How to Pack Light for Travel and Never Check in Luggage

hi i'm farnoosh brach and today we're going to talk about how you can

pack

light

as a woman when you

travel

and still look stylish and have everything you need with you so in this video I'm going to show you exactly what I'm taking on a five week trip to Europe in the spring and then I'll show you how I

pack

it so I'm hoping to leave you with some really helpful tips and inspiration for packing

light

and not

check

ing

luggage

that's the challenge so when you first think about your trip the first thing I do is to put aside the clothes that I'm going to wear on the trip and what you want to do is take the heaviest shoes and put them on and your heaviest jacket and whatever scarves you have and use them that way you don't have to pack them in my suitcase I'm going to wear my new running shoes now i know you're not supposed to wear your running shoes except what you're running but whatever they are i don't want to pack them.

I am going to use them on the trip to come here I am going to take a scarf because the planes get very cold and the weather can be cold where I am going so I am going to wear the scarf I am going to wear a simple light shirt and again think about layering if this is very important when you do the whole packing process so this is a very light shirt it can be an undershirt and it will be here and then my pants are a black pair of the Luci pants I love it go shopping Lucy I've had these pants for probably ten years They're stretchy They're very skinny They can be easily washed I can wear pantyhose under them if it's cold and they're very comfortable for

travel

So these are my pants I'll wear on the go and then my jacket so you'll need a jacket if it's going to rain and if it's going to be a bit chilly but you really want to just take a jacket so think about your most comfortable clothing and ease of wearing things that They go with everything else so this is one of my best jackets it has a hood that way we don't have to worry about packing an umbrella and it's relatively light because I don't want it wearing out when I'm walking for hours and hours at a time and if I'm cold I can wear a sweater there it is so this is the clothes I'm going to wear on the trip and I'll put it aside and then I'll think about what I'm going to take with me so I'm going to show you everything I'm wearing let's start with the shoes I already have my running shoes I'm going to take a pair of very comfortable shoes to walk I have bags and bags for everything so these are the bags in which I put my shoes and I keep all my socks inside my shoe.

These are a pair of eco-friendly shoes I bought recently and they are supposed to be great for walking and you will be doing a lot of walking, especially if you're going to Europe. so these are my main shoes they are black as you can see so pick a color that will go with everything and look great and d stylish when you are in a city so these are my shoes they are going here I'm taking one more pair of shoes. don't put on your walking shoes and we're going out to dinner or something so again they have little baggies and you put them like this because you don't want them to touch your clothes and then you put them here nice and close now these are a pair of pants relatively cute but extremely comfortable blacks this is going to be one of my essentials i can dress it up i can dress it down casual it goes with everything and is comfortable just the way you are choose your clothes choose your most comfortable clothes and the clothes that make you feel nice and sexy and slim and all those good things don't take things you just bought that you've

never

worn and you don't know how you're going to feel in them because you feel good and happy then you're going to have a good time so these are my pants they will definitely come good.

I'm also going to pair up a pair of tights so I can wear this under the skirts on their long sweaters and maybe under my pants my skinny black pants if I get cold right now I'm going to move in this direction I'm going to show you my tops like this I like very nice earthy colors and solid colors that I can then wear with scarves so these are mainly from Uniqlo which is all over Asia and you can also find it in some parts of Europe. They sell beautiful clothes at very affordable prices and as you can see I have five very skinny tops and one turtleneck.

You can layer them and they go with just about anything so I have a burgundy black. green kind of orange and a darker green so this is my top then i have my other top these are the tops i would like to wear i'm going to pack all this with you and if i can't fit it all in here in this

luggage

so some of these may have to be left behind but I chose some dressier tops t The hat can be put on over my black pants for the evening or if we're going somewhere nice during the day so they can see I have a burgundy blue top, a gold gray burgundy and a red shirt so I would like to take these but we'll see how it works out and then think about her activities so I like to run and do yoga.

