If you’re anything like me, the first time I had to pack for a big European trip, I was like a deer staring into headlights.

I’m going to give you all the tips I’ve learned the hard way for packing light on an overseas trip.

Where do you even begin? What kind of luggage is best? How many outfits should I pack? Will I be able to wash clothes? What is the weather? Are clothing standards different there? What can be both comfortable and nice looking for all my photos?

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There are so many questions to consider! I’m going to do my best to answer all of these.

Let’s start with the why for packing lightly.

First off, it is $75 to check one bag per person on a U.S. to London flight. You also have to return home, so that is $150. Now times that by a family of five. Your total is $750, which you just saved by packing light!!

Any time you check luggage, you are risking your bag not making it to your destination when you do, especially if you have any connections whatsoever.

In the U.S. if your bag is late, no biggie. They will drive it to your hotel for you. Overseas, you may not be planning on even staying in the same country the next day. There may be a language barrier. Lost luggage is the last thing you want to deal with.

Also, chances are you are going to be using a mix of trains or taxis to get to your destinations multiple times during your European vacation. Toting a giant suitcase around is a giant pain. You want luggage that feels portable to you. It’s important for you to be able to handle all of your bags yourself at any given time or place on your vacation. You can load get it all on and off trains with ease, it fits into cab trunks, and it isn’t too heavy for you to manage.

Trains are bound to be a part of your European vacation. Walking will be too.

My favorite luggage to use:

A small carry-on size roller bag + a shoulder bag + a light crossbody purse tucked into your shoulder bag = travel perfection.

I’ve tried several different things over the years. For our Italy trip, I took nothing but a giant backpack and a purse. That worked, but I didn’t love my lack of clothing options. Also, the backpack was a little too heavy on my shoulders for long at a time. Plus, I was in Italy. In the big cities of Italy, where we were, pick-pockets are a concern. Backpacks are probably the least secure type of luggage you can use. Even a clumsy thief might successfully swipe something from bookbag without you noticing.

But mostly, I just hated carrying that backpack around. Sometimes my poor husband carried it for me. He’d have his on his back and mine strapped to his front, if we needed to get through a train station especially quickly.

So this is my absolute favorite way to travel. This works when you are going anywhere at all.

I especially like a roller bag with four wheels, but any carry-on size roller bag will do.

Then I choose a purse that is both lightweight and crossbody. My shoulders tire easily, so I put very little in my purse. In fact, for our last big trip I ordered a light weight wallet too. In my purse, I place only the little wallet, sunglasses, phone, hand sanitizer, and chapstick. Carrying a thermos around is too heavy, so unless I’m going somewhere like Pompeii, I buy drinks when I get thirsty and order free water with meals.

Every passenger on an airplane is entitled to two carry-on bags. This is important to remember.

You may place one under the seat in front of you and one in the overhead bins. (Many U.S. airlines now charge you extra for carry-on bags, so make sure you choose the right fare.)

To get around this “one personal bag and one suitcase” rule, I pack my purse into a larger shoulder bag that I will call my personal bag and place under the seat in front of me.

What kind of purse should you take?

I personally prefer a lightweight cross-body. It is harder to snatch your purse or anything in it if you wear it cross-body. You will probably be standing and walking more than usual, so keep it as light as you possibly can.

Now for What to Pack!

Most of us travel during the summer or at Christmas, and the weather does make it different. Either way, I try to limit myself to five basic outfits. You want a couple of pairs of your favorite pants/shorts/skirts that will go with all of the shirts you pack, or at least most of the shirts you pack.

Pick four or five casual tops and one top for dressing nice to go out at night. Or you can pack a dress to go out at night. Many dresses will work for day or night.

Don’t skimp on underwear! Pack five to seven pairs of those just in case. Summer vacations get sweaty, and you may want extra changes. When we were in Israel, I had to go to a store and buy more underwear because I was changing twice a day with the heat.

You want socks that will go with your outfits or at least to wear if your feet get cold at the hotel.

Even in the summer, I pack some kind of sweater or sweatshirt. The airplane ride across the ocean is always cold.

Please learn from my flip-flop lesson, unless you don’t care. Europeans do not approve of flip-flops for everyday wear. They are for the pool or the beach. Ha! Thankfully, I was too ignorant of the fashion rules to feel self-conscious.

They do dress better than us, in most of Europe.

I quickly felt out of place in Rome. It was obvious to me that I was under-dressed. Alan was fine, but I’d packed moisture wicking work out tops and flip-flops. Some of my shirts were okay, but I never felt well dressed when surrounded by so many pretty dresses!

For our UK trip, I was more experienced.

