one suits you at your leisure before you go away on holiday. They're also good as a reminder of what you have done. Flashing a smartphone around trying to where you are or attempting to look through endless lists of tourist sites or restaurants means that you're not paying any attention to what's going on around you. That probably means you're spending more time looking at your smartphone than at the place and the people you're travelled such a long way to see, worse it also signals visually that you're an easy target for thieves.

I travel with kids and a modest sized travel towel is a must have for the inevitable spills, messy food and other clean ups. Plus, always know where your towel is!

The vacuum bag can be super helpful if you are traveling to different climates and you want to collapse a puffy coat or jacket. I traveled to London, Zurich, Athens, Crete, and Berlin on one trip last year (bouncing from city to city over three weeks) and was so thankful I had the vacuum bag to collapse down my coat that I needed to go up into the snowy Alps. When you are packing warm clothes for cold weather and bikinis for beach weather all one one trip, those bags can really help save the day to help minimize the fluffy, bulky stuff!

There are certain guidebooks that I still find very useful, including those written by Rick Steves. You can also cut out only the pages you need for a particular trip, thus reducing any extra weight or space. Also, phones don't work everywhere and can stop working for all kinds of reasons. Books don't break . . ever (and don't need to be charged). And it's not a big deal if you lose your guidebook. Happy travels. :)

I use a neck pouch to carry my passport and travel documents. It's easy to take the passport out and put it back as needed and its great for holding my boarding pass for the walk between the gate and the plane. I'm never physically separated from my passport. When I'm on the plane my pouch is under my zipped up hoodie. It's lightweight and comfortable, I can wear it for the duration of a 20 hour (door to door) overseas trip.

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Great tips as always, but as one who nearly always checks a bag, especially when I’m going from Italy to America and back again, bringing souvenirs and gifts to the states and then buying things like extra pairs of jeans for $35-$40 instead of over $100 in Italy, the luggage scale is a lifesaver. My checked bag is always exactly 50 pounds or 23 kg. In fact, on my last trip from California back to Italy, I almost bought a second suitcase and would’ve paid $100 additional, but with the scale I loaded my large carry-on with the lightest and bulkiest items, bringing it up to 50 pounds, and then managed to cram another 50 pounds in my backpack, which was a “personal item” and was never checked, and the rest in my carry-on. But some European airlines will check carry-on items for weight. I even had them check my carry-on items on a flight on KLM from San Francisco to Amsterdam and they wanted $100 because it was overweight. Even when I protested that this was not a small airplane and my carry-on met their size limits, they wouldn’t budge. Although they did offer me business class for $400 which included the weight, a much better seat, better food, and then I went in to their included airport lounge and ate at least $50 worth of shrimp cocktails. 😊

Travel pillows are definitely a no-no. They are bulky to carry around. What I do is take a pillow case which I can stuff with my polar fleect jacket and pummel it into the shape I want as a sleep pillow with neck support. It also means I don't have to rest my head on the seat's headrest that a million other people have used before me. Eeeuuu. A pillow case is easy to store in my suitcase when not needed. It is easy to wash. I can use it in my hotel room too. On the return trip I can use it to store dirty clothes in, separate from clean one. A most versatile invention - the humble, but handy pillow case!

I like my passport case. Fits in nicely, protects it and mine has a little pen so I always have that when I need to fill out paperwork.