One Bag Work Travel

Auryn Engel
3 min readMar 24, 2023

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Currently, I have to travel quite a lot for work. In the beginning, I used a suitcase and a backpack. This was annoying as hell since you have to get it up and down stairs in airports, in and out of caps and if you take a walk in the city, this is even more annoying.

I am in the subreddit r/onebag and was following this already quite a long. Not only this, but also I would describe myself as minimalist and try to own only what I need. So for me, it was clear, I have to take part in the challenge and try to travel with just the backpack. This makes the travel and the hustle of packing so much easier. Packing is done in under 10 minutes since I already know, what should be in which pack and where I find it in my flat.

What I pack

Here is an image of all the items, I pack into the bag. These are the essentials I need for a 4-day trip. Usually, I travel from Monday to Thursday to the client side.

List of all these items

Clothing

  • T-Shirts (H&M Slim Fit)
  • Underwear (also H&M Basics)
  • Socks
  • Sleeping Shorts and Shirt (usually some oversized shirt and a big short)
  • Gym Shorts (just the first black ones I found)
  • Extra Pullover (normally a thin one if I have a thick one on, or the other way around)

Tech

  • MacBook Pro 16" (work)
  • iPad Pro 12.9" (note taking, watching stuff on the travel or hotel)
  • Apple Pencil
  • iPhone Pro (private)
  • AirPods Pro (private)
  • Chargers
  • Privacy Screen for the MacBook
  • Lightning and 3.5mm Headphones

Hygiene

  • Face Creme (basic one from DM with UV protection)
  • Parfum (also DM? I am not sure)
  • Old Spice Captain (my go-to deodorant)
  • Beard Wax (I still experimenting on that, if oil or wax or whatever)
  • hair wax
  • Toothpaste
  • Toothbrush
  • Comb (mostly for the beard)
  • Nailfile (since the bigger ones are taken away from me, I bought a small collapsable one for the plane)
  • Tongue Scraper

Extras

  • Waterbottle (I have the one from Nalgene and really loving it, cheap and durable)
  • yfood (Since I am vegan and don’t like the hotel breakfast, I bring my shakes, sometimes yfood, sometimes huel, still in the experimenting phase)
  • packing cubes (these are as well from IKEA)
  • backpack (The North Face Base Camp Fuse Box, really easy and affordable backpack that have enouph space for all my stuff)
  • empty packing cube (for my dirty clothes)

Packed in Cubes

If I have everything together, I pack it in packing cubes. These are the ones from IKEA, really cheap and durable. This looks like this.

Then I just put it in the backpack, clothes on the bottom, and hygiene articles on the top, since I have to get it out at the airport every time. That’s also the reason, I use a clear cube for these kinds of items (also IKEA), so the security can look through them and I don’t need extra bags.

Resume

This is my current travel setup. I am quite happy with the things I take with me during my business trips. But I am not 100% sure about the backpack, since it is not possible to open it fully. This would help in the hotel.

Next step for me is, to use the same setup for longer travels and holidays. It is so much easier to just having a backpack instead of a suitcase.

If you have any suggestions on a better backpack, I would love to hear your opinion on that. How do you travel?

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Originally published at https://blog.auryn.dev.

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Auryn Engel
Auryn Engel

Written by Auryn Engel

☕️ →👨‍💻 // Developer @ McKinsey

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