How to Travel for Two Weeks with Just a 10 kg Bag

Can you really travel for two weeks with just a 10 kg cabin bag?

Before our recent trip to Greece and Bulgaria, I was not completely sure. Sixteen days felt like quite a long time to live out of a cabin bag, especially when we were travelling between two countries and taking three different flights.

But after doing it, I can say that it was much easier than I expected.

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We travelled from Birmingham to Athens with Jet2, Athens to Sofia with Bulgaria Air and finally Sofia back to Birmingham with Ryanair. Both Bhavin and me, each had one cabin bag plus a small under-seat backpack.

Our main cabin bags were a CabinZero and an Arcido Faroe. For our smaller bags, we used a Helly Hansen Oslo Max backpack and an Xplore Pioneer backpack.

When we left Birmingham, our cabin bags weighed around 8.5 kg each. So despite all my worrying before the trip, we were actually comfortably below the 10 kg limit.

And more importantly, we had everything we needed.

 

Start with a lightweight cabin bag

If your entire luggage allowance is only 10 kg, the weight of the bag itself becomes quite important.

This is one of the reasons the CabinZero worked so well for this trip. It is a very lightweight cabin bag, so you are not using a large part of your allowance before you have even started packing.

That makes a difference.

With heavier wheeled cabin cases, the empty case itself can take up a surprising amount of your weight allowance. With the CabinZero, much more of that allowance was available for clothes, toiletries and everything else we actually wanted to take.

I also like the backpack style for this kind of trip. We were moving between airports, metro stations, buses and accommodation in two different cities. Being able to put the cabin bag on my back rather than pull a case behind me made getting around much easier. There were no wheels to worry about on pavements or steps either.

For a multi-city trip like ours, I would choose this style of bag again.

A lightweight under-seat bag is just as useful

I think the under-seat bag deserves a bit more thought than it usually gets.

It is tempting to treat it as somewhere to cram everything that will not fit into your main cabin bag. But if you are travelling with several airlines, that is not always a good idea.

Bulgaria Air, for example, had a combined weight allowance for the cabin bag and personal item, so we still needed to keep our smaller bags fairly light.

This is where the Helly Hansen Oslo Max backpack worked well.

It gave us useful extra space without adding a lot of unnecessary weight. I used the smaller bags for things such as my laptop, toiletries, chargers, our collapsible water bottle and snacks.

Our other under-seat bag was the Xplore Pioneer 40cm Weatherproof Backpack. It is lightweight, has a 20-litre capacity and fits within Ryanair’s under-seat size allowance, so it worked well for this trip. I also liked the padded straps, separate laptop section and useful internal pockets, which made it easy to organise the things we wanted close at hand during the journey.

The backpack style of both these bags was useful once we reached our destinations too. We did not need to carry a separate sightseeing bag because our under-seat bags simply became our day bags.

This is the kind of thing I like when packing light. One item doing two jobs means one less thing to pack.

Pack clothes that work together

Clothes were the part I thought would be most difficult.

We were away for 16 days, but there was obviously no point packing 16 different outfits. Instead, we each took around eight tops, eight sets of daily-wear undergarments, nightwear and a small number of trousers.

I wore my heavier jeans on the travel days and packed one cotton trouser and one hiking trouser. Bhavin packed a linen trouser and a horse riding trouser because he was also going on a six-day horse riding trip.

I deliberately chose tops that worked with all the trousers I had packed. That meant I could mix and match everything instead of having clothes that only worked as one particular outfit.

Lightweight tops made a real difference

Most of my tops were lightweight, including several from Helly Hansen.

I took their lightweight and moisture-wicking tops, including the HH Shine Solen T-Shirt and HH The Ocean Race T-Shirt. I also had a few lightweight tops from Sherpa Adventure Gear, another brand I love.

These were exactly the sort of clothes I wanted for this trip. They took up very little space in the packing cubes and added hardly any bulk to the bag. They were also comfortable in the hot weather we experienced in both Athens and Sofia.

Athens reached around 36°C while we were there, and Sofia was also much warmer than expected at around 28-30°C.

The other big advantage was washing them. Lightweight clothes dried very quickly, which is important when you only have a small number of tops with you. There is little point washing something halfway through a trip if it then takes two days to dry.

I would definitely prioritise lightweight, quick-drying tops again rather than simply packing my normal everyday wardrobe.

Do not pack too many shoes

Shoes are another easy way to lose space and weight.

I decided to keep things very simple and took just one pair of travel shoes for myself. I wore them on the flights, while sightseeing and basically everywhere else during the trip. A trusted old pair of Merrells were my pick for this trip. They support my flat feet properly, which is more important to me than having different shoes for different outfits.

Bhavin wore his riding boots during the flights because they were his heaviest footwear. He packed a pair of sandals in his bag.

Wearing your heaviest shoes while travelling is such an easy way to save space.

I know travelling with only one pair of shoes will not suit everyone, but it worked perfectly well for me.

Washing clothes is the secret to packing less

This is probably the biggest thing that made the 10 kg plan work.

You simply do not need 16 days of clothes for a 16-day trip.

