How to pack a week into The Carry-On 35L

By Will (designer & co-founder)

This is everything I took around Sri Lanka in one Carry-On 35L, and how it all went in. It's what I'd pack for a week anywhere warm, and with some washing along the way, it went further than that.

What I packed

Clothes

  • 4 short-sleeve shirts
  • 2 T-shirts
  • 1 light jumper
  • 1 light down jacket
  • 1 Rain Jacket
  • 2 pairs of shorts
  • 1 pair of light trousers
  • 1 pair of swim shorts, which doubled as hiking shorts in the heat
  • 7 pairs of underwear
  • 5 pairs of socks
  • 1 cap and 1 hat

Shoes

  • Birkenstocks
  • Trainers

Tech

  • Camera 
  • Kindle
  • Headphones
  • Travel adapter
  • Cables

Kit

  • Binoculars (I'm a bit of a birder)
  • First aid kit
  • Wash bag
  • Sunglasses
  • Travel towel
  • Water bottle
  • Repair kit

Carried separately

How it went in

Everything went into the Carry-On, a set of two packing cubes and a laundry bag, with a Sacoche for the things I needed to grab quickly.

  • The first cube: 4 x shirts, 2 x t-shirts, underwear & socks
  • The second cube: 2 x shorts, 1 x swim shorts, travel towel

  • The laundry bag: sits flat at the back of the bag when nothing in it, hooks into the top once i start to fill with washing.
     
  • The rest of the bag:
    • Wires and repair kit live in mesh front pocket. 
    • Wash Bag & First aid kit sit above packing cubes
    • Rain jacket lives at front ontop of cubes for easy access
    • Headphones and binoculars in the top hood pocket
    • Birkenstocks in the elastic cord on outside of the backpack
  • The Tripper Sacoche Bag: my passport, sunglasses and anything I'd want without opening the bag. It's big enough for my Fuji X100 too, so the camera was always to hand on trains and in tuk-tuks.

Travel days

On travel days I wore the bulkiest things rather than packing them. The trainers did the travelling and the hiking. The down jacket came out for early mornings, like the trip to the airport, and on the flight. On the longer train journeys, rolled up, it made a decent pillow.

Four things I'd tell anyone packing light

1. Let things do two jobs. My swim shorts doubled as hiking shorts in the heat. The trainers covered travel days and hikes. The down jacket was a layer, then a pillow.

2. Pack for a week, then wash. Seven pairs of underwear is the real limit. After that I did a mix of hand washing and local laundry, which is easy almost anywhere and means one bag can last as long as the trip does.

3. Wear the bulkiest things on travel days. Shoes and a jacket take up more room in the bag than anything else. Wear them, and the cubes have space for everything else.

4. Bring a way to fix things. I carry a small repair kit I put together myself: a spare patch of fabric, some lining fabric, two needles, a length of polyester thread and two small cable ties. It weighs almost nothing, and it means a torn seam or a snapped zip pull is a ten-minute job rather than the end of a bag.


What I packed it in


Will Co-founder, Salkan