The Wheel & Anchor Collective Suitcase

Packing wisdom from fifty well-travelled Canadians

What we learned when we finally asked

There is a particular kind of anxiety that has nothing to do with the destination. It arrives about a week before departure, usually in the evening, and it takes the form of an open suitcase on a bed and a question that refuses to resolve itself: what do I actually need?

I have been packing my suitcases for the better part of 40 years for trips that have taken me to over a hundred countries and all the continents. I’ve got to say that despite all this experience, I haven’t figured it out either. I have, more or less, made peace with that.

As I’ve heard the question a thousand times “what should I pack?”, I figured we would try something different by asking the community for their tips and so we gathered around fifty members for a Kaffee Klatsch dedicated to this topic. I asked the questions and our community answered.

The result was, quite honestly, better than anything I could have pulled together on my own. Between the members who wrote in beforehand and the 50 or so who joined us live, we assembled a body of practical, tested and occasionally hilarious knowledge that represents something in the order of a thousand trips. What follows is that knowledge, organized, verified (where I thought a little double checking was warranted) and them my team and I expanded it with a few things our research turned up afterward.

This is the Wheel & Anchor Collective Suitcase. It belongs to the members who built it.

What kind of packer are you, really?

We opened with a poll, and the answer was more interesting than I expected.

Answer	% of respondents
It changes completely depending on the trip	38%
The “just-in-case-er”: better to have it and not need it	36%
The “ruthless minimalist”: if I haven’t used it, it’s not coming	19%
The “overpacker”, and I’ve made peace with it	7%

In other words about ¾ of our community either adapts to the trip or errs on the side of abundance. Only one in five described themselves as ruthless. And only a few brave souls out of everyone admitted to overpacking outright, a figure I suspect understates the truth by a considerable margin given what I’ve seen while hosting trips. That being said I can completely relate as a probable member of that club myself.

What strikes me about the top answer is that it is the correct one. The traveller who packs the same way for a two-week LiveAway in Andalusia, a small-ship voyage through the Scottish isles, and a road trip through the Maritimes is a traveller who will be wrong at least twice. While this may seem anathema to our “carry-on only” members, the skill is not minimalism, the skill is calibration.

The one principle worth more than all the tips

Before we get to the collective wisdom, allow me one thought to ponder, because everything below rests on this idea (whether you agree with it or not):

You are not packing for a trip. You are packing for a day.

Laundry exists everywhere on earth. It exists in Hanoi and Halifax and Ha’apai. It exists in the sink of your hotel room in Seville. Once you accept that you will wash clothes while you are away, that this is normal, and easy, and what people who travel a great deal actually do, the arithmetic of the suitcase changes completely. You stop multiplying outfits by nights. You start thinking in terms of a rotation: what do I wear today, what is drying, what is clean and waiting.

Sherri E. proved the point rather beautifully. She had just returned from 7 weeks of LiveAways and reported that she still had too many clothes. Seven weeks. The lesson is not that she packed badly, it is that beyond about 5 days of clothing, additional days add nothing but weight.

Paulette put the same idea more memorably, and Diane B. wrote in with almost exactly the same phrase before the session: take half the clothes and twice the money. It is old advice. It is old because it works.

What do experienced travellers never leave home without?

We asked for the one item you would never travel without: passports and phones excluded, since those are not tips, they are prerequisites. The chat filled faster than I could read it.

For sleeping, and for peace. Noise-cancelling earbuds or headphones came first and came often, and not only for flights but for trains, thin hotel walls and for that twenty minutes of quiet you need before dinner. Susan M. pairs a blackout sleep mask with custom-moulded earplugs, which I consider one of the highest-value combinations in travel. Hotels will tell you the curtains are blackout curtains. They are almost never that. There is always a seam, and there is always an LED, or 5. Buy a genuinely comfortable mask rather than accepting the airline’s; the cheap ones press against the back of your skull and you will resent them at 3 in the morning.

