How to deal with the Evolution of a Packed Bag on a Trip?

[AVService]

Some pretentious title eh?

I keep forgetting to throw this out here and see what comes back.

I was out last week for 4 days with just the TriStar,a feat of some beauty I might add and of course at the start of the journey all was packed and organized and bagged and separated and optimized and well you get the idea I think.

I was Driving to Boston and Flying back as my mission and after stopping the first night and getting settled in a Hotel I wondered again as I always do but then seem to forget.....what the heck do I do for packing now that I will have dirty clothes?!?! Yikes!

How do restore the delicate balance of packing when the load is dynamic and soon nothing was making sense any more!

So I thought I would let others wiser and more inspired than I share their secrets for "Used" clothes and no I am not washing anything,ever in a sink. Especially not on a short trip.

Thanks
Ed

[jeffmac]

Ed,

When you pack the tri-star is it all clothes? i think I remember that your electronics goes in a super ego?

When I pack mine up everything goes in the outside two pockets and I keep a Packing Cube Backpack in the center section that I move dirties to.

Of course if you have your second and third laptops in the Tristar that might not work...

[Badger]

You can also take a plastic compression bag (or, if you're a cheap bastard like me, a 2 gallon Ziploc) and roll dirty stuff into it. Then all the dirties are separate from the cleans. I just stick my bag of dirty stuff behind the packing cube in the largest compartment. Hope that description makes sense.

[AVService]

Jeff
You are right in asking this as I do usually bring more than 1 bag but this time I wanted to see if I could get away with just 1 and so everything was in the TriStar.
I also drove one way which required a kit of Car stuff(GPS.iPod,iPod Transmitter,Lighter Plug 2fers,Lighter USB adapters and basically everything else I could think of to complicate things in general. I have a 2 sided Eagle Creek Cube that I use 1 side for 12volt stuff and the other for 120volt and I try to limit it to that,it does not work out that way though usually?

So I had an 11" MBA in the middle along with an E.C. large envelope with paper inside behind and magazines in front of the computer. Then the front small compartment is my bathroom kit with and without the clear ziplock for the airport. On the other side of the front zipper behind the front pockets I have bags of food and empty bags,and the rest of the electronic crap and the front pockets are filled with other endless small stuff too.

So that leaves the entire back and half of the middle for clothes.
The deal is that it can not stay like it is when you start out obviously so I just take the dirty clothes plastic bag in the Hotel closet and cram them in there as I go which changes where that one can fit as I go into the trip.

I even managed to not overpack really which made it fairly easy to accommodate everything even with the changing clothes but it just screws with the entire feel of the thing not having a crafty solution for the dirty stuff.

Luxury Problem? For Sure but it seemed worth asking.

[AVService]

Oh and I also went through the Nudie XRay Machine for the first time and was Hand Searched too and now I fear I may be Engaged to the guy who did the search? It was a little invasive!

[Frank II]

Since I travel with just one bag, I'll tell you what I do.

I take a separate laundry bag. This is usually the laundry bag found in the room to be used for, well, laundry. (Of course, they want you to use it to give to their laundry but I don't.)

My dirty clothes go in the bag. When I'm packing up to leave, I meticulously re-pack everything as planned and leave the laundry bag for last. When I get to this item, I carefully, and methodically, shove the bag in wherever it will fit. Unless those dirty clothes have been sprayed by a skunk--yes, it did happen to me once while traveling--they won't contaminate your clean clothes. Since they're dirty, wrinkling is not an issue.

[Sera]

I take a gallon ziplock freezer bag, and an empty packing cube. As I take clothes out of a 'clean' packing cube and wear them, I begin to refill that bag space with the 'dirty' packing cube. Any clothes that are normally dirty get rolled up and put in the designated 'dirty' packing cube with the ziplock bag. Anything that's seriously smelling (of smoke, horses, dogs, or sweat) goes in the ziplock rolled up tight and compressed. I can snare the dirty cube out and have it to take to a laundry room all neat and contained as the chance occurs.

[AVService]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I do just cram the laundry in where it will fit inside the free hotel bag right now it just seems rather ironic that we have all of these elegant and clever methods for packing to go somewhere but that the packing for coming back and along the way is just sort of out there begging for a clever solution?

Ed

[lonestar6]

I consistently repack along my journey use grocery bags to separate clean from dirty within a packing cube.

[TavaPeak]

Travel stuff sack for dirty clothes, in wasabi? It doesn't quite meet Badger's budget requirements, but worth a try. ;-)

[lonestar6]

I like to think of myself as frugal so I will continue with recycling plastic grocery bags for laundry, but my shoes need a home :-)

[moriond]

Travel stuff sack for dirty clothes, in wasabi? It doesn't quite meet Badger's budget requirements, but worth a try. ;-)

Our Travel Stuff Sacks serve a variety of purposes: they stow and compress items like down/polyfill jackets and vests (constraining them to a smaller amount of space), they can be used to separate dirty clothes from clean clothes, and some folks prefer to use them for packing clothing that doesn’t need to be folded (like underwear — we don’t fold our underwear — do you? On second thought, let’s not go there).

Actually, I roll my underwear and place them in packing cubes on the way out. I've been using an extra empty packing cube for clothes that need laundering. (No objections to Frank's system, but I don't always stay I places that have laundry bags in the rooms; I've sometimes used those, too.). My last trip I was carrying some of the Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter cubes that Lani used when she traveled to Japan using only her Dyneema Synapse. I found that if you really want to make sure that your bag accommodates acquisitions during your trip, and pack used items into these, without worrying about wrinkles, you can save a lot of room. It's the extra compression you can get by zipping these up, especially in the smaller sized cubes. The Silnylon is so light-weight (less than an ounce) that the cubes take their shapes from the contents. And of course, once you've stuffed everything into a quarter cube, it feels like a solid block you could use for target practice -- but a small block.

For larger items, and most of my clothes, I prefer to use the regular Tom Bihn packing cubes. And I think the new travel stuff sacks will work well with down/polyfill vests and jackets. To date I've been rolling one these vests and putting it into the water bottle pocket of my Tri-Star.

moriond

[falconea]

I take a large Yarn Stuff Sack and use that for smelly dirty washing. As I go I progressively pack things to one side only of the packing cubes which leaves space in my bag for the yarn stuff sack.

In my Tristar, I use a large packing cube for things that need to be flat, and a small and medium for other clothes. I refold tops and things which don't actually smell and pack them in the small cube.

Audrey

[AVService]

I don't think I have ever noticed the Stuff Sack before?

Maybe the ideal solution especially in Ultraviolet! I also really like Wasabi,but then what is not to like!

Ed

[lonestar6]

Me thinks it was added today....

I don't think I have ever noticed the Stuff Sack before?

Maybe the ideal solution especially in Ultraviolet! I also really like Wasabi,but then what is not to like!


Ed