Travelling light: the art of the cabin-only bag

I still remember the exact moment I stopped checking a bag. I was standing at a carousel in Lisbon, watching the same battered suitcases loop past for forty minutes, while the friend I'd just met at the gate was already outside in the sun, coffee in hand, waving at me through the glass. He'd flown with one backpack. I'd flown with a wardrobe. That night I dumped everything on a hostel bed, looked at what I'd actually worn, and started over.

These days I travel cabin-only. One bag, roughly 40 litres, and that's it. No belt clicking shut at the bag drop, no waiting at the carousel, no soute fee, no stomach-drop wondering if my luggage made the connection. Just me walking straight off the plane and into the day. I'm not going to pretend it's some spiritual awakening — it's mostly just easier. But the freedom of being able to move fast, change plans, hop on the next bus without a second thought? That part is real, and it's hard to give up once you've felt it.

The bag, the rules, and the one number that actually matters

My bag is a soft-sided backpack around 40 litres. That size is a sweet spot for me, but here's the honest caveat: cabin allowances vary a lot from one airline to the next, and they change. The budget carriers in particular are strict, and dimensions and weight limits are not standardised — what flies free on one airline is a paid extra on the next. So I never trust my memory: before every trip I check the specific airline's current limits, and I measure and weigh my packed bag at home, on a scale, before I'm anywhere near a counter. That last part matters more than anything else I'll tell you, because the expensive surprise isn't the size of the bag — it's the gate agent pulling out the metal sizer when you've guessed wrong and charging you more than your ticket cost. Weighing at home is two minutes of effort that has saved me a small fortune in airport-counter panic fees.

« The carousel is where everyone else is still standing. I'm already outside, deciding where lunch happens. »

One small thing that quietly removed a whole category of stress: keeping my ticket and boarding pass on my phone instead of on paper. It's one less thing to lose, one less thing to print, one less pocket to pat down at security. I also keep the airline's own app handy — it's usually the fastest way to get the exact, current cabin dimensions and to re-pull a boarding pass if mine vanishes. None of that is the reason I pack light, but a charged phone with data on it has quietly become part of the kit.

The capsule wardrobe: relax, you'll do laundry

The trick that makes 40 litres feel generous instead of punishing is the capsule wardrobe. I pack clothes that all share a palette — for me it's navy, grey, black, one warm neutral — so every top works with every bottom; nothing is precious, nothing is a single-outfit orphan. Three or four tops, two bottoms, layers I can stack when it's cold and peel when it's not. The mental shift is accepting that you'll wash things on the road: a sink, a bit of travel detergent, a few hours drying overnight, and you're packing for about a week instead of the whole trip. Two pieces of kit then earn their place every single time — compression packing cubes, which squeeze soft clothes down to a fraction of their loose volume, and the right pair of shoes on my feet, because the heaviest, bulkiest pair goes on at the airport, not in the bag, costing me zero litres of allowance. I also keep my liquids honest: everything 100 ml or under, in the clear resealable bag, ready to lift out at security without unpacking the whole thing.

When the soute wins (and why that's fine)

I want to be straight with you, because the internet is full of people pretending cabin-only works for absolutely everything. It doesn't. If your trip spans wildly different climates — beach heat one week, a snowy trek the next — the gear math sometimes just doesn't close, and a checked bag is the sane choice. Same goes for anything bulky and specialised: serious hiking kit, dive gear, camera rigs, a tent. Forcing all of that into a 40-litre bag isn't minimalism, it's masochism. So what I've landed on is a default, not a dogma: cabin-only is my normal setting because most of my trips are city-hopping, mild-ish weather, no special equipment, and when a trip breaks those assumptions I check the bag without guilt and enjoy the swim. Knowing when to break your own rule is the actual skill.

What to remember

Travelling cabin-only isn't about sacrifice, it's about subtraction — taking away the carousel, the soute fee, the dead weight, until what's left is just you and the trip. Build a capsule wardrobe in one palette, lean on compression cubes, wear your heavy shoes, keep your liquids legal, and put your tickets on your phone. Then do the one boring thing nobody skips: check your airline's current limits and weigh the bag at home. And when a trek or a wildly mixed climate genuinely calls for more, check the bag and move on — the point was always the freedom, not the rule.

— Sarah, still the first one out of the airport, still slightly smug about it.