For those members who travel with a CPAP machine, one detail is worth knowing and is frequently missed: a CPAP in its own dedicated case does not count against your carry-on allowance. This is a protection under accessibility regulations covering flights to and from North America, and most other carriers apply something similar, but the machine must be in its own case, not packed among your clothes, or the exemption is lost. Carry a letter from your physician, confirm with the airline 48 hours ahead if the itinerary is unusual and pack a small extension cord, because the outlet is often not where the bed is.

For seeing. Our member Zoya named reading glasses, and I would go one further: 2 pairs. Reading glasses are the single most losable object in travel, and the single most miserable to be without. A second “emergency” pair costs almost nothing (if you pick them up at the dollar store) and lives permanently in the day bag.

For power. Fran R. offered what may be the most quietly brilliant tip of the session: carry a lightweight extension cord with multiple outlets, and then you only need one adapter. One adapter, one plug, and everything charges at once: phone, watch, tablet, camera, hearing aids, the lot. It also solves the perennial hotel problem of every outlet being behind the headboard or under the desk.

Numerous people mentioned bringing a portable power bank and I never leave home without one given that the battery life of your phone is probably a lot less than what the maker says it is. I do want to put a note of caution here, because the rules changed earlier this year. As of March 2026, new global aviation rules limit passengers to two power banks, in carry-on only, never in checked baggage. Banks under 100 watt-hours are generally fine; between 100 Wh and 160 Wh you need advance airline approval (so don’t even bother). Recharging the power bank itself during the flight is now prohibited outright, though you may use it to power a device. Check the Wh rating printed on the casing before you fly because many of the larger power banks sold for camping exceed the limit.

For carrying stuff. Jennifer V. talked about switching her carry-on to a small backpack and never looking back: hands-free, fits under the seat in front, and, the part that matters on full flights, it almost never gets flagged for gate-checking. Lori L. showed us her Nano bag day pack on camera, a thing that folds down to almost nothing, clips onto a backpack or a purse, and reportedly carries 50 pounds. She has used it for library books and bottles of wine. Sandra S. keeps a small roll-up backpack for the same purpose. Pam R. swears by her Nordace backpack, and she was right about its origins: Nordace was founded in 2017 by a Canadian.

The principle underlying all three: your carry-on should not have to double as your daypack. A packable second bag weighs a few ounces and spares you the daily choice between hauling your carry-on around a city or going out with your pockets full.

For keeping track. Judy named AirTags, and there was immediate and audible agreement. Personally I have about 6. One lives permanently in each suitcase, one in my knapsack, one in my wallet. That being said, they are not a theft-recovery device (those members who were with me in France a couple years back will recall that saga), They are a reassurance device, and on the morning your checked bag does not appear on the carousel, knowing that it is still in Frankfurt is worth every penny.

For everything else. Ziploc bags. Sherri E. named them, I evangelize about them constantly, and I buy a stack at the dollar store before every trip. Wet swimsuit, muddy shoes, loose coins, keys, cables, the receipt collection. Look for the thicker reusable ones, they cost slightly more and last for years, which addresses the not-inconsiderable guilt of the disposable kind.

Juanita J. adds microfibre cloths, which serve as face cloth, lens cloth, spill cloth and towel, and dry in an hour. Judy keeps breakfast bars in her hand luggage on the sound theory that you never know when you will next eat.

Sandra S. carries electrical tape and duct tape, wrapped around an old pen casing, a beautifully economical way to bring tape without bringing rolls. The duct tape fixes almost anything; the electrical tape covers the constellation of small LED lights that modern hotel rooms scatter across the ceiling and which, if you value genuine darkness, will otherwise keep you awake.

And a tip for the knitters among us, of whom we have a great many. Christina M. has had expensive needles confiscated at security in both Lisbon and Mexico City, and she came up with an elegant solution: use interchangeable needles with bamboo or wooden tips, remove the tips before security, and store them in your bag alongside a few pencils. They look identical on the x-ray, and if a pencil is not dangerous then neither is a knitting needle tip. She reattaches them once seated and knits happily for the next six to twelve hours.

What have experienced travellers stopped packing?

