Chapter 1: The Personal Item

You cannot fly personal item only without a personal item. And you cannot fly as a personal item only family without one personal item per family member. Let’s talk about selecting the right personal item. What is right for one member of the family might not be right for another, so mix and match between the personal item options to secure the ideal personal item per family member.

Growing up, one of my best friends was a young filipina girl who, being the first of her family born in the USA, went back to visit her relatives in the Phillipines almost as often as I went to visit mine in Europe. Only, she did a very curious thing. She didn’t take a suitcase, nor a duffel bag. Not a spinner, trunk, wheeled case, nor hard case.

She took a cardboard box. A balikbayan box.²

Her culture was lightyears ahead of mine when it came to solving the luggage problem. Filipino expats, visiting the Phillipines, laden with gifts for their extended and beloved families, solved the puzzle of how to maximize their luggage allotment. To get the greatest internal volume, the greatest amount of space to pack items, use a rectangular prism container with 90 degree angle corners, sides that are straight and thin, and which exactly matches the maximum length for each dimension specified in the airline baggage information. And, at that time, the best material was single corregated cardboard; there were even perfectly sized checked-luggage boxes already for sale.

Let’s take balikbayan box know-how and apply it to personal item only travel. We are going to look for a personal item which is a rectangular prism, has sides that are straight and thin, and which exactly matches the maximum allowable personal item length for each dimension. And the beautiful thing is, such bags exist for a variety of airlines!

Unlike the USA, it does not appear that Europe has standardized its ULCC personal item sizing. They do have a law which sets a minimum personal item size, yet most airlines exceed this minimum, and some quite considerably. You are going to want to take advantage of this excess rather than to gear up for the legally required minimum.

For this, the same rules apply about seeking a bag which is a rectangular prism, has sides that are straight and thin, and which exactly matches the maximum allowable personal item length for each dimension. When it comes to big names in ULCC such as Ryan Air and EasyJet, a simple search on your favorite online market place of choice will turn up options⁴.

And what of me? When I fly European ULCC, which I do rarely and even more rarely is it the same airline twice, I employ The Box, which I will explain shortly.

Sometimes, buying an existing item isn’t the answer for your trip. It may become necessary, or even advantageous, to make your own gear. Handy with a needle and thread? See the sewing subsection. Capable of cutting cardboard and doing some papier-mâché? See The Box subsection. I’ve done both, successfully.

Sewing your own bag is a lot of effort, especially for an airline you don’t intend to patronize regularly. For a true one-off, let me introduce you to The Box. This is another creative project, but one with cheaper materials and less time commitment. For this project, you will need:

1. The allowable personal item dimensions of your intended airline.

2. Something accurate to measure with.

3. A smooth butter knife to use to score cardboard in place of a bone folder; use a bone folder if you have one.

4. Some scissors capable of cutting cardboard and paper.

5. Some cardboard.

6. Some paper used to “tape” the seams of your box in conjunction with …

7. Some wheat paste⁶ to adhere the paper to the cardboard. Despite the link insisting on using only cake flour, any wheat flour you have can be used here as this is not a long term creation.

I could walk you through the entire process of constructing The Box, but it is better to let someone else show and tell via video than to try to make sense of purely textual directions. The following video is about shipping boxes, and that is exactly what I’m telling you to construct, but with some caveats that are in the special box usage instructions, later.

The dimensions of your personal item luggage “shipping box” are the maximum allowable personal item dimensions of the airline you are flying. This video⁷ will explain the basics of how you’d construct The Box for your purposes.

Where the person in the video uses packing tape, you will use wheat paste on paper because it is a stronger seal and a stronger hold to cardboard when dry, believe it or not, than packing tape will ever be. When using The Box, even as a single-use personal item, you want it to be strong - not going to burst open at any seams, so that you can pack it to nearly bursting. With personal item only family travel, we maximize every possible crumb of space we are allowed.

In instances where you do not have enough cardboard to construct the entire box out of a single sheet, this instructable⁸ offers a template for making your box out of multiple pieces of cardboard material. The glue you will use to connect your box will be wheat paste, once again the absolute strongest adhesive (when dry) that can be used on cardboard to result in the strongest of holds. Reinforcing all joints and seams with wheat-pasted paper will only further serve to solidify the box as a superb, disposable, personal item packing vessel.

Asian airlines have a weight limit on your carry on in order to preserve the health of the flight attendants, who will be assisting passengers with loading their bags into the overhead bin. It was determined that 7 kg is a reasonable amount to ask a flight attendant to lift over their head, a zillion times per shift. Despite the imaginings of those on the internet, the weight limit does not have anything to do with the amount of fuel loaded on to the plane.

As we are packing in personal items which will not need to be lifted into the bin overhead by anyone, much less a flight attendant, it would seem to make sense that there is no purpose in imposing a weight limit on our personal items. However, airlines are in the business of making money, and a weight limit earns them money. And so, we personal item travelers will subjected to the weight limit just the same.

