I just returned home from a 5 day, 4 night, 3 hotel initiation trip with my Steel/Ultraviolet Western Flyer with backpack straps. I got to meet and had a lovely evening with Janine!
I needed to pack for casual weekend wear suitable for a church conference, plus some recreation clothes for the Zoo, outings with the kidlets and visits with family and friends. I am still new at minimalist packing, and I admittedly over packed. I also had along my Side Effect in my Cork Little Swift for my handbag, my Steel/Cork/Wasabi Imago for my "car" bag, and my Steel/Black Utility tote to bring along some spinning for any down time I could find.
Here's what I packed in my Western Flyer:
a small eBags Packing cube that held 5 pair of undies
2 nighties
swim wear
1 tshirt
3 tank tops
These together with the packing cube made my core.
I then bundled around the core 1 pair of linen blend cargo pants
2 long linen skirts
3 short sleeved button down linen/cotton shirts.
in front divided section on the right side I packed my Mohops thongs
ribbon bag
And a pair of Dansko sandals
The right side had a micro bundle with my first hotel stay's clothing so that I didn't have to unwrap my core 2x. In that section I had a pair of linen coullottes, a knit tank and ss linen shirt, undies, pj pants and top.
In the front section I packed my Plum 3D bag as toiletry kit in the large compartment, hair accessories in the small compartment and medications in the water bottle pocket.
I didn't use any larger packing cubes to contain things this time, though I am considering adding a Packing Cub Shoulder Bag for future trips. This time they weren’t needed. Hind sight being 20/20, I could have left out about 25 to 35% of what I packed and also fit my daughters clothing in here. Our trip was for 5 days and I didn’t plan to wear anything more than once. In fact I packed multiple changes of tops for all of the days. The good thing is that the svelte Western Flyer still keeps everything in a package that was a pleasure to carry and use.
On the final leg of our trip, when packing up from hotel 2, I put all of my and the kids dirty clothes into their bag and moved their 3 medium ebags packing cubes over to mingle with my remaining clean clothes. This way we only needed to pull the one bag out at the last hotel.
When we left the following day I unzipped the front divider and put clean clothes in packing cubes coming home, since we had used a lot, all 4 fit easily plus 1 pair of my shoes. In the rear, the dirties with no cubes and another pair of shoes. Once again, it didn't seem to matter how I was configuring things, they just seemed to easily fit.
My thoughts on this bag are that I am so glad that I added it to my collection. It just works and makes so much sense for the type of weekend traveling that I often do. If I had chosen travel specific clothing and packed with the intention to rewear or to do laundry I could have easy have also included a fullsized laptop, knitting and had room to bring home my conference materials.
The Western Flyer looks rather small, but holds quite a bit without bulging or being uncomfortable to carry. The grab handles and fact that it stands up on edge made it easy to pick it up no matter how it was placed down, and it was compact enough to fit under my son's seat in the rear of our Ford F150.
I look forward to many future trips using my Western Flyer. It got a few complements. As I saw other attendees who were ther for significantly less time than me struggling with their much larger bags I happily carried my Western Flyer high, that was complement enough for me!
Sorry to those of you who are also on Ravelry, this is kind of a cross post from the beginning of the weekend.
I needed to pack for casual weekend wear suitable for a church conference, plus some recreation clothes for the Zoo, outings with the kidlets and visits with family and friends. I am still new at minimalist packing, and I admittedly over packed. I also had along my Side Effect in my Cork Little Swift for my handbag, my Steel/Cork/Wasabi Imago for my "car" bag, and my Steel/Black Utility tote to bring along some spinning for any down time I could find.
Here's what I packed in my Western Flyer:
a small eBags Packing cube that held 5 pair of undies
2 nighties
swim wear
1 tshirt
3 tank tops
These together with the packing cube made my core.
I then bundled around the core 1 pair of linen blend cargo pants
2 long linen skirts
3 short sleeved button down linen/cotton shirts.
in front divided section on the right side I packed my Mohops thongs
ribbon bag
And a pair of Dansko sandals
The right side had a micro bundle with my first hotel stay's clothing so that I didn't have to unwrap my core 2x. In that section I had a pair of linen coullottes, a knit tank and ss linen shirt, undies, pj pants and top.
In the front section I packed my Plum 3D bag as toiletry kit in the large compartment, hair accessories in the small compartment and medications in the water bottle pocket.
I didn't use any larger packing cubes to contain things this time, though I am considering adding a Packing Cub Shoulder Bag for future trips. This time they weren’t needed. Hind sight being 20/20, I could have left out about 25 to 35% of what I packed and also fit my daughters clothing in here. Our trip was for 5 days and I didn’t plan to wear anything more than once. In fact I packed multiple changes of tops for all of the days. The good thing is that the svelte Western Flyer still keeps everything in a package that was a pleasure to carry and use.
On the final leg of our trip, when packing up from hotel 2, I put all of my and the kids dirty clothes into their bag and moved their 3 medium ebags packing cubes over to mingle with my remaining clean clothes. This way we only needed to pull the one bag out at the last hotel.
When we left the following day I unzipped the front divider and put clean clothes in packing cubes coming home, since we had used a lot, all 4 fit easily plus 1 pair of my shoes. In the rear, the dirties with no cubes and another pair of shoes. Once again, it didn't seem to matter how I was configuring things, they just seemed to easily fit.
My thoughts on this bag are that I am so glad that I added it to my collection. It just works and makes so much sense for the type of weekend traveling that I often do. If I had chosen travel specific clothing and packed with the intention to rewear or to do laundry I could have easy have also included a fullsized laptop, knitting and had room to bring home my conference materials.
The Western Flyer looks rather small, but holds quite a bit without bulging or being uncomfortable to carry. The grab handles and fact that it stands up on edge made it easy to pick it up no matter how it was placed down, and it was compact enough to fit under my son's seat in the rear of our Ford F150.
I look forward to many future trips using my Western Flyer. It got a few complements. As I saw other attendees who were ther for significantly less time than me struggling with their much larger bags I happily carried my Western Flyer high, that was complement enough for me!
Sorry to those of you who are also on Ravelry, this is kind of a cross post from the beginning of the weekend.
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