I have been traveling once or twice a year for conferences for my job. I have always been one of those who checked their bag. That even became more common once I added CPAP to my load. Well, this time I challenged myself. Can I survive with only One Bag plus my CPAP machine? Let’s find out.
First, I thought I would go even smaller than I normally go and try using the Tom Bihn Tristar. This excellent bag was almost big enough, but I rationalized moving up to the Aeronaut by looking at the map. I did not see any place nearby where I could wash a set of clothes or two. If I could have done that, then I could have reduced the amount of clothing I had with me. Even with the Aeronaut, I had to reuse at least one pair of pants once. Fortunately, I changed to a pair of shorts quickly once I got to Reston, VA which was much warmer than Columbus last week. This made the initial pair of jeans I used usable for another day.
So what did I take with me? I had:
- Three sets of clothing.
- Pair of shorts.
- 2 books.
- Fuji s1000fd Digital Camera
- Asus 1000HE
- Nokia N800
- T-Mobile G1
- Nextel Work Phone
- Sprint EVDO USB.
- PSP-3000.
- USB Multi Charger
- 1 qt Liquid Bag with TSA approved quantities.
- Eyeball Web Cam
- USB Headset
- Bag full of thumb drives.
- 2 USB Portable Hard Disks.
- GPS Datalogger
- Various Cables and Chargers.
All of this fit very nicely into the Aeronaut. The backpack straps and sternum strap help me carry this load through the airport with ease. I had to take my netbook out of the bag, but I placed it near the top of the bag for easy access.
As for fitting this in the overhead of the Embraer ERJ-145 I flew from Port Columbus to Dulles, it was no problem. The fully loaded Aeronaut fit just fine in the overhead of this small regional plane. Next to it in the same overhead I put my CPAP machine and laid my jacket on top of that.
I had no problems going through security with the Aeronaut either. The bag fit through the x-ray easily. I was also not question about the amount of electronic gear in this bag.
Using only a netbook was more than sufficient for the whole week. I even wrote a post or two while I was there with my netbook. Anyone who says netbooks aren’t good enough needs to think about re-evaluating what they really need while traveling. I think most will find they don’t need the full laptop experience while on a trip. A netbook was enough.
On the way back, I saved space by rolling up and scrunching up my dirty clothes as much as I could so that it could take as little space as possible. Since it did not matter what wrinkles I put in it on the way home, this was easy. The hard part was that the conference I went to gave us each 2 inch binders for the materials in the sessions. The thing is, the binders hardly had anything in it. So I left the binder in my room. I also ditched all the left over liquids to avoid having to pull them out at security again. Lastly, I had a pair of socks and pair of underwear with me that were pretty ratty so they went in the trashcan too. This let me carry all of the stuff I accumulated home with ease. I put the printed documents in the bottom of the Aeronaut where they stayed in good condition.
I would have much rather had all of the documents in a PDF file. USB thumb drives are cheap enough to hand out as a conference freebie and they could have had all of these conference documents on a cheap 1 GB flash drive. This would have taken less space for conference attendees and also the conference itself.
Would I do this again? In a heartbeat. What would I do differently? I think I might invest in more packable clothes. I might look into buying some camping style pants that look more like dockers I might wear to work. They pack better and if they get wrinkles, they fall out pretty easily. Also, I would probably reduce the electronic gear even further and leave some of it at home. Still, considering I took my netbook and a laptop to my last conference I did well and left a lot of unnecessary stuff behind. From now on, one bag is for me!
