Want to Improve Travel Packing Skills

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• During the Europe Trip Spring 2023, I understood the value of reducing luggage (blu3mo)
  • Lighter weight simply increases mobility
  • Being able to move without having to store items in lockers reduces dependency, which is beneficial
    • Planning routes becomes easier as well
• I have two main goals in mind
  • Reduce volume/mass
    • This is somewhat obvious

      • It’s like frugality, but for cm^3 instead of dollars - My 40-liter Backpack Travel Guide (Vitalik)

    • Since volume and mass are roughly correlated, it’s okay to combine them
  • Reduce complexity
    • As the number of items increases, versatility decreases, and it becomes more cumbersome to retrieve items from the backpack
      • For example, different types of cables
        • If there are three different types of cables, you need to distinguish between them when taking them out
          • If you need all types, losing even one cable can be troublesome
        • With three cables of the same type, it doesn’t matter which one you take out
          • You can manage even if one is missing
          • USB-C Maximalist
      • Similar to the cable scenario, the same applies to socks
      • Versatile Small Features are important for packing as well (blu3mo)
    • This could be considered as Entropy..? (blu3mo)
• Other points
  • Using a Compressed Packing Cube to quickly separate the bulky “clothing” that makes up most of the weight is convenient
    • For instance, leaving the pack of clothes on the hostel bed when going to the hostel lounge or taking a stroll in the neighborhood
    • Keeping valuables and a PC in the backpack and carrying the lighter load around enables such movements

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• Lately, with increased travel, dealing with bulky luggage has become challenging

  • Despite returning to Japan and moving to the US, having a large suitcase and a backpack during my stay in Boston for MIT Reality Hack 2023 was quite tough

• Perhaps this task can be divided into:

  • Initially wanting to reduce the amount of luggage
  • Wanting to easily switch between the state of unpacked items in the room and packed items
    • Such as electrical items and clothes
    • I feel this is quite important (blu3mo)
      • Making daily essentials modular, for example

• I don’t want to go to the extreme of cutting down on clothes to the point of doing laundry every day

  • It would be counterproductive to increase the effort

• I think the mindset of “If there’s extra space, let’s just put something in it” is the main issue

  • For example, during the Japan return packing 2022, I could have reduced one bag without much effort, but since I had two bags, I ended up stuffing clothes from both bags into one
    • As a result, the return trip was troublesome, so this aspect is crucial

• I want to explore specific tools and products that can be useful

  • Consideration of a larger backpack in 2023
  • Compressed Packing Cube