I packed two dresses, a blue shirt, a pink sweater, a teal shirt, a dark blue sleeveless shirt, a pair of jeans, and a pair of hiking capri-length pants. Plus, I wore a pink shirt and a pair of versatile breathable black pants on the plane. I also carried a warm pullover for the plane. For the hotel, I packed two t-shirts to sleep in with sleeping shorts and my cozy slides. Oh! And a hat!

I went light on make-up too, I packed the same basic stuff I wear everyday and no extras. Plus, I got travel sized toiletries.

How I make four or five outfits work for even a two-week trip:

This may sound weird, but we wash our clothes in the sink! Soap is soap. You can even buy a small container of laundry detergent if it’s important to you. I use whatever soap or shampoo I have on hand. I scrub the clothes in the sink wherever we are staying and then hang the clothes to dry.

On our England trip, we were lucky. Even though there were five of us (which is so much laundry), we had two nights where we stayed at a nice apartment. That meant there were plenty of places to hang our clothes to dry.

At the very least, do this hack for your underwear. It’s so easy to wash your underwear in the sink.

Your hotel might even have laundry facilities or service, in which case you can use that.

The most important thing about packing for a big trip like this is comfortable shoes.

I vividly remember having to shop for shoes in Atlanta when I was on vacation with Alan because I was around twenty-five and had not yet learned the comfortable shoe when traveling rule.

Now that I’m in my forties and fighting plantar fasciitis, this isn’t even negotiable. I must wear actual sneakers with everything, even dresses.

For our last trip, I wore one pair of tennis shoes on the plane, and I packed a pair of rehab slides and a backup pair of sneakers. I wasn’t sure yet which tennis shoes would be the most comfortable.

These are my favorite shoes for traveling:

Any Dr. Scholl’s tennis shoes are awesome!! Make sure you size up because they run small, but the padding in these is so perfect. They are up there with Asics and Brooks in my opinion, while looking more like an outfit shoe than just a gym shoe.

I put more tips in this video I made. In the video, I show you how to pack your roller bag in a way that you can see all of your clothes, and I show you some more handy tips.

Last but not least, this inflatable neck pillow was a lifesaver on the airplane!

I couldn’t find this exact one online. I’m not sure where Alan bought it, but they sell similar ones on Amazon. We had the overnight flight from D.C. to London, and this thing was a life saver for me!!

I hope you get to take your trip and have a wonderful time!

There are few things more exciting than embarking on a new adventure. I hope these tips will help you pack and make your time in Europe, or wherever you are going, even better.

The post How to Pack Light for Europe Using Only Carry-On Bags appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

On the last day before our flight out of Italy, Alan and I needed to get from halfway up the boot in Naples, down to the island boot tip of Sicily, to fly out of Naval Air Station Sigonella.

Our whole vacation was built around our military space available flights. To learn more about flying to Italy using military space A, if you are active duty or retired, click here.

All of the flights back to the U.S. were leaving out of Sigonella that Sunday. Meanwhile, we were still up in Naples.

Originally, we hoped to fly commercially from Naples to Sicily. Flights were not much more expensive than the train, so why not? After all, this was no speed train. It was going to take us a full eight hours to ride down the coast of Italy on a train.

But of course, as I mentioned before in my Italy Trip in a Nutshell post, there was an airline strike. The strike only lasted for the one day that we wanted to fly. You cannot make this stuff up. This is how we ended up on a train from Naples to Sigonella.

I guess other people had the same dilemma because by the time we bought our train tickets, there were no seats that were together. There were some nearby each other, just not together. We took what we could get and hoped for the best.

Important tip: If you are booking a train ticket to Sigonella, the stop you are looking for is the “Catania Centrale” stop.

Alan and I had completely different experiences on our journey down the boot to Sigonella.

My experience was pleasant enough. I had a window seat, by the air conditioner. The seat groups faced each other, with a table in the middle. All of the people in my group of four were always quiet. There were stops where the people would change out, but it was always low maintenance people with no drama.

I rested the day away, staring out my window at the Italian countryside and reading.

It was the opposite for Alan. First of all , Alan did not got to sit in his real seat until the last hour or so of the trip. An Italian mom traveling with her three children couldn’t get their seats together either, so she picked a group of seats and just asked other people to move. I don’t blame her a bit. Traveling with children is hard. Everyone was kind about it.

Every few stops, someone would board the train and find Alan sitting in their seat because of all the shuffling. Meanwhile, Alan did not have a window seat with the air conditioning like I did. He said he sweated the entire day.

Oh! And there was one Italian lady, at the beginning of the trip, who got upset about the snack bar not being open, or maybe it was the restrooms. I never knew. I do not speak Italian. Anyway, she protested loudly to the train conductor when he came around and made a bit of a scene. She, of course, was sitting across from Alan.