This was the reverse-angle question, and it produced the sharpest material of the day. Subtraction is where experience shows.

Books. The runaway winner. Lori L. named it first and half the room agreed. The Kindle, or simply the books app on your tablet, was a genuine turning point. Personally I still love the feel of pages, but I just don’t bother carrying more than one (and let’s face it, I almost never have time to read a book).

The travel iron. Diane retired hers years ago. If something truly must be pressed, the hotel will find you an iron, or the bathroom steam will do most of the work overnight. Or just give up wearing linen. More and more I find decent looking clothing items that are “wrinkle free”.

The hair dryer. June O. gave hers up. I hold no authority on this subject and will not pretend otherwise, but the consensus in the room was that hotel dryers have improved considerably and the weight is difficult to justify.

The DSLR camera. Serious photographers should skip this paragraph, but Pam R. left hers behind, and I have done the same. Phone cameras are now good enough for the overwhelming majority of travel photography. The one exception is wildlife: if you are going on safari in Africa or to the Galápagos, bring the real camera and the long lens. You will not get a second chance at that leopard and as much as I have seen members try, it is nearly impossible to get a decent shot on your phone.

The umbrella. Paulette abandoned hers. I confess I still carry one, use it almost never, and find that the moment I remove it from the suitcase the heavens open. A good lightweight rain-and-wind shell is the better answer for most climates.

Duplicate chargers. Diane now carries one charger for two devices which is basically the same insight as Fran’s extension cord, arrived at from the other direction.

What is the best travel purchase you have ever made under $50?

Packing cubes — named immediately and often, and we shall return to them in this blog, as they turned out to be the most divisive object in the room.

AirTags — see above.

A phone tether. Cheryl C. chimed in to the conversation to explain hers, and it was one of the most useful sixty seconds of the session. She uses a case with a cord that goes around her neck or clips to her backpack or bag, so that when she uses her phone and drops it, which we all do, it does not hit the pavement or disappear down a grate. She also noted the secondary benefit: in a number of cities, the snatch-and-scooter theft of phones from tourists’ hands has become genuinely common, and a tethered phone is a far less appealing target.

A silicone stopper for the sink. Fran R. and Francine both mentioned it, and it is the sort of thing you never think of until the third European hotel in a row has no plug in the basin. Susan B. offered the “Macgyver” version: a small plastic bag with a few coins in it, pressed into the drain. Maybe that’s what you can use one of those ziplocs for.

Laundry strips. Susan B. spoke about this at length and converted several others on the spot. Instead of powder or liquid, you carry sheets of compressed detergent that allow you to tear off what you need and wash in the sink. She uses Tru Earth, which is made by a Vancouver company, and notes that the linen-scented ones leave your suitcase smelling rather good.

Susan then gave us possibly the single best practical technique of the entire session, and I want to describe it properly, because it changes what “washing clothes on the road” actually means:

The towel-roll drying method. Wash and rinse your clothes, and wring out as much water as you can. Lay a large bath towel flat on the bed. Lay the wet clothes on top of it. Roll the towel up with the clothes inside, then lean on it, as in with your whole body weight. When you unroll it, the clothes are almost completely dry.

Susan also travels with at least one clothes hanger and a few clothespins so that the last of the drying can happen overnight. Fran R. keeps foldable hangers and clothespins in her suitcase all the time. Between the strips, the plug, the towel roll and the hangers, you have a complete laundry system that weighs perhaps 200 grams and removes the need for a week’s worth of extra clothing.

A wine bag. Linda T. described the bubble-wrapped, Velcro-sealed sleeves you can pick up at most liquor stores. Although she doesn’t generally bring wine home, but when visiting the Mediterranean she brings back olive oil, and the bag keeps it where it belongs. Fran R. went one better and showed us a jet bag, which contains an absorbent pad: if the bottle breaks in transit, the bag absorbs the contents entirely rather than distributing them through your wardrobe.

I wish I had owned one about fifteen years ago, for reasons I will come to.

A small-bottle protection system. Lori’s method: put small bottles including perfume, oils and anything glass inside a sock, and put the sock inside a shoe. The shoe is going in your suitcase no matter what; the space inside it is free; and nothing else in the case can bang into it.

