Packing Permutations

How much can you pack in 23kg? Believe it or not quite a lot. This year the company I am working for in Spain decided to book everyone on direct flights to Madrid on Air Transat. My previous experience with Air Transat has been positive, but because they are a budget airline their baggage allowance is also budget.

Most transatlantic flights allow 2 bags weighing 23kg PER BAG. Air Transat allows 23Kg TOTAL with any amount of bags. This complicated my packing plans for the next 14 months. I needed some summer camp clothes for Spain, dress clothes for work and fall clothes for Russia.

Despite these initial setbacks, I finally found a packing list that worked. It probably includes a lot of stuff that I really don’t need and there is things I probably forgot. But as always the contents of my bag is never the same when I depart compared to when I come back. Things get left behind and I buy new things.

I kind of broke my own personal rule about travelling with only one big bag and one day backpack (the contents of the packing list are divided among the backpack, daypack, suitcase and purse pictured above). I justified this to myself by remembering that I was going to be away for more than a year. I probably could have got it all one bag instead of taking two half empty bags.

So now my entire life for the next year is contained in four bags with 23kg of packed baggage and 12kg of carry-on stuff.