One Bag

I've spent most of my career working either at a remote site (i.e. not the HQ or where customers are) or remotely (i.e. from home), so I've had to travel a good amount. This year I've done more than I have in quite a while so I thought I'd try to streamline my travel process. I've decided to try and adopt one bag travel in order to make my actual travel days a little easier. I decided to try out the Nomatic travel bag to satisfy this goal. I just came back from my second trip to Israel this year and I thought I'd write about my experience with the bag. The idea is that the bag is super functional with a bunch of built in features and add-ons to simplify the travel experience and help you maximize what you can pack. I ended up augmenting the bag with some packing cubes from Eagle Creek.

Overall, the bag worked out pretty well and I was pretty happy with it. Once packed, it was super easy to catch my cab to the airport, get through security and get onto the plane. Here I am at the hotel on my way to the car. Essentially, just me and a backpack (a large backpack).

This work trip was a little over a week long and I brought enough clothes for the week, a toiletries bag, running stuff, my laptop and kindle, various cables, an extra battery, as well as a small messanger bag and laptop sleeve to use once I got to Tel Aviv. I also had a stainless steel water bottle and my VMware badge in the bag. I carried my phone and passport in my pants. How did that all fit in?

The packing cubes really made a difference in fitting everything into the bag. I bought the bag with an optional vacuum bag and shirt folder but ended up not using them. It was quiet hot in Israel so I mostly took linen and seersucker tops. I took a linen trouser but actually ended up just wearing the pants I flew in all week, which are Outlier Futureworks. Those pants were AMAZING for both the plane and the crazy hot and humid weather in Israel. They aren't super dressy, but they look kind of like a chino and were totally fine for my office wear and our nightly outings to Tel Aviv. They breathe well, which helped with the weather. They dry really quickly too! I gave them a mid-week wash in the hotel sink and then a quick iron in the morning before we went to the office and they were totally fine. They also have a coating that makes them a little stain resistant, so the coffee I spilled on them twice didn't really have a chance to soak in.

Here are the packing cubes and what went into them.

One cotton t-shirt, linen pants, two short sleeve linen button ups, one long sleeve linen button up and a short sleeve seer sucker button up.

5 boxer briefs.

Five poly/spandex (super wicking tech material) undershirts, a running shorts and tech running shirt.

And here is the last one, all packed up.

Overall, the bag worked out pretty great. It fit in the overhead bin on a 777-300ER, 737-800, a CRJ 200 and an ERJ 145. The last two took a little bit of squishing to make it fit, but it worked out in the end. I also made it through customs and TSA pre-check in Newark on the way back from Tel Aviv in under 20 minutes. That worked out really well since I only had 45 minutes from landing until my flight to Denver started boarding! Landing in Tel Aviv was pretty easy as well. Removing the wait for the baggage claim in Colorado Springs, Newark and Tel Aviv was a nice benefit.

Since everything is in that bag, the one downside was figuring out what I wanted to grab before getting in my seat. I ended up just grabbing my kindle (which was in the main compartment flap) and my external battery, USB cable and headphones for the long flight from Tel Aviv to Newark. For the other flights, I just grabbed the kindle. It was pretty easy to access, I only needed to unzip the main compartment a little to each in and pull the kindle out. The others were in the side pocket, which wasn't super easy to do once I had the bag in the overhead. For the future, I'll probably think a little more strategically about packing those bits before the flight to make them a little easier to grab. I carried the messanger bag in Israel with my laptop and assorated stuff for the day. I don't think I'd especially have a second bag for the plane as that would kind of defeat the purpose of this, but maybe little bag with cables, advil, hand sanitzier, wipes or something to make the flight a little more comfortable might be a good add on.