An RFID-blocking wallet. Now this one we had to do a little more research on. Diane R. bought both a wallet and a chest pack with this feature and reports being pleased with them. In fairness to our members, I have to say that what our fact finding revealed is that the actual risk of contactless card skimming is considerably lower than the marketing of those devices suggests. A thief must get literally within a few centimetres of the card, the transaction data is encrypted and single-use, and fraud protections cover the rest. Both the Identity Theft Resource Centre and CARP both advise that the threat is largely theoretical. That said, Diane’s real find may be the form factor rather than the shielding: a slim pack worn on the chest, under a jacket, is undoubtedly a good way to carry documents and cards in a crowded market.

Packing cubes: settling the debate

We put it to a vote, and the room did not agree with itself.

What’s your view on packing cubes?	Results
Life-changing, never going back	62%
Overrated, all hype	18%
Never tried them	13%
What’s a packing cube?	8%

Since we began including packing cubes in the member accessory pack this year, I have received both effusive thanks and polite requests to send them back, so the 62:18 split sounds about right to me.

The case in favour of them, made by Susan M. before the session and by many in the chat: pack by category: dressy in one, casual in another, sports in a third, undergarments in a fourth and you never completely unpack at all. The cubes come out of the case and go straight onto a shelf or into a drawer, or simply stay in the suitcase. Everything remains findable. Dirty laundry goes underneath them at the bottom of the case. Susan L. adds the refinement of labelling compression cubes.

Susan L-P. gave the most nuanced answer of the day. She was a die-hard convert until someone gave her a hard-sided Monos case, a Vancouver brand, incidentally, with built-in compression straps, at which point the large cubes stopped earning their place. She now uses two small ones for socks and undergarments and lets the case’s own compression handle the rest. But when she travels with a backpack, she says, cubes are godsends, because a backpack without some kind of system turns into a chaotic mess within a day.

The case against is equally coherent. Danielle, who has been to 130 countries and has used the same wheeled backpack for 15 years, argues that cubes are useless if your bag is not square, that you cannot see what is inside them. She suggests as well that that they lure you into carrying more than you otherwise would. Her approach is a designated place in the bag for each item which does not need an intermediate layer. Janet has a similar system: she rolls every top and stands them on end, so she can pull one out, wear it, re-roll it and return it without disturbing anything else. Sandra reported simply that cubes are useless for her, and Lori L. flagged the real trade-off which is that compression cubes create space, but space is not the constraint on a modern airline. Weight is.

My reading of it: the cube is not a packing method. It is a retrieval method. If your bag is soft-sided, deep, or opens like a sack, cubes will transform your trip. If your bag is hard-sided, clamshell, and already compartmented, they are admittedly an extra layer of fabric solving a problem you may not have. Try them once. Judge for yourself. Nothing in travel is universal.

The confessional: mistakes we will not make twice

I opened this round with my own travel screwup, as one should. Mine is maple syrup.

I brought a bottle overseas as a gift, wrapped, I believed thoroughly, inside my suitcase. Whatever the baggage handlers did to that bag, I can only assume it involved throwing it from the aircraft door. I never got the syrup out of some things. Not from the lining, not from the clothes, not from the case. Some things one does not recover from.

Our attendees had numerous thoughts of their own on this topic:

Liquids, generally. Jean packed an unprotected shampoo bottle and reported that it smelled lovely and that the smell followed her for a week. Laverne bought maple syrup at duty-free and then discovered the trap that catches a great many people: if your itinerary involves clearing customs and re-checking in, the sealed duty-free bag will not necessarily be accepted at the next security screening. Buy duty-free liquids on the final leg home, or not at all.

Things that look like other things. Frances F. brought a Ziploc bag of salt to India which seemed like a sensible enough idea since she had a sore throat and wanted to gargle. However, she had internal flights immediately after her flight out of Canada. Security, as she put it with some understatement, “didn’t like it.” Her conclusion is one of the most useful in this entire document: anything that resembles a white powder needs to be in its original labelled packaging. In fact, not only powders, but any pills or tablets that you might need or wish to bring should be in original packaging and pharmaceuticals ought to be accompanied by a prescription. That might save you from a massive headache not to mention possible incarceration !

