Bye-bye big bag…

Where we’re going, we don’t need big bags…

I’d had my Lowe Alpine Travel Kinni 60 for years, but as the Travel Kinni hadn’t been used since 2008, it’s finding a new home.

Which shouldn’t be hard as the bag has found its way to Geneva on its own before – it went on an earlier plane than I did, a no-no even in pre-911 years!

Yes, the bag and the Monarch luggage label from the bag’s last trip has been handed in at our local charity shop, as has a small Lowe Alpine pack and an elderly Karrimor hand luggage bag.

Apart from wanting space in the back room, there’s also the matter of having standardised my travel luggage to just three bags – the studenty man bag bought at Imperial College, London in 2015, the large size Healthy Back Bag that came courtesy of a BOGOF deal Caroline took advantage of five years ago and the almost four year old Osprey Farpoint 40 that has been used on our European (and a few longer UK ones) trips since 2013.

At 10, 15 and 40 litres respectively, the bags mentioned in the last paragraph should be fine for all of the trips we have in mind over the next few years.

The one from Imperial College has been commented on by staff when overnighting in Hampton by Hilton and Holiday Inn hotels in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sheffield whilst the Healthy Back Bag proved useful for weekend-length trips to London, Northumberland and North Norfolk.

The Ospreys have been commented at airport check-in desks, whilst wandering up to our hotel in Tavira (the lady making the comments was a seasoned traveller from Hawaii who was wheeling a big wheelie case) and stared at in disbelief by a bunch of fellow Brits as we checked out of that Tavira hotel with our bags two days later.

Although the benefits of travelling hand luggage are well-known, it’s been interesting to see what people have been looking at in the way of travel bags in shops here in the UK.

Most have been going for big bags rather than smaller, more practical items. I’ve kept quiet as people have been plumping for those big bags, even though I’ve heard some of the prospective destinations that the purchasers were heading to.

When I was in retail, it proved difficult to convince people that they didn’t need a 70-80 travel pack for two weeks in Thailand (consensus is 35-40 litre max) as there are things called shops over there that mean that they didn’t need to take EVERYTHING with them!

We weren’t the only Brits using hand luggage on our last visit to Portugal, even though the hotel we were in iss regarded as one of the Algarve’s best.

All we did to stick to the unwritten dress code was to have smarter wash & wear clothes and to eat in family owned cafes and restaurants rather than the hotel dining room or gaffs with high prices on the menus displayed outside the establishments.