I know I won't go anywhere without the ones I'm wearing. I pack this and I'm taking a combined version of yoga and running clothes, so we have two sports bras, a stretchy shirt that will go over the sports bras and then another yoga shirt and two running shorts, very short yoga pants that i can practice in these at the hotel or possibly in the studio and then i would like to wear a long pair of purple yoga pants we'll see as well as another pair it's very skinny it shouldn't take too much room to pack and then a long a pair of running shoes shoes running pants that can also act as yoga, so I take a lot of clothes to work out bu I expected to exercise every day.

We'll see how much of this I can pack in here. Okay, let's get back to your clothes. Two skirts. I really like wearing skirts and it makes you look so much dressier and there is so much more style but you I have to be careful about the colors I choose so I have a neutral beige color that goes with everything and my black skirt that I wear everywhere It's very comfortable and it's very stylish and I feel great wearing it whether it's day or night. a dinner party or any occasion so these are my two skirts i always carry a dress with me i know this is not exactly a go with everything color but its its own outfit so this is a very comfortable stretchy dark blue dress that I can wear pantyhose with it or not depending on the weather and I can put a sweater over it if I'm cold but it's nice to have a dress it's nice that UM has variety in their clothes and then I have a couple of sports tops so I'll see if i can fit these and then rest. g clothes ok so I have a really nice pair of slacks and shorts that I take with me and a couple of business shirts to wear to the hotel room when I'm relaxing and then a beige tank top in case I want to wear a little bit more so okay that's the main outfit oh I haven't shown you all three pieces here so these are my three sweaters kind of this is the white thing that covers everything I love this I have a gray one. that's longer in case it's windy and again this type of clothing is worn over all my tops and then I'd like to wear a black sweater that I can wear with my tights and pantyhose and whatnot so we'll see that sweaters take up space so you I have to be careful and selective ok that's all my clothes now I'm going to talk to you about my toiletries and the other essentials that need to come so we're not going to

check

the luggage so you need to join the airport. safety rules and regulations I carry all my toiletries here in this little bag they all have to be less than three ounces what you have and you just have to be careful my husband brings the toothpaste and lens solution and all that so i'm lucky but i have my shampoo conditioner toner sunscreen i absolutely need sunscreen with you and the rest of my moisturizer and stuff so all the liquids go here and then i have my makeup.

I love my makeup. I do makeup if you like to wear a Terrell. so i'm going to take all my makeup in here as well as my eyeshadow palette in here so this and this actually come in my laptop tote bag so i'm going to put it here and show you guys when i put it in my pocket because I pack I packed my bag so this is a baggalini bag it's rain proof expandable very comfortable it may not be as fancy as my Coach bag but that's ok and I'm going to pack this inside my backpack like this I'll put it here. my wallet has to be close to me so it's right here on my laptop bag so here is my jewelry so since you're wearing more plain clothes you want to take some jewelry to dress it up so i put all my jewelry in another bag galini bag and this has served me well for years and i just put it's all little baggies here so it's nice and organized so i put it here it will come in my laptop bag and then of course my laptop .

I carry a small USB key with me at all times, so it's a very good way to transfer information. if you needed i love these wet wipes so if you go to restaurants or bathrooms and really want to get clean or after a run instead of howling you can use these to freshen up so i love these and then of course my iphone and a expandable bag I guess because I hope to bring the memories home so this is the expandable bag and this is actually part of my baggalini which doubles as a little purse just in case I don't want to take my whole bag with me.