Sharp things in the wrong bag. Susan lost a Wedgwood wedding cake knife at security. Paulette lost a corkscrew. I lost a Swiss Army knife I had carried for twenty years; it is somewhere in India undoubtedly with the security agent who confiscated it. There is no cure for this except a deliberate check of the carry-on before you leave the house, every single time.

Essentials in the checked bag. Someone packed all their adapters in a bag that was subsequently lost in transit. Anything you cannot function without for 48 hours belongs in your carry-on: This includes medications, chargers, adapters, glasses, one change of clothes, and any documentation.

Assuming you can buy it there. This came up again and again, and it may be the most under-appreciated theme of the session. Diane did not pack throat lozenges and could not find ones that worked for her. Laverne needed vitamin B12 in France and found it available only in liquid form, from a pharmacist, on request. Diane also reports a travelling companion who paid a ridiculous ten dollars for two adhesive bandages in Portugal. It’s important to remember that many things that sit on an open shelf in a Canadian drugstore are behind a counter, prescription-only, or simply absent elsewhere. Antihistamines, decongestants, certain painkillers and most supplements fall into this category.

Fabric that will not forgive you. Sue packed clothes that came out so wrinkled they never recovered. I still love linen, and I still concede that wearing it means an hour with an iron on arrival. Janet made the opposite error in the other direction: she wore Vessi runners (great shoes in and of themselves being waterproof, Canadian and excellent in rain) to a hot country, where their lack of breathability produced a result she described diplomatically.

Underestimating the carry-on limit. Janet had not checked a bag in years and then flew Lufthansa to Venice, where the carry-on allowance was eight kilograms. European and low-cost carriers weigh cabin bags, and eight kilos disappears astonishingly fast. Check the allowance for every carrier on your itinerary, not just the overseas one because those domestic flights will often get you, if they aren’t part of your international itinerary.

What do you need to know about travelling with medications?

Editor’s Note: The below information contains ideas and suggestions but does not constitute medical advice in any way. You are strongly advised to consult with a physician to address your personal medical situation and to inform yourself about all medications.

This was the topic the session kept returning to, and it deserves its own treatment, because the consequences of getting it wrong range from inconvenient to genuinely serious.

The Government of Canada’s guidance is straightforward and worth following to the letter:

Keep all medications in their original, labelled containers. This is the rule that catches people who unknowingly put 2 weeks worth of pills into a daily organizer.
Carry a copy of the prescription listing both the generic and the brand name. Generic names are often better understood across languages
Carry a letter from your physician explaining medical necessity, particularly for injectables, controlled substances, or anything unusual.
Pack medications in your carry-on, never in checked baggage.
Bring enough for the whole trip, plus a margin, because replacement abroad may be difficult or impossible.
Verify legality with the destination before you go. Some medications that are entirely ordinary in Canada are controlled or banned elsewhere.

That last point is not theoretical. There have been well-publicized cases of Canadians detained abroad over medications that are prescribed routinely at home. For example, certain ADHD medications, some painkillers, some sedatives, and a number of codeine-containing preparations are restricted or prohibited in parts of the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Japan. If you take anything in those categories, check with the destination country’s embassy or consulate before you fly. The simplest modern shortcut, as we discussed during the session, is to photograph your medications and ask an AI chatbot which of them are restricted in the countries on your itinerary, but treat that as a prompt to verify with the embassy, not as the final word.

Laverne W. offered the tidiest organizational solution to the whole problem: keep a separate toiletries and medical bag that lives permanently packed, used only for travel. You never have to reconstruct it, and you never forget the thing you always forget.

