As a chronic over packer, I challenged myself to travel Europe with only a tote bag

“I stopped standing in front of the mirror, performing tiny character studies of who I might be that day.”

My approach to holidays has always been simple: be prepared. Of course, preparedness to me has nothing to do with wilderness survival and everything to do with delusion.

It’s this delusion that’s seen me overpack a myriad of dumb things on practically every holiday I’ve been on. Multiple bulky mohair sweaters to visit New Zealand’s North Island in the thick of summer, a slinky blouse to a fundamentally un-slinky family holiday to the country, shoes I’d never worn but insisted were essential to the new, improved ‘holiday version’ of myself I’d concocted in my pre-trip fantasies.

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Inevitably, each item would go untouched. I’d drag my over-stuffed suitcase over uneven cobbles, the wheels clattering and snagging at every crack, and force it up narrow staircases that seemed designed to torment me. I’d arrive to my dinner reservations late, sweating and overwhelmed while the absolute carnage of my suitcase engulfed my shoebox-sized hotel room.

When it came to my long-awaited European holiday (the one my sister and I had been talking about for years), I knew I wanted it to be different. Holidays and I have always had this complicated relationship. I show up armed to the teeth, only to face an existential threat of my own making.

This time, I had to face the truth: I wasn’t going to magically transform into some cooler, curated version of myself. But if the past was anything to go by, I had the chance to feel the most like myself than I had in a while.

The plan? No checked luggage. Just one carry-on-sized tote bag. The Baggu Carry-On, to be exact. Four weeks in Europe, 10 flights, 10 kilograms.

This challenge arrived at the perfect time. My chronic overpacking had crescendoed in recent years thanks to the tidal wave of holiday content I would haplessly devour the minute I hit ‘book.’ The endless ‘Euro Summer Hauls’ on my FYP made the pressure to overpack feel almost compulsory. So, when I finally committed to packing light, it felt like a tiny act of rebellion – a way to reclaim some perspective on how I dress from the clutches of the algorithm.

Plus, I could avoid the strangulating anxiety of waving my suitcase goodbye at a miscellaneous budget airline’s bag drop, always half convinced that once my suitcase gets swallowed by that conveyor belt, I’d never see it again.

How it went

My final tote held: two T-shirts, three pairs of shorts, one pair of long pants, one maxi skirt, two short dresses, one maxi dress, one button-up, three swimsuits, my beloved New Balance 9060s and a pair of Tevas.

Unsurprisingly, the first few days proved tough. Jet-lagged and jittery, I would whine to my sister, “I packed nothing good”. I missed all the possibilities that came with my wardrobe – my well-stocked arsenal of brands and on-trend styles that offered me a comforting illusion of preparedness. But as it always does on holiday, dressing soon became thoughtless.

I stopped standing in front of the mirror, performing tiny character studies of who I might be that day. My clothes simply became clothes, entirely unremarkable, which made space for me to embrace how remarkable everything else was about the trip.

Without the safety net of choice, I had to just exist. And instead of feeling underprepared or underdressed everywhere I went, I felt more like myself. Maybe because travel, at its best, doesn’t change who you are but strips away the noise until you can see yourself clearly again.

On my last night in Sicily, the universe drove this lesson home. I showed up to dinner in my uniform of the week: bikini top as a bra, button-up splattered with pasta sauce, hair knotted with Mediterranean salt. Naturally, the dinner spot I chose was incidentally where most of the guests attending Charli xcx’s wedding the next day were dining.

Surrounded by quite literally every tastemaker I admired (none of whom had embarked for four weeks away with a tote bag) I truly had to let go of it all – the version of myself I thought I had to become and this fictional ‘cooler’ self that I could be. I ended up meeting my teenage hero, Devon Lee Carlson. She was in a perfectly-tailored archival Versace mini, I was wearing Tevas caked in sand. The world kept spinning.

Now that I’m home, my tote bag’s holed up in my closet, quietly judging me every time I add-to-cart something unnecessary. I’d love to say I’ve become a minimalist but the truth is I still overthink outfits and probably always will. But something shifted. I care less about dressing like a hypothetical self and more about dressing for the person I already am.

This wasn’t about deprivation or rejecting the joy of doing it ‘for the look’. Fashion should thrill, pushing you from your comfort zone and challenging you to have fun. But fashion should also make room for ease, confidence and self-respect. Not the spiral of anxiety and excess I’d grown used to. Reinvention might be exciting but revelling in who you really are? Even better.

For more on travelling with a carry-on, try this.