How To Pack Lightly for a Family Vacation

This family of five just completed a sixteen-hour trip from Kansas City to Honolulu. One of the best decisions we made was to go with only carry-on luggage. Not having to pay fees was a huge incentive, but traveling lightly has tons of other advantages.

Traveling lightly meant each person in the family could be in charge of their own luggage; thus, it was easy to keep track of our things. Each person had one backpack and one small wheeled suitcase. My daughters range in age from 8 to 10 years old, and are old enough to be responsible for this amount of luggage.

Four carry-on suitcases. Four backpacks.

Traveling lightly also meant it was easier to find a car that could transport all of us and our things. In previous years, we have had to make sure we had the largest taxi or the friend with the biggest car take us. This time, that was not an issue.

Now that we have arrived in Honolulu, traveling lightly means that we do not have too much clutter and can move around, pack and unpack fairly easily.

How did we do it?

How to pack lightly.

To get the children to fit their stuff into one backpack and one carry-on suitcase, I asked each of them to fill their backpacks with the toys and books they wanted to carry. I made sure to remind them that they would be carrying their backpacks around, and reminded them not to stuff them too tightly. Then, I selected eight summer outfits for each of them and put the summer outfits in an Easy-Pack Bag. That allowed the clothes to fit easily into half of a carry-on suitcase. I put underclothes for a week and two bathing suits into a ziplock bag, sandals in another, and then there was a bit of space left over for more toys.

Easy-Pack Bag. Shown with Kindle to see size.

For myself, I picked out eight summer outfits and put them in another Easy-Pack Bag. I put my underclothes and swimsuit into another small bag, and then arranged those items in my suitcase along with two pairs of sandals (one simple, one dressy) and my toiletries. These fit easily into my carry-on suitcase. I used my backpack to carry my laptop, kindle, and a writing tablet.

In a nutshell, that is how we were able to travel to Hawaii for five weeks with carry-on luggage only!