10 CHEAP Carry-On Packing Hacks You’ve Never Thought Of ✈️

✈ Don’t forget to grab my Long Flight Essentials Cheatsheet for free: bit.ly/40GFPdc 🎒 And here are those compression cubes to help you fit more in your luggage: shoptripped.com/ProjectUntethered-Summer24

Probably my best travel hack or tip deals with being broke, brilliant and personal hygiene necessitates. Pick up a package of regular old sponges and ziplock bags at the dollar store and head home. Place any liquid hygiene products like shampoo, body wash, dish soap, aloe, laundry detergent, etc you need to bring on the trip with you on a counter workspace. Line your sponges up (on top of baggie) and using one sponge per hygiene product pour a small amount of the liquid directly onto it. Allow that to fully absorb into the sponge and then repeat the process until either the sponge is full or you have enough of the needed product for the duration of your trip. Place sponge into the baggie and only seal the bag halfway at most. Let them sit out overnight so the liquid dries inside the sponge. Either cut the sponge into cubes for daily use or leave in one piece to cut once you’ve reached your destination. Make sure the baggies are fully sealed before packing them. Now all you need is a bit of water to “reactivate the sponge soaked product. Doing this saves an amazing amount of space and weight. Thank you and I really hope this helps. ❤ from Shannon in Canada 🇨🇦 PS there are countless other items you can do this with and definitely don’t need to be hygiene related.

I almost purchased a packable neck pillow and then went to look at my neck pillow and saw it had a zipped removable cover. Score!!

Growing up poor. Buy when on sale. No carrying over charges on credit cards. Use rewards programs whenever available. Cheaper can be better; but not very often. Use thrift stores for things that will be used for less than a year. Buy fruit and vegetable from farmers market and in season. Add anything to mashed potatoes for a filling meal.

No matter how much you can jam into your packing cubes, many airlines have weight restrictions for carry-ons and personal items.

I take an old prescription bottle and put a small tube of super glue, some safety pins, some twist ties, and wrap it in duct tape.

I love compression cubes. I put each day's outfit in a separate compression cube. I recently discovered, though, that I can do the same thing with large zip-lock bags.

Although I love the carabiner and extra packing bag idea for those extra layers, probably wouldn't work for the budget airlines I use in Europe, as they can check at the gate, and my tiny allowable carry on bag is already packed full. What I've been doing is buying something I need at the airport (sometimes it's just water and snacks) but get a bigger airport bag, and then put my extra layer things in there, usually under any purchases. They are required to allow an airport purchase bag on so I haven't had any problems with this, plus I have legitimate purchases in the bag.

I use extra hotel soaps that I've received at past stays that I like and break them into smaller pieces for the number of days I'm staying at each future place. For example, bigger for a 2 day stay versus a one day stay. I keep them in a baggie until I need to use them and throw them away if any is left after use. I figure this is easier than worrying about making sure it's dry enough. I have an allergy to mold so this method works for me better.

Travel tips: Take a low dose aspirin before your fight to prevent blood clots. Clean out your sock drawer before you pack and take “one way socks.” Throw them away as you wear them on the trip. No smelly socks to worry about and more room in your suitcase as the trip progresses. Clorox wipes in a ziplock to clean the plane’s tray table and seatbelt. Email a picture of your passport and IDs to yourself.

I love travel hacks to reduce luggage as I only travel with personal items, even internationally. I put duct tape on a pen (instead of a deo), as I keep pens, tape, safety pins etc in the same container. I have been doing the neck support as a packing hack for about 15 years, it's a game changer. I sometimes use a teddy and put clothes in it. It doubles as a pillow. I use small microfiber towels instead of towels to dry off, they save so much space. To reduce luggage, I do 'wash, wear and spare'. I've never had a problem of not having anything to wear. I save samples of face cream, perfume samples etc to reduce the amount of products I need to bring.

Compression cubes let you take more clothes but they still weigh the same so you still need to be wary of weight limits.

My best soap trick is to use a small ziplock bag, you can find them in the beading section at Hobby Lobby. I put my wet soap in the ziplock, but do not seal it completely so that the water can evaporate allowing the soap to dry. I cut a small piece of the soap off to travel with so I'm not wasting space with a large bar of soap. I agree carabiner hooks are the best, I always carry a small one in my purse. In addition to what you mentioned that can be used to secure a zipper (even on a purse) to prevent pick pockets.

Don’t forget the safety pins with the duct tape. Ranger rolling is great, learnt this in the 1980’s and used it since. Big cheap ziplock bags (ikea) are a good substitution for compression cubes, just fill n roll out the air. 👍🏽

Of you take any regular lined jacket to the local tailor you can get pockets added inside. I have one for my iPad inside my sport coat.

I am impressed with how little new fancy items we were told we had to buy to travel in a thrifty, minimalist way. This is so much more continuous with how a lot of us live, rather than just an exercise in accumulating high-end stuff.

I was on vacation and on my last night while packing the zipper on the suitcase broke. It was 10 pm in Mazatlán no stores open. I got my duct take and taped my suitcase. Believe me it looked horrible but made the trip back to California. Customs did not even bother to ask me any questions. 😂

You can use the hotel hairdryer to dry out the soap before packing

a full ranger roll tutorial would be awesome! and i would love to see more on personal item only packing as i've been doing that for all flights recently including 10 day trips from US to 3 countries in Europe!

I’d love to see a full video about ranger rolling different types of clothes!