Which is why loading up your person with lots and lots of weighty belongings for personal item weigh-in is not cheating. We aren’t forcing flight attendants into unsafe working conditions. We are simply avoiding a cash-grab, and the staff of the airline, except perhaps the C-suite, don’t care about us avoiding a cash grab.

For every member of the family, we need to plan our airport check-in outfits carefully. I advise wearing the heaviest of the clothes you intend to pack, and wearing layers. I wear a skirt with huge pockets and a shirt, over which I have my rain coat with pockets, and then that is topped by my flight vest, a safari-style vest which I modified to have an additional back panel pocket running the entire length and width of my back (I had a tailor who is more skilled than I add an invisible zipper to one of the interior seams). With this, I can hold several kilograms of weight on my person and out of my bag.

The Mister also wears a safari-style vest and cargo pants, held up with suspenders. His most weighty object is his work laptop, which fits conveniently tucked down the back of his trousers with the X of the suspenders offering good containment to the laptop for the duration of check-in, even with bending and lifting of our bags on and off the scale. He tops this with his waxed cotton canvas jacket which, of course, has pockets as well.

The Offspring wears their heaviest outfit and any outer layers and hand-carries their iPad while sitting in the backpack carrier.

We arrive at the airport in plenty of time to guess-and-check our packing vs pockets at the airport’s weigh-and-repacking station.

I am a freezie-human who uses my vest not only for cargo capacity, but also to keep me warm. In fact, all of my clothes for check-in are ones which are used for more than the flight but also during my travels.

Before you go out and purchase additional clothing items just for the flight, I encourage you to look at your closet and see what items you might already own that will serve the purpose.

If you don’t have any clothing that is perfect off the rack, you might be able to modify clothes you already do have. Do you have outerwear that is two layers; an outer layer and an inner lining? If so, a skilled tailor can turn the space between those two layers into a huge pocket, all for the addition of an invisible zipper. Do you have any outer layers that could accommodate a pouch pocket being sewn to the interior? If so, that’s another modification a skilled tailor can make to your clothes. Do you or any of your family travel in skirts? So long as they aren’t body-con, they can have bag pockets added to any side seams without disrupting the fashion silhouette. And so it goes.

If you don’t own suitable clothes for modification, here are some of my favorite travel staples which are still being manufactured and for sale.

• Macabi Skirts - These are my travel day skirts with not just pockets, but full blown purse pockets. Each of the pockets can hold an entire purse’s contents and then some. They dry in a snap, wear like iron, and are all around great skirts. They are breezy in hot weather and layer well over leggings in cold weather to keep my legs warm. I own two and haven’t needed more given how easily/quickly they clean on travels. They have a casual style so are not ideal for formal occasions, but for all else they’ll do. I linked to the manufacturer’s webpage, but I bought both of my skirts on the second hand market, one from Mercari and one from Poshmark, where they were considerably cheaper.

• Harem Pants Jumpsuit/Romper with Pockets - This is a two in one item which can either be a full body jumpsuit/romper or a pair of comfortable harem pants. I’ve worn them in both configurations and they are wildly comfortable. The pockets hold less than the Macabi skirt, but they are pockets just the same. When it comes to formal occasions, this item can be dressed up like a Little Black Dress with the right jewelry and hairstyle and can go to a wedding or a posh dinner while still feeling as if you are in your pajamas. And speaking of pajamas, I’ve used them for that as well. And if you want even more utility, I’ve worn them under my Macabi skirt to function as leggings in cold weather and in combination, they’ve kept my legs warm. I tend to wear them under my Macabi skirt on a flight day, especially for weigh in, as they offer additional pockets for the stuffing. I’ve recommended them to friends of many different body shapes and sizes, and have yet to see someone that they don’t look elegant on in jumpsuit mode.

• Cycling Rain Jacket - Though I’m not a bicycler, I prefer cycling rain jackets to just about any other rain jacket because of the lumbar pocket, which is one more pocket than most other rain jackets have. Plus, cycling rain jackets are typically cheaper than those marketed at, say, hiking outdoors enthusiasts or fishing outdoors enthusiasts. A lot of cycling rain jackets are shower-proof, meaning they’ll keep you dry in a light rain shower but won’t do anything for torrential downpour. While all rain jackets wet-out at some point, this one which I linked is at least more than shower-proof. Plus, it will offer warmth against chilling winds and layers well over warmth layers such as a fleece or a cashmere sweater/cardigan to give a huge warmth multiplier effect. And did I mention the number of pockets?

• Safari-Style Cargo Vest - This is the vest that The Mister has for his flights. He advises all to order one size up past what the sizing charts say you need, in order to get a better shoulder fit. Unlike my modified warmth vest, this one is not double-layer so would need to be modified to put a large patch pocket on the interior of the back panel to have the cargo capacity of my vest, however he’s otherwise quite pleased with the cargo capacity of the existing pockets. Reviews on the website said to beware the zippers and to close them with care, but we have not found anything of concern with how the zippers are constructed. Still, care is always a good move when it comes to critical gear.