On what to include in such a kit, the room contributed generously. Rowena named Imodium, though I would add the caution I raised in the session, having recently heard of a traveller who suppressed a serious infection with it and ended up considerably worse off. Anti-diarrheals suppress a symptom; if there is fever or blood, that symptom is doing a job. Christina named Gravol for seasickness, and Diane noted that the ginger formulation is non-drowsy which is a meaningful distinction when the point of the boat is to look out of it. Danielle described a severe allergic reaction in West Africa and now travels with corticosteroid cream and antihistamines. Bandages, per Diane’s Portuguese experience, are cheaper at home. Frances’s advice about labelled packaging applies to all of it.

Our researched additions to the medical kit, for the kind of travel we do: a small supply of oral rehydration salts (ORS), which are far more effective than water alone after a bad night; a broad-spectrum antibiotic ointment; blister plasters, which are worth their weight in gold on a walking-heavy itinerary; a digital thermometer; tweezers; and, if your physician agrees and your destination warrants it, a standby course of antibiotics for travellers’ diarrhoea.

Linda U. takes precautions beyond most, and given that she has medical reasons to avoid getting sick, they are entirely rational. She carries a LifeStraw filtering water bottle against waterborne illness. In countries where the tap water is unsafe she tapes her mouth shut in the shower, and wears earplugs in the shower as well, having acquired a serious ear infection from shower water in Spain. These sound extreme until you have spent a week of a holiday in a hotel bathroom, at which point they sound like foresight.

Again, we reiterate that none of the above information is meant to contain medical advice and you must consult with your doctor before taking any medications.

How should you build a travel wardrobe?

Several members converged, independently, on the same underlying idea, and it is the most valuable clothing advice in this document.

Jane M. travels carry-on only regardless of trip length. She said it most clearly: choose a base palette, repeatable layers, and one accent colour. Everything you pack must work with everything else you pack. If a garment goes with only one other garment, it is not earning its place.

Pamela R.’s contribution was three words long: invest in merino wool – everything. She has a valid point, and it is worth explaining why. Merino regulates temperature in both directions, so a single layer works across a wider range of conditions than cotton does. It resists odour to a remarkable degree. three or four wearings between washes is normal rather than optimistic. It dries far faster than cotton. And it does not hold wrinkles. For a traveller crossing climates, merino base layers, socks and a light sweater will do the work of twice their volume in cotton.

Janet J.’s tip was the most specific and, judging by the reaction, the most immediately adopted (at least by the female members of the group): black or dark grey yoga pants, straight leg, no logo. Comfortable for a nine-hour flight, stretchy enough that the knees do not bag, and with the right top, totally presentable at dinner. She avoids blue jeans and anything with a waistband button entirely: constricting when seated for long periods, slow to dry, and heavy.

Bonnie M. rolls everything except the bulkiest items which she wears on the plane. This might be the oldest trick in the book and still the best use of free allowance there is. A coat worn is a coat that weighs nothing, in terms of your luggage allowance.

Diane B. makes a point that is easy to overlook because it happens before you pack anything at all: buy the lightest luggage you can find, and buy lighter clothing and footwear. A heavy suitcase spends your allowance before a single garment goes in, and a heavy pair of shoes costs you the equivalent of three shirts. The weight problem is not solved at the end, in the frantic repack on the bedroom floor. It is solved at the shop.

Juanita J. contributes the most practical laundry accessory we heard: an extra-large Ziploc bag for washing undergarments. You can let them soak, agitate them properly without water going everywhere, which is a crucial tip in small European bathrooms and which leaves the sink free for its intended purpose.

On footwear, which is the real enemy of the light suitcase: Susan G. uses a shoe bag and positions shoes at the bottom of the case as it stands on its wheels, since they are heavier than clothes and the load should sit low. Susan R. and Diane R. both independently reported using a shower cap to wrap shoes — collected from hotels or bought in a stack at the dollar store. Susan’s confession that she packs too many pairs is the universal one.

Our recommendation, tested over a great many itineraries: three pairs, maximum, and one of them is on your feet. A comfortable walking shoe worn in transit; one presentable pair for dinner that is not a burden to carry; and one “situational” pair: sandals, water shoes, or nothing at all. And if Japan is on your itinerary, prioritize shoes you can slip on and off without sitting down because you will be removing them constantly.

