As i almost explained before I have no “home base”. The closest to a “home”, a place i feel completely comfortable and familiar is Japan. But after a month or 2 i want to move on to another country and culture. So when traveling i need to always feel as much “at home” as possible. I have a plastic plate to put food on, a bowl for a soup or some kind of food which requires a bowl and utensils which can pass through carry-on luggage screening (no metal knives). Most of those utensils are a thick plastic and seem to be good for a couple years. I have a bottle opener, a corkscrew which often gets taken away at security screening, but is very inexpensive to replace. I also have a screw tightening bottle seal, kind of like what a cork is but made of metal, mostly used for sparkling wine. I also carry some spices including salt and red pepper. So I’m ready to eat in the room after buying some things in the grocery store nearby. I also carry ground coffee and a compact net to hold the coffee grounds so I can pour over hot water and make a nice cup of coffee in the morning from good quality Arabica. A dependable cup of coffee is very important. There are many places I’ve been in the world where the coffee is really substandard.
All of my electronics go in special bags depending upon their required usage, often or seldom. I have an iPhone which I carry, a backup iPhone in case that needs repairing and an iPad for my entertainment. I never turn on Hotel TVs.
In one bag is a collection of important documents and a few small cases with important items. There are some spaces for cash from different countries which I try to avoid carrying out except the most popular ones, some old bank books, my name seal for Japan which is registered but which I will probably never need to use again. I made it 50 years ago as a required substitute for a signature. And there are a few small important, family related items. So all of that stuff goes into one suitcase plus a smaller backpack, which can fit underneath the seat in front of me on an airplane.
Because I’m not interested in fashion or really, how badly my clothes are wrinkled, rolling them seems to be a very compact way of packing them. Since they are made from natural but also some man-made fibers they tend to come out in fairly good shape. So if you’re traveling like me I highly recommend rolling the clothes and keeping them in separate bags inside the suitcase for easy packing and unpacking. 3 t-shirt that can be worn also on warm sunny days are sufficient. This year i traded in a pair of trousers and shorts at Decathlon for hybrid trousers. The legs unzip and it becomes a pair of shorts. This reduces space for packing.
Toiletries, medicines and healthcare related things take up quite a bit of space in the suitcase, almost 1/3 of the space. In some countries some medicines are not easily attainable, especially in Japan where prescriptions are often required for what are over-the-counter medicines in the US or in Europe. A nasal rinse bottle, ointments, antibiotic, cream, ibuprofen, and some other things or maybe not essential to everyday life but when you’re in a place where you can’t get those things, they certainly can bring good healthful relief.
One thing I avoid is packing shoes. They take up a huge amount of space and for me just a pair of sandals that flatten and not take much space is sufficient. When I’m moving with suitcase from one place to another I wear my shoes since they are really too big to pack.
When I started traveling in 2020 but then got locked down for the Covid outbreak I had a backpack, a larger flexible bag and a fairly large second backpack. I stored some of that in a locker in Munich while traveling thinking the winter clothes would go in storage and then I’d go there before the winter and switch out to winter clothes. But some thieves actually did me a good favor. They broke into the storage facility, badly damaged 7 lockers including mine. But since I had nothing of real value they didn’t steal my stuff. I gave some thought to what was really important. Over that year I did not need anything that was stored in the locker. So I took everything out, organized things again at the hotel, canceled the locker and gave all the stuff in storage to new immigrants to Germany who were working cleaning the rooms in the hotel. I checked with them first if they wanted the stuff and they said they were very happy to get it so it all went to good use. Everybody was happy and I wound up with one backpack, fairly large Osprey (later became a suitcase with rollers), and a smaller backpack.
Now if I find something in my suitcase I have not used for six months or more it gets left behind somewhere. I am constantly getting some new things more convenient or better for me and switching those out for things I don’t use and which take space or are heavy.
A waterproof, winter jacket, of thin material, is now a permanent part of my luggage. But when I get into very cold weather Ineed a sweater underneath. When I go to a warmer place the sweater gets left behind and I get a new one when I get cold weather again. They are not expensive but they do take up a lot of space.