We washed our clothes once, just before leaving Athens to Sofia. Because the weather was so warm, everything dried quickly.

We had deliberately chosen accommodation where we would have access to laundry facilities. Our apartment in Sofia also had a washing machine. Interestingly, we never even needed to use it. The wash in Athens gave us enough fresh clothes to see us through the rest of the trip. But knowing that we had a washing machine available in Sofia meant I felt comfortable packing fewer clothes before we left home.

If I was doing another long cabin-bag-only trip, laundry facilities would definitely be something I checked when booking accommodation.

Keep toiletries simple

We were quite strict with toiletries. We mainly took our skincare products, mini sunscreens and fragrances. Our accommodation supplied basics such as shampoo and shower gel, so we did not need to carry those around with us for 16 days. We did not need to buy anything extra in Athens or Sofia either. And I think there were probably one or two things in my toiletries bag that could have stayed at home. 

I also learnt something else from this trip. It might actually be worth emailing accommodation before travelling and asking exactly what they provide.

Both places had umbrellas available, for example. We had carried our own, along with lightweight rain jackets, and never needed either. That is extra weight we could easily have avoided.

Make your electronics do more than one job

My laptop was one of the things I was never going to leave at home. For a trip this long, I need it. 

But we did make cuts elsewhere. Our Sony camera stayed at home. Instead, our phones became our cameras throughout the entire trip. I also left my e-reader behind because I already have reading apps on my phone.

Again, one device doing several jobs helped keep the overall weight down.

The Beats cable was one of my most useful travel items

One thing that worked particularly well was my Beats by Dre USB-C charging cable.

I used the long braided USB-C to USB-C cable with the HyperJuice travel adaptor, and together they replaced my normal bulky laptop charger. That was a much better setup for travelling light.

The cable supports high-powered charging, so I could use it for my laptop as well as other USB-C devices rather than carrying separate cables and chargers for everything.

But it was the length of the cable that I appreciated most. Hotel and apartment plug sockets have a habit of being in the most awkward places. Sometimes they are behind furniture. Sometimes they are nowhere near the table or bed. 

Having a long cable meant I could plug in the laptop and still comfortably use it without sitting next to the wall. It sounds like a small thing, but over a 16-day trip it was genuinely useful. The braided design also feels much better suited to travel than some of the thinner charging cables I have used before.

Combined with the HyperJuice adaptor and a multi-port charger, it meant we could charge several devices without carrying a collection of bulky plugs.

I will definitely use the same setup on future trips.

There are a few small things worth carrying

Our packing cubes earned their place too.

We used separate cubes for tops, undergarments and other clothing. They did not necessarily create more room, but they kept everything organised. When you are living out of the same bag for more than two weeks, that makes a difference.

Our Hydaway collapsible water bottle was another useful item. We kept it collapsed while going through airport security and then filled it once we were inside.

We also carried a lightweight foldable shopping bag in our backpacks every day.

The reusable cutlery sets, on the other hand, never came out of the bag. That is one item I would probably leave behind next time.

Travelling without checked luggage was much easier

The biggest benefit became obvious every time we arrived at an airport. There was no luggage carousel. We could get through immigration and simply leave.

Because all four bags had backpack straps, moving between airports, metro stations and accommodation was easy too. Neither of us found the bags uncomfortable to carry.

Our bags were never weighed or measured by Jet2, Bulgaria Air or Ryanair on this trip. But I would still always pack within the published limits. We had three different airlines to consider, and their allowances were not identical, so we did rearrange a few things between bags during the trip.

We even had room for souvenirs

I was slightly worried about this before leaving because I knew I would probably buy a few things.

And I did. We bought souvenirs and other bits in both Greece and Bulgaria, but fitting everything in was not difficult. 

Some of the snacks we had brought from home had been eaten by then, which conveniently created extra room. Our bags were fuller on the journey home, but we were still within our allowance.

Would I travel with only 10 kg again?

Absolutely. The biggest surprise was how little we actually needed.

At the beginning of the trip, 10 kg sounded quite restrictive. In reality, I never felt that we were missing anything important. I had enough clothes. I did not wish I had another pair of shoes. We had all the electronics we actually needed. 

The only thing I might add next time is a small power bank. Because our phones were also our cameras, we used their batteries quite heavily while sightseeing. A small power bank would have been useful on longer days when charging points were not easily available.

I think this type of travel works particularly well if you are happy to wash and re-wear clothes, choose lightweight clothing and avoid packing for every possible situation.

It may be more difficult if you like having lots of outfit choices, several pairs of shoes or full-size toiletries with you.

For us, though, it worked. And my biggest lesson from the whole trip?

We usually need much less than we think we do.

Start with lightweight bags. Choose clothes carefully. Wash things during the trip. Make your electronics do more than one job. And question every one of those 'just in case' items before it goes into the bag.

Two weeks with 10 kg is not only doable. I would happily travel this way again.

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Do you usually travel with just cabin luggage, or are you someone who prefers taking a checked suitcase?

I would love to know your best tips for travelling light. Is there something you always pack, something you have stopped taking, or a trick that helps you keep your luggage weight down?

Share your tips in the comments below. I am always looking for ideas to make packing lighter and easier.