His day was hot, confusing, embarrassing, and interesting. I can safely say this was Alan’s most miserable day in Italy, and even it was not that bad.

I greatly preferred my quiet, uninteresting ride by the window. There were so many ancient Roman ruins to see! I’m genuinely sorry I did not take more photos.

Y’all are going to fire me as a travel blogger if I do not better remember to take good photos.

When the whole train boarded a ferry to Sicily, that was the coolest part of the day.

They take the entire train and drive it onto a boat! Then they move the train cars around how they want them, and it seemed like there was more than one floor of train cars, but I could be mistaken. It was so cool to me.

On the ferry stop, Alan and I had to switch trains! When they are finished transferring the trains onto the ferry, they open the doors. All the people pour out of the train cars and haul themselves upstairs to look around outside. You get a nice view of the Mediterranean Sea, between the island of Sicily and the mainland of Italy.

It did feel extra special to go up on deck, feel the wind in your hair, and look around at the open sea. This is something I have loved my whole life. Ever since my dad bought a ski boat when I was in middle school, I have enthusiastically been a boat person.

You also can use this time to use the restroom, buy a drink from the drink machine, stretch your legs, and find your new seats. Thankfully, on this last leg of our journey, we had seats together! Plus, these seats felt more private, as there was no table. It was more like traditional transportation. We weren’t facing anyone but the back of the seat in front of us.

This leg of the trip was rather short, and we were in Catania in no time. Before this trip, I had no idea there was a Navy base in Sicily.

Now we only had to figure out how to find our way from the train station to the base, where we booked our hotel for the night.

Alan used the Uber app to book our taxis the whole time we were in Italy, and it worked beautifully.

I have heard many stories of taxis taking advantage of tourists and price gouging. We did not have that experience at all, using the Uber app.

All of our taxi drivers were helpful. In fact, the cab drivers were a big part of what made our trip a success.

You know who else was wonderful? The gelato people at the train station. We had trouble finding the taxi stop, and there was a truck selling gelato right outside the train station. We bought gelato and asked them for directions, but they did not speak English and couldn’t understand us.

They did understand we were asking for directions to somewhere though, so they did the best thing they could think of to do. They handed us free bus tickets, trying to help us out! Can you believe that? I’d say the Sicilian hospitality was unbeatable.

We gave their tickets back, thanking them profusely. And we did figure out where to meet the taxi. It was nearby.

I will say our reliance upon American naval bases for lodging was both a blessing and a curse.

It was a blessing because we had a place to land where everyone spoke English and they changed dollars to Euros at a low rate. The downside was the we had to take way more buses and taxis to get to these out-of-the-way hotels.

Next time we go, because we are going to go again one day for sure, I think we will stay closer to the heart of things. It would be nice to spend less money on taxis and less time in bus lines and hot, sweaty buses.

One thing you may not know is there are two different naval base locations for Sigonella.

We had to catch a taxi to take us from the base with the lodging to the base with the airport. At that time of day, first thing in the morning on a Sunday, there was no bus.

We ordered our taxi and set out on foot to the gates of the base. We’d gotten used to hiking to post gates to find a ride to town. It felt like we did a lot of that in Naples.

Thankfully, the Navy Lodge did have hot coffee available. Actually, almost every single place we stayed also had cappuccino. I also learned that Italians strongly believe you can only drink cappuccino in the morning. I mean, with the effects of caffeine, they are not wrong.

Our ride across town to the Sigonella Air Station was pleasant and uneventful.

Our driver told us all about the crops we saw and the volcano, Mt. Etna. Because Mt. Etna does let off steam, it is considered safe. Scientists are not worried about a Pompeii incident occurring from this volcano. This was the very first active volcano I have ever seen in my life, so that was exciting.

Getting seats on the plane back to the U.S. was easy.

There were many seats available. Just know that if you ever fly space available with the military, you do have to spend hours longer than really seems necessary, waiting in the airport. It was worth it for the $80 plane ticket though!!

All in all, our Italy experience was one like no other I have ever had.

I still cannot even believe we got to do this. It was incredible.

Yes, I was anxious most of the time, mostly because we overbooked our summer. Plus, it made me uncomfortable not knowing the language. I hope next time we go overseas I take more time to study the language.

Italy is a beautiful country, rich with so much history. I’m going to leave you with a few resources below, in case you are planning an Italy trip too.

Resources:

Trainline is Europe’s biggest train and coach app. You can use it to book train and bus tickets.

Video on How to fly military space available to Italy and back

Form to sign up for Space A Travel

Touring Vatican City Museum (with Sistine Chapel)

Touring Pompeii Archaeological Site (with photos)

Things to do in Sigonella

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