Travel Planning Series Part II: Handbag & Carry-On

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This post is part II of the Travel Planning Series. To read the first post in this series, click here!

 

Welcome back to the Travel Planning Series! This series of posts is all about travel hacks, tips, and tricks to make travel more seamless and enjoyable. As someone who travels internationally often for work, I’ve developed a system to help me pack quickly and efficiently, so I want to share those with you!

First, I broke down how to maximize the liquids bag. Now, I’ll share what I pack in both my handbag and carry-on to make my time in transit as easy and enjoyable as possible!

 

Handbag

Before even thinking about filling your bag, it’s important to choose the right bag to begin with! Some people have a designated handbag for traveling, which is perfectly fine (and allows you to pre-pack it with certain items you know you’ll always take with you). For me, I choose to make my handbag do double-duty. My strategy is this: I use a large handbag I want to use throughout my trip as my hand luggage, and then pack a smaller bag as an alternative in my checked bag. That way, I can use a bigger or smaller bag each day depending on where I’m going/what I’m doing. My large Michael Kors Selma has been around the world with me, and it’s perfectly sized to fit everything I want to take in my handbag while flying. I also love that it has several internal pockets, which I use to categorize and organize what I’m taking!

What I take in my handbag:

• Liquids Bag
  • You’re going to have to pull this out of your bag if you don’t have TSA pre-check, so you might as well keep it handy! For me, since my bag is full of useful products I’ll use at the airport and in flight, I like to keep it easily accessible. Again, if you haven’t read my post on how to pack a super useful liquids bag, check it out! A simplified list of what goes in it: rollerball perfume, hand sanitizer, hand cream, minis or samples of products to use in flight.
• Water bottle
  • I have a specific water bottle I always travel with because it’s spill-proof. It’s one way to make your travels more eco-friendly and always having water at hand!
• Passport case
  • Another item you’ll need frequently while traveling internationally! On any leg of a trip, you may need it up to five times. Besides, this is the most important thing you’re carrying, so I like to know where mine is at all times. Although it can be tempting to buy a cute passport holder, do yourself a favor and invest in an RFID-safe passport holder to truly protect yourself and your information. Read more about why that’s important here. Passport holders are super useful to 1: protect your passport from wear, and 2: store all important travel documents in one place. I love mine to keep my passport, green card, global entry card, and Priority Pass card all together.
• Portable charger
  • I simply cannot travel without a charging brick! When I travel, I use my phone more than usual because of Google Maps, Google Translate, and others. That makes my battery drain super fast, so I always carry my charging brick with me. I use this rose gold one I got on Amazon which is really affordable and charges my phone around 3 times before dying.
• Headphones
  • One thing everyone can agree on is that airplane headphones are dreadful to use. I always bring a headphone with a regular plug and the adapter to make it fit into my iPhone.
• Glasses & sunglasses
  • If you need glasses for reading or for life, it’s good to keep them in your handbag vs your carry-on. Same goes for sunglasses!
• Kindle
  • I always bring at least two books with me when traveling, and at least one of them is in my kindle. Because it’s so thin, I keep it in my handbag for easy access during flight.
• A pack of gum
  • Not only is gum great to freshen up your breath, it also helps if your ears hurt during take-off and landing.

 

Carry-on

I reserve my carry-on for items I might need while in transit but not urgently. I also use it to store items I’m uncomfortable checking for safety reasons. Generally, I try to pack as little as possible in it so I can use it as additional storage in case my bag gets over the weight limit by the end of my trip. As with the handbag, the carry-on you choose to travel with is super important. I did a lot of research before buying my current carry-on (which I purchased around a year and half ago), and I chose the Delsey Helium Aero International Carry-on luggage for the following reasons:

• It has a front pocket for laptops, which is so useful! This was actually a deciding factor for me. If you need to remove your laptop when going through security or if you just want to reach for it to use it, you don’t have to lay your carry-on down sideways and open it all up—you just open the convenient zipper while your carry-on is still vertical and it’s ready to go!
• It’s fits international carry-on guidelines. In the U.S., you can get away with larger carry-ons, but internationally that’s not the case. This one fits the international standard so I know I’ll never have to worry!

It was surprisingly hard to find good carry-ons with the front pocket for laptops. Now, I’m starting to see them more—Away just brought one to market a few weeks ago! Now that you know what carry-on I use, here’s what I put in it:

• Laptop & charger
  • My laptop always goes in the exterior laptop pocket. It’s too big and heavy to put into my handbag, and it’s not something I reach for all the time anyway. I usually keep it with me during a flight because I do a lot of work on long flights, but I just quickly remove it from the carry-on before putting it in the overhead compartment.
• A physical book
  • If I’m bringing a physical book with me besides my kindle, I keep it in my carry-on to make space for more important things in my handbag. I usually also keep it in the external compartment so I can quickly get both the book and my laptop out when I board.
• Business cards
  • If you’re traveling for work, you never know when you’ll need one! You may even need one before arriving at your destination, so it’s always good to have them on hand.
•  Camera & camera gear
  • I keep my camera, additional batteries, and tripod in the interior compartment of my carry-on. I would never check my camera in my luggage because we all know how roughly luggages are treated! Also, I’m super paranoid about my bag and or items in my bag getting stolen, so I carry my camera with me at all times.
• Jewelry
  • My jewelry is always with me, for the same reason as my camera. I’m uncomfortable checking it, and want to know where it is at all times. Of course not all of my “jewelry” is actually jewelry, but for both sentimental and financial reasons, I’m taking it with me.
• Medication you’ll need during your trip
  • If you’re taking medication on your trip, make sure to keep it with you.
• Sleeping pillow & mask
  • These are so key to having at least an okay amount of sleep on long flights! I usually tuck my sleeping mask into the sleeping pillow bag, that way they’re always together. I keep it at the very top of my carry-on so I can take it out just before boarding.
• Digital luggage scale
  • This is so useful! I have a small luggage scale that I keep in a side pocket inside my carry-on. To me, it’s way more convenient to keep the scale in your carry-on vs. your checked luggage for two reasons. First, you always weigh your luggage after you’re done packing it, so after you weigh it you don’t have to open it again to shove the scale in there. Two, by keeping it in a carry-on pocket, you can easily find it whenever you need it, whereas if you kept it in your luggage it would roll around between clothes.

That’s it! Like I said, I like to keep my carry-on pretty empty so I can fill it with clothes or other items in case I shop too much while traveling and my bag goes over the weight limit.

 

Those are my tips for taking everything I need in my handbag and carry-on! How do you pack yours? Share your tips in the comments!

Stay curious,

Nati