Tips & Tricks: Packing the Perfect Carry On

Hi everyone, it’s Victoria again with another packing guide! Packing has to be one of my least favorite things about traveling; I love coming up with outfit ideas to wear during my travels, and I love actually wearing the outfits, but I hate the actual process of packing - especially when I only have a limited amount of space to pack.

Cruising and road trips are my family’s main way of travel, so having enough space and suitcase weight limits aren’t something I’m used to, which proved to be a problem when I finally decided to fly and had to follow weight and size restrictions. I was only going away for a few days, so I decided to just bring a carry on suitcase instead of a checked bag, and I was at a lost at how to pack so many outfits into such a small suitcase. Thankfully, talking to friends and reading other travel blogs proved to be a great help, and now it’s my turn to pass on some words of wisdom!

Tip 1: Choosing the right sized suitcase

This was probably my biggest worry when it came to packing a carry on! I really didn’t want to check a bag, so I had to double check our suitcase collection and measure them all to make sure at least one of them fit the carry on luggage size requirement for my airline. And while your carry on might fit on one airline, it is always best to double check the size whenever you fly because different airlines might have different requirements.

Luckily, my trusty suitcase I always use was the perfect size for JetBlue’s carry on size! Here is an example of the style of suitcase I used; it is a few years old, and therefore discontinued, but here is a similar one by the same company. All of the luggage we have by Joy Mangano is wonderful, and I would recommend looking into it if you ever need new luggage.

Tip 2: Packing your clothes

Packing your clothes, and getting everything to fit, is the tricky part. Some people swear by rolling their clothes while others swear by folding, but for me personally, I found that a combination of both worked out best for me and the clothes I was packing.

Personally, I rolled pajamas, t-shirts, and tank tops, and then laid the rolls down and stacked them onto each other. I tried to keep my rolled clothes as tightly packed together as I could, because I knew I was going to be folding other clothes, like shorts and jeans. Besides folding shorts and jeans, I also folded blouses and a sundress and laid them on top of my shorts and jeans. Of course I recommend looking into bringing a garment bag if you’re going away on a business trip or another professional outing and would like to keep your blouses and/or dresses neat and wrinkle free because folding, and trying to fit everything into a carry on, isn’t the best idea for nicer dress clothes.

And for undergarments and socks, I try to lay them flat into the mesh zippered pocket on the inside of my suitcase so that it doesn’t bulk up like rolling them would.

Tip 3: Packing everything else

To follow TSA’s liquid rule, I bought an empty travel kit (like this) and filled it at home with my own products; you can also buy travel sized products if you aren’t as picky with what you use. And while the TSA says that your liquids, including liquid makeups, have to be kept in a quart sized bag, I double wrapped mine in a gallon sized bag as well just to be safe in case of leaks, and then flattened it out and laid it on the top of my folded clothes.

For shoes, I decided to wear my heaviest pair onto the airplane, and wrapped my other pair of sneakers into a plastic bag to keep them off of my clothes when I was packing them. And for sandals and other flat shoes, I slipped them into the front pocket of my suitcase, but they have also been slipped into the perimeter of my suitcase before.

And for everything else, I try to pack them wherever they can fit. For example, books are laid down on top of everything, while I usually put my makeup, even powders and whatnot, into my TSA liquid bag.

I know this blog post is longer than usual, but I tried to be as thorough as I could and tried to write down any information that proved useful to me while I was struggling to pack a carry on for the first time! And as always, thank you for reading and comment down below some of your must use packing tips for a carry on!