I mean, for dinner or just to go out for a few minutes, I'm going to have this, so, that's all that and then the accessories, so you need accessories and they don't take up a lot of space, but they work great. purpose and that is to help you dress and complete your outfit, so I take three or four scarves with me every time I travel. I read a pretty blue and a pretty green that has multiple colors, yeah I think that's it. and again i put them in nice little bags and i like to separate and compartmentalize all my clothes and all my stuff so these bags really help you and help you feel organized so when you open your suitcase when you get there everything is more or except where you put it and it's in its own little spot so these are all from my score okay and then here I have my headbands so hopefully it can fit in all these are sunny or running like this everyone coming with me here is fine and then just for toiletries um I like to take American toi Letries I don't know if I can find some or not but we'll be there for five weeks so I'm not going to go beyond this. two favorite bras ladies don't try to cram them all in there and don't pick a fancy one take something that's super comfortable so I'll take my two favorite bras here in their own bag of course and pantyhose and my black spandex because it goes with everything , so those are here and the unspeakable ones in their own little bag and then this is a nice little jacket that's warmer than you can imagine and you can see I just got it out of here this is again from eunuch Cologne and I love it wearing this is sleeveless so you can know you can have long sleeve it has a hood and it's a wonderful little thing to throw over if it looks cloudy or rainy it keeps you warm and it's so small to pack so just do this and these are These are ideas for you to think in terms of efficient travel clothing when you go shopping because it not only saves a lot of space but is multi-functional and can really serve in many different ways. to complete your outfit whether you're going to go dressy or a little bit um Sportage so here we go so this will come along okay and then just a few other things we're almost trying okay so a couple of sunglasses because hopefully its going to be sunny q-tips deodorant a file for my nails my make up remover so i love using these wipes and i will definitely be taking the whole pack of advil thats my full kit and this is my towel of yoga, but it's more my security blanket, it's very nice, it's cotton and I love it. to use this when you're out in public and if you don't want to use the towels in the bathrooms or whatever so I love to take this with me and then my reading glasses ok now let's talk about luggage so for years I used a Patagonia MLC.

I loved. Me too. k all over the world had a couple of tears and got it fixed for free so i love patagonia but i'm not crazy about the new MLC and MLC is max or carry on so we splurged so what is this bad that really does it look like a backpack? It's scary I know, but this pup is what I'm going to pack all of this in and basically he was just going to do the best he could. some extra room and make sure all your luggage has information in case it gets lost with your phone number and address so there's my little tag and it's also yellow in case I need to check it or whatever I can easily identify it because it's a different color than black ok so let's start packing now so I'm going to show you how to fold your clothes and the way we pack is we start with everything that has to come no matter what and then we're going to look to see if we have room left over for the stuff that we'd really like to carry well, so we're going to start here and I'm going to starthere with my black pants they will definitely come so the way you want to pack is you want to fold rather than you want to roll your clothes so you put them like this and you start to roll and just use this motion to make the garment what as small as possible ok and then you start i live a corner of your bag and then we're gone so i'm going to do my stockings here next and it's really liberating to be able to backlight.

I really struggled with this a lot for years, but I'm really seeing the benefits of packing light and taking less with you because, for one thing, you're not. you really travel so you can take all your stuff with you you travel so you can experience the new place and all the wonderful things that are waiting for you and more than that you can buy things in a new country and that is exciting so i am going to see this as an experience positive that's my goal here for you guys ok too so shoes on ASAP so I'm going to put them here mmm there's actually a little divider here I had to put it on but I'm not going to use it , so I'm going to push it down so it's a big container, okay, so I'm going to put my little bag, my little jacket here and my shoes, my bigger shoes, so these are going to go here like this and the another one here so I like um kind of spread the weight so I'm not going to put two shoes next to each other I'm going to put them on the other end of the suitcase I'm actually going to move these shoes here to the side, towards the edges, so that's okay.

I'm going to change my sitting position so I have more control here okay now we're going to move to the top so I'm going to bring my top here and I'm going to take this very very skinny turtleneck because it's probably cold in the afternoons so we're going to be sure so everything i'm taking before packing everything i looked at and visually made sure as much as possible everything might go with everything that's why the colors are pretty neutral and that's what you want to do. You want to create outfits in your mind and make sure you're not taking something you only wear once or twice, right, it's just not worth it. taking so do that before you get everything together okay so next thing I'm going to pack my running gear but I'm going to be light so I'm going to leave these pants I'd like to wear here these are the long pants I'd like to wear here that i'm really comfortable running and spring is probably going to be a little chilly another one ok here we go my jogging pants ok i'm going to leave this top here because i might be able to do without it because my sports shirts can also be yoga and running and in fact this particular one with one of my yoga pants has to act as a bathing suit in case there's a hot tub because I'm not going to pack a bathing suit just for a possible need. so there is something that can have a double dut and if it needs to be okay so that I can comfortably say that all I'm packing is something that I love to wear and you want to be able to say that because you're going to be at it for a while these are my break pants so we're just going to give you another trick is to take something that's really comfortable and well used and maybe it's close to the time that you might be ready to donate it or leave it behind so you can finish wearing it and then leave it behind and that's it save or create more room for yourself as you come back so we're getting close and i don't like to pack but you pack it to the brim very very full so we're getting pretty close here so we have to be careful what goes in here so i'm going to wear the dress i want to take my dress and my red top i want to take this one ok so at this point i'm going to look to see yeah we still have a little room to go and we still have I know all of that and the yoga mat thing is actually going to go outside you'll see I'm going to put a couple more things in here I'll leave this one behind this one is good just roll it all up and if it gets a little wrinkled it's Well and that's another point, don't take your clothes. that gets wrinkled try to wear clothes that don't wrinkle so you don't have to worry about ironing.

