When Maverick and I started planning our trip one of the first things that sort of bummed me out was that we’d have to fly Virgin America instead of my beloved Jet Blue. I love Jet Blue for a few reasons; awesome snacks, tv while you fly, they have flown me many times many places and never once killed me even that time we flew through a lightning storm from Chicago to Boston and the turbulence made my knuckles permanently white forever.
But one of the things I love most about Jet Blue is that each passenger gets to check their first bag for free. FOR FREE. Which is awesome. The fact that you have to pay to check a bag makes me irate. The plane tickets are already usually very expensive, they can’t just check the damn bag? Le sigh.
Anyway, Virgin American seems great please oh please don’t crash please oh please but when I found out that there was a 25 dollar fee for bags checked I came up with the whacky plan that Maverick and I would take one suitcase between us. Yeah. Two people’s clothes intended for a 7 day trip with variable temperatures and occasions. I dropped the suitcase off at Mav’s last week so he could pack his things. Yesterday morning as we chatted he mentioned that he didn’t think we could fit both of our things in the suitcase judging by what he had packed already.
I thought of all the different amounts of crap I have packed into that sad black suitcase over the years and though I am normally not one to stick to something that might ultimately be problematic, the thought of us paying 50 dollars each way to check bags broke my Jew Bone sent me into a frenzy.
I immediately hopped to action and enacted my plan B; which was to see just how much of my clothes I intended to bring with me would fit into my carry-on suitcase. I figured if I could fit everything in then surely between the two suitcases we could split the difference.
I am proud to say that while my strengths may not reside in many areas, there are few packing challenges I am not equipped to handle.
Included here are three skirts, roughly 6 t shirts, two “Dressy” tops, one pair of jeans, one pair of shorts, five dresses, four tank tops, two cardigans, yoga pants, plenty of underwear and socks, a bath towel, hand towel and washcloth, two bathing suits, one bra, four belts and two pairs of flats. One trick I’ve found to getting everything in the suitcase is wearing whatever bulky items you might want to take with you on the plane a la “body suitcase.” Which is why I’ll travel in my other pair of jeans, light sweatshirt, and sneakers.
WHABAM. Actually full disclosure I kept one pair of flats out, because they made they top of suitcase puff out a little bit. I’ll probably stash em’ in the checked bag. That baby is a perfect 50 linear inches, just right to fit into the overhead compartment.
