Efficient business travel means being ruthless, and it turns out I was not quite ruthless enough. I’ve realised I can actually take a change of clothes on my week-long armed-only-with-a-phone travel odyssey and still not need a separate bag. This is how.
My announcement that I was taking a small bag for a spare change of clothes this time around led to some criticism in the comments and from friends. The gist? Once you are carrying a bag, you might as well carry a laptop.
Most business travellers I encounter carry as much crap as they think they can get away with, so I don’t think my tactic was a total cop-out. But I still wasn’t quite convinced I had the right approach.
Two things made me realise I could cut back but still not spend the whole week writing mostly about laundry. First: I can change as soon as I reach my hotel into my second outfit while I wash the first — I don’t need a third choice just to lounge in. It just means dividing my wear over two days; I get a fresh T-shirt, socks and undies each day, but not first thing.
The second was remembering that my suit has two stitched-up outer jacket pockets I had never bothered to cut open. With those available, I could put the spare T-shirt in one and the socks and undies in the other. Result!
On testing this out, I even have room for a beanie in one pocket (cold weather is promised this week). Yes, my pockets are bulky, but not ludicrously so. And I can truly claim to be on the road, working, and luggage-free.
I’m writing this in the Allure offices in Sydney , where I’ll spend the first part of the day before heading to the airport, and hence to Auckland. Explaining no luggage on an international leg could be interesting. At least my toothpaste is small enough for security.
Comments
6 responses to “Luggage-Free: OK, I Give In, No Bag It Is”
Er.. whoever you are, you should really change your “gravatar” to.. not be Angus. An article on how to live like you’re homeless. Why try and put a suit jacket on top of a tucked in tshirt that looks like it was designed to accentuate your.. er.. “muffin top”?
Just seems bizarre to expect anyone in a suit to carry underwear in their suit jacket pockets.. And i’m not entirely sure i’d want to meet the person who did..
Edit: Er.. Did this article not initially say it was by Danny someone, thus my confusion with the gravatar? 😐
That was a weird production error, fixed now.
Never claimed to be a model. And a hoodie doesn’t work in a business context.
you should have finished that sentence at ‘a hoodie doesn’t work’
Fashion isn’t the point at all…(read the link in the article)
And the reason he’s in a suit is because he’ll be working on this trip, and a hoodie isn’t going to cut it.
Good move ditching the bag!
Cutting open your stitched-closed suit pockets? Shame on you! Spending 20 minutes picking them open awkwardly during conversations is half the fun of buying a new suit!
Agree with Michael: As a high mileage business traveller, I think you can look better and work better with very little extra effort, and not many more kilograms. For real productive work you need a laptop (Yes, you can type with Docs To Go on a BB, but that is more time wasted than waiting for a case and editing at full speed). The new Mac Airs, and soon, the new Win 8 ultra books really take very little space and allow you to operate at full speed.