Last weekend I made the trip from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to take care of some business and visit some good friends. When booking the flight, I was using an app called Hipmunk (which I’d recommend) to find weekend deals to different places I want to visit. I saw a $170 direct flight on Spirit Airlines to Los Angeles and decided to go for it. It was about $100 cheaper than the next competing airline so it was a no-brainer, but I quickly learned about some of Spirit’s restrictions.
If you bring a carry-on bag larger than a purse or backpack, Spirit charges a $35 fee each way (in the best case scenario). I decided to see if I could avoid that fee by only bringing a standard-sized backpack for the 3.5 days that I would be in California. The image below shows everything I brought with me, except for the clothes I wore to the airport and a Macbook Air which was already inside the backpack.
The first thing I noticed was that making decisions on what to pack became very quick. I had less space to work with, so I wasn’t left to make a plethora of decisions about different outfits and pieces to bring. I packed a couple shirts, a pair of shorts, pajama pants, underwear, socks, camera and 35mm film (I know), my moleskine, earphones and toiletries. I wore a pair of jeans, a linen button-up and a gray hoodie to the airport.
From there, I decided to reallocate the $70 I would have had to pay for a suitcase to make my experience better overall. For $45 upgraded to a ‘Big Front Seat’ for the flight out there and a normal seat in the 5th row for the return flight at a cost of $18. Both made it much more convenient to get on and off the plane and the “Big Front Seat” (seen below) was super comfortable and spacious.
Once I arrived, the remaining $6 (and then some) was spent on food and hanging out with friends. Here’s some of my favorite ramen at a place in Little Tokyo, Hakata Ramen Shin-Sen-Gumi:
I found this to be another (delicious) example of how carrying less stuff can really pay off in the way of having a better overall experience in life. I’m excited to experiment more with different packing strategies to save space and find more opportunities to boost life experiences overall.
I didn’t have a roller bag to drag behind me through the airport or throw into the trunk of a car, everything I needed was right on my back. It made for a quick pass through TSA security at the airport as well.
Life just seems to get easier without extra stuff.
Packing light is the best! The Wife and I took a 5 week trip to Vietnam in 2008 and each only carried a backpack.
I had 3 shirts, 3 pairs of underwear, a pair of shorts, swim trunks, tennis shoes, sandals, and toiletries. Every night before bed we would wash that day’s clothes in the sink using some laundry soap we brought. We would hang them to dry, and use our other clothes the next day while the previous were still drying.
Getting around the country was easy since we didn’t have much to carry!
I love this post because I pride myself on packing light. In the 5 nights we spent in Mexico this past week, I packed everything I needed in one backpack. This included snacks and even my blow dryer and straightener along with 2 pairs of sandals besides the pair I wore. Like you, I wore jeans and a jacket on the plane (it can get chilly!) so those weren’t taking up room in my bag. Obviously, this is a little different if you’re going to a cooler climate, but I managed 10 nights in Ireland with a carry-on and backpack, so anything is possible. 😉
We traveled often to Europe with just a carry on bag each with never a problem–except explaining to the cart driver that met us at the plane that we didn’t need to go to baggage claim. He couldn’t believe a couple from the US could go to London for 2 weeks with just carry on luggage.
Linda, I’ve done the backpack thing, but only for segments of longer trip that included a larger suitcase. Looking forward to trying this at some point this year. Thanks for reading and your comment!
We tried a similar thing on a trip to Rio: only carry on luggage. It worked out well and we saved a lot of time and stress skipping baggage claim. However, at least on international flights, packing light looks suspicious and we had extra random screenings (It may also be that it is easier to search people with less baggage).
James, the suspicious look of traveling light internationally is something I didn’t even consider. That’s a great note – I’m hoping to travel internationally this year and I’ll let you know how it goes. 🙂
-Anthony