Travel Tips for One

[tinywonder]

Hey!
I want advice, tips, clever hacks, and we can all share them!

I am flying to Japan in a few weeks, and I am bringing ONE BAG, it looks like it's going to be the Ebags' Weekender Convertible 2.0, if you care.  And NO PERSONAL ITEM.  This means literally EVERYTHING is going in there. For two weeks.  So, got any advice?

Here's some ideas I've had so far:

I'm packing a superlight 60L folding duffel to check for the trip home.

I am rolling my clothes.  Speaking of clothes, I'm wearing/layering heavier clothes on the trip, and what's in my suitcase are older underoos and socks that are seeing their last days.  I'm going to dispose of them before returning home. Then I get to buy fancy new socks and undies at home!  Same for clothes only if they are in nice enough condition, I'm donating them before I leave, thus freeing up room in my carry-on for souvenirs see: the good stuff.  The nicer clothes I am keeping I'll wear out of the country, or roll up and shove in the checked bag.
 

I am taking a 1x2x1" (rough estimate) cut of a Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap bar, which is super multipurpose, and peppermint is refreshing, I've found it's helpful when you feel bedraggled or under the weather.  It can be soap, shampoo, laundry detergents, whatevs. It's wrapped in a cut of old towel.  Instant washcloth.

I just ordered some cash at my bank, in advance, so now I have about $500 worth of spending yen.

 

I am bringing my favourite travel pillow, which is a cylinder of memory foam, and embedded in it is segmented pipe, so I can wrap it in whatever position works (I think I'm stuck in the middle seat, most likely, as my flight got changed so... them's the breaks.

I'm wearing boots, packing low profile sneakers...

I am also bringing a back up phone!  It has no sim card, I am using it as a camera, I can change out the Micro SD cards, and I can recharge the phone/camera via USB, even better, I have a powerbank. I am grumpy that swank cameras don't have this ability, but my old Samsung G5 worked fine as a camera, and it shall again.

I also have a 360 camera now, which I am hoping to make a shared online archive of immersive photos of neat places.  I think it's a cool idea, but I am not totally comfortable with making it work yet, and it sucks battery pretty hard.

That's sort of my plan, and some of it is clever travel hacking, that maybe will help someone else in the future.
Does anyone else have any tricks for travel, especially light packing crazy travel?  I want to geek out on insoles or soaps, or foldable microfiber towels... Let's talk!  I used to tour around for a small living, and learned a bunch about traveling domestic, etc, in a band, and often it translates over great for international travel, but I am always looking for new ideas.

Problems or issues I'd like help with:
I have a Surface Pro 3 laptop I am split on taking.  I sort of think it's a good idea, I'd keep it in a waterproof bag, and it's a fully functioning laptop, and drawing surface (I'm an illustrator), it'd be massively helpful for the 21 hours or so of travel to and fro, but then I have to haul it around everywhere.  It's small for a laptop, but had a charger, and such.  Just looking for input.

 

Air China is pretty strict on economy carry-on restrictions, namely my carry-on shouldn't be more than 11kg.  I am hoping no one takes my bag away to weigh it, but I am trying to keep my belongings down to around the 15lb mark, and I am afraid that might be super difficult.  We'll see.

[IslandGirl_Becks]

I've travelled for 6 weeks in Europe with a 2/3 full 44l Osprey Talon backpack, so about the same amount of space. 

 

Layers are great, phone as camera is great. I love my microfiber towel, and pretty quickly got into a routine of showering in the evening at hostels and hanging my towel off my bunk. It was always dry by morning. I always just get the "travel size" soap/shampoo from a convenience store. If I run out on my trip, no worries. You can always find a drug store. 

 

I also brought along a relatively inexpensive Nexus 7 tablet with an adapter cable to connect it to my phone. I did all my blogging off of it and also a lot of navigating thanks to an offline-mapping app. I could download a map of my current country, then delete it to save space. Combined with the GPS on my tablet, it was a great backup.