Fran’s shawl deserves a mention of its own. A large, light scarf or shawl is the most versatile single item you can carry: blanket on the aircraft, warmth when the evening turns, modesty covering for churches and mosques, sun protection, pillow, and tied with the right knot, a bag. Nothing else in the suitcase does 5 jobs.

What do you wear to dinner?

This was the question I raised in my own diatribe, because the glossy carry-on influencers never address it and our members ask about it constantly.

Most Wheel & Anchor travel is genuinely casual. But there are evenings like in Italy, in France, aboard a small ship, or at a farewell dinner where you will feel conspicuous in hiking trousers, and where feeling conspicuous will diminish the evening.

The answer that emerged from the room is the wardrobe-system answer rather than the extra-outfit answer. Janet’s dark yoga pants with a good top. Fran’s shawl. A single pair of shoes that reads as smart. For gentlemen: a merino or fine-knit sweater over a collared shirt travels flat, weighs nothing, and is correct almost everywhere in Europe short of a black-tie evening. A jacket if you genuinely enjoy wearing one; most of our guys are done with jackets, and so most shouldn’t bother.

The principle: one dinner-capable combination, assembled from garments that are also doing daytime work. Not a separate outfit. A different arrangement of the same wardrobe.

What should you pack differently for a LiveAway?

A LiveAway is typically two or three weeks in the same destination, and it does affect the usual packing calculation entirely.

You’re not living out of a suitcase, you’re moving into an apartment (in most cases). You will have space. You will have, in nearly every case, a washing machine or a laundromat within walking distance. Which means the clothing question largely dissolves, and Sherri’s 7-week report stands as the definitive evidence: even at 7 weeks, she had too much.

What actually changes:

Bring less clothing than for a two-week touring trip, not more. This is counter-intuitive and it is correct. A one-week rotation is ample for a month in one place.
Bring the things that make a temporary home feel like a home. Laverne W.’s suggestion of tea, spices, and flavourings for water is exactly right, and applies well beyond long stays because local water is often perfectly potable yet simply tastes wrong. A few things from your own kitchen make an unfamiliar one workable.
Bring a proper day bag, because you will be doing daily errands rather than sightseeing marathons.
Consider what you will do with your evenings. Books on the tablet, a deck of cards, binoculars if the setting rewards them. Fran packs small ones and they are marvellous for a balcony over a harbour.
Bring your own comfort items for sleep. A month of bad pillows is different from 3 nights of them.

And a note on the mechanics of longer, multi-stop travel, which I raised during the session: luggage storage and luggage forwarding are underused by North American travellers and widely used by Europeans. Services such as Bounce, Radical Storage, Stasher and LuggageHero will hold bags for a few dollars a day at thousands of shops, hotels and cafés across Europe and beyond making them ideal choices if you have a day between check-out and a train, or want to explore a city unencumbered. And forwarding services such as Eurosender, Send My Bag or Luggage Forward will move a full-size suitcase between cities, often for something in the range of fifty to a hundred dollars within the EU. I frequently carry a larger case for the trip as a whole and forward it ahead when a segment does not require it. I also pack a folded duffel inside the main case, so that a side trip can be made with a small bag while the large one waits.

What should you pack differently for a Nautical?

A Nautical means a cabin, not a hotel room and on the small vessels we favour, a cabin means limited storage, a small wardrobe, and a suitcase that must fold flat and slide under your bed or onto a shelf.

From the room and from our own experience:

Water shoes. My own contribution, and my own recurring regret when I leave them behind. On a gravel beach, or a landing where you cannot see the bottom, they can be the difference between swimming and watching other people swim.
Reef-safe sunscreen. Lori L. raised this and she is right on both counts. The environmental case for this is real, and several destinations now require it by law.
Motion sickness remedies, brought from home. Christina named Gravol; Diane recommends the ginger formulation for its non-drowsy properties. As I noted in the session, these are not reliably available abroad, and motion can surprise you even on sheltered water when a larger vessel passes