Packing for Travel Part 2 - The Checked Bag

My suitcase is my home and office while I’m on the go, and there’s a decent amount of redundancy, since my current work is team-based, and part of my job is to keep them functioning smoothly in the field. This is why 25% of my luggage weight is cliff bars and office supplies.

Items pictured, vertically right to left: Dress shoes, additional gallon zip-lock bags, folders and manila envelopes with additional documents, duct tape (black), masking tape, books, running shoes, oblique strategies deck, card game, business cards, cheap folding knife, head-lamp, bandanna, packing cube (socks, undershorts, and undershirts), zip-lock bag with secondary toiletries (comb, deodorant, assorted vitamins, hand sanitizer, Emergen-C,  lozenges, q-tips, soap, full-size toothbrush),  small travel cube (t-shirts, and misc. loose items), crushable hat, binoculars, large travel cube (dress shirts and dress slacks), spare notepads, gallon zip-lock bag with tertiary toiletries (electric razor, lotion, sunscreen, bug repellent, lint-roller), gallon zip-lock with office supplies (sharpies, highlighters, markers, pens, post-it notes, binder clips, scissors, voice recorder), gallon zip-lock (assorted cliff bars). Not pictured – suit jacket and hiking boots.

The most interesting and exciting discovery I’ve made in the course of getting better at travel is “travel-cubes.” Somehow these modular stuff sacks make packing insanely easy. That's a week's worth of clothes in the image below, except for my suit jacket, and footwear. A must-have from now on.

Some various comments on products above:

Books include “The Nature of Scientific Revolutions,” and a general history of Central America. Decks of  cards include the game "Flux" and Brian Eno's creative problem-solving deck, "Oblique Strategies"

Some reflection on what was and wasn't useful will come next week.