I also don't have an iron obviously or a hair dryer because everywhere she goes they have a small hair dryer so that's about it. that's a great thing for not having to carry my little cardigan with you we're almost done with this compartment so of these i'm going to take one of them this is the trimming i'm still trimming yeah it takes a lot of guts but you can do it too, that's ok. I could pack this one too. I really like this one, so let's see. I'm not sure if I'll have room for my black sweater, so it might have to be in between this black sweater. let me put it here and not worry about my gray right now ok so off we go we have three pieces left actually it's behind four and what we're going to do is put my nameless here my pantyhose here alright , and press them. this is the last thing I'm going to put in this parent container right now we're going to close it so here we go okay okay and you're really going to squeeze this more to the right and then to this side okay let's go everybody true I'm already very impressed with the e-bag so we'll see how it fares on the trip ok now I'm going to close this top I have a bat bag here not sure if I'm going to use it Late still I might put some of my essentials back here but what I want to do now is pack my bag this is what I'm most worried about with this one again this is my baggalini bag a very nice bag I put the UM the handle inside and it's empty relatively empty and then I put it here ok perfect so now I'm going to put my expandable here my bathroom we're going to try to put them on my wipes the sunglasses are going to have a little care so I could wear them with my bra here and it's a really good idea ladies to put everything in little bags in case security opens your bag.

I don't want anyone else touching your private clothes so um my other one is fine it's working fine okay and it's not terribly giant or anything so I'm going to close this now at this point I'm going to take a Look at the clothes I left. I can do without this. Without this. Without this. here ok it's a game time decision so I'm going to look here and try to close this and put my yoga mat here how are we going come on this is where I call my husband to tell him can he help me ? me and he'll say you're bringing too much nothing no this is the bare minimum so okay here we go so it's t him out of the compression stuff so I don't know I may have to use this guy on the plane so we'll put it aside for now and not worry so now i'm going to show you how i carry my yoga mat this comes with me and it's going to go outside i think it's going to go this way so we'll put it like this and we'll use these handy outside handles this one come on okay lovely and then this one okay okay so this is my main luggage what do you think you see?

This is actually oh I can even see it up close because I haven't even used it to the fullest so these are the backpack handles as you can see I could take it like this or like that. this or just put it on my back so this is the first section of packing and I actually feel pretty good about what I'm not bringing I'll be good now I'll show you guys how to pack my laptop again okay? I've decided I'll take this one on the plane with me so we don't have to worry about packing it.

I will look very warm. or this is my laptop bag, it's a very nice bag, I've used it for a few years now and I'm basically going to put my laptop in here. In fact, I also have an iPad that will go in the outer bag, my little yoga towel, my toiletries. I can easily remove them for safety. My makeup bag turns inside out and my jewelry goes in this bag right here. Then headphones, your other stuff. Other electronic chargers. I'm going to put all of that here. My usb key. I actually like to wear this outside.

USB and iPhone pocket so I'm going to put my sunglasses out here so they don't get compressed and then the rest of my makeup in here along with my purse so this one is super easy I also put some snacks some sticks or whatever for the plane and that's it we're done here so this goes over my shoulder like this and my husband will bring the laptop charger young so I'm all set so this is it this is what I will take to Europe. five weeks in the spring, so if I can do this, you can do this, try to pack light don't check luggage and enjoy your trips don't get too obsessed with taking it too much I hope you liked this and I'll talk to you in the next video bye