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When I first started traveling regularly, I packed for every possible scenario.
What if it rained? What if I needed a fancy outfit? What if I suddenly wanted to work out every day? What if my hotel didn’t have basic toiletries?
The result was a suitcase I could barely lift, a sore shoulder from the airport, and a bag full of items that made the whole trip and never got touched.
Over the years I’ve gotten a lot more honest with myself about what I actually reach for. These are five things I’ve stopped packing — and I genuinely don’t miss any of them.
1. Multiple “Just In Case” Outfits
I used to add outfits to my bag for situations that existed entirely in my imagination. An extra dinner outfit in case somewhere nicer came up. An extra sightseeing outfit because what if the first one got dirty. An extra travel outfit as a backup for the backup.
None of these scenarios ever justified the space they took.
What changed it: I started being deliberate about packing pieces that actually work together instead of bringing a collection of options. The ANRABESS Keyhole Neck Travel Tee is a good example of what I mean — it looks put together enough to wear at dinner, comfortable enough to wear all day walking, and doesn’t wrinkle when packed. That’s one item doing the work of three, which is the whole idea.
BAGSMART Compression Packing Cubes also helped here, counterintuitively. When you can see exactly how much space your clothes take up — and compress them down — it becomes obvious how much you were overpacking. There’s something about packing cubes that makes the “just in case” outfits feel genuinely unnecessary.
2. Full-Size Toiletries
I convinced myself I needed my exact products in their full-size containers. My specific shampoo. My preferred conditioner. The body wash I use at home.
The reality: I used maybe a quarter of each bottle and lugged the rest through four countries.
The switch that actually worked wasn’t buying a bunch of tiny containers and decanting everything (I tried that and it’s annoying). It was getting a proper hanging toiletry bag that made travel-size products feel organized rather than chaotic. The BAGSMART Large Hanging Toiletry Bag has enough compartments that everything has a spot — and it hangs from a hook in any hotel bathroom, which means you’re not unpacking it onto a wet counter every single night.
I also stopped stressing about having my exact products everywhere. Hotel basics exist. TSA-size versions of most things exist. The toiletry bag helps make the switch feel like an upgrade rather than a compromise.
3. A Separate Pair of Pajamas for Every Night
This one sounds small but adds up fast.
Nobody is evaluating your sleepwear. Not your travel companions, not the hotel staff, not anyone. One comfortable set is genuinely enough for most trips — wash them if needed, or don’t, because you’re on vacation and no one is checking.
I used to pack pajamas almost as a reflex, one pair per three nights. Now I pack one. The space it frees up is embarrassingly useful.
4. My Regular Everyday Wallet
My everyday wallet is thick. Cards I haven’t used in months, old receipts, a gas station loyalty card, library card, backup lip balm. It’s fine at home and genuinely terrible for travel.
What I bring instead: the Coco Rossi RFID Passport Holder, which keeps my passport, two cards, and some cash all in one slim holder. RFID blocking matters more than I used to think — when you’re in crowded airports and train stations, your cards are closer to strangers than they ever are at home. Having everything in one organized place also means I’m not digging through a fat wallet at every checkout counter or border crossing.
The rule I use: if I wouldn’t need it in an emergency, it doesn’t travel with me.
5. Too Many Shoes
This was my biggest packing mistake for years, and I think it’s the most common one overall.
My former packing list: sneakers, sandals, flats, a nicer pair for evenings, and some variation of “just in case” shoes that covered whatever I’d missed. I routinely traveled with four or five pairs and wore two of them.
Now I travel with two, sometimes one, and the standard I use is simple: if a shoe isn’t comfortable enough to walk several miles in, it stays home. A nice shoe that destroys your feet by noon is not actually useful anywhere.
The REEF Neptune has become my warm-weather travel shoe because it goes from beach to casual dinner without looking like a sport sandal, and I can walk all day in it without thinking about my feet. For anything with unpredictable weather, the Sperry Saltwater Duck Boot is the one shoe that handles rain, cold, and looks decent enough for most situations — which means it earns its spot in the bag where three shoes used to go.
The Thing These Five Have in Common
None of them were bad ideas at the time. They all came from a genuinely reasonable place — wanting to be prepared, wanting to feel like myself while traveling, not wanting to be caught without something.
But over enough trips, the pattern became clear: the stuff I stressed about not having almost never came up. And the stuff I actually used was a much shorter list than I thought.
Packing less didn’t make trips harder. It made the whole thing noticeably easier — through airports, between hotels, on travel days when you’re already running on four hours of sleep and don’t need a heavy bag to deal with too.
If you’re still packing for every possible scenario, try cutting one category this trip. You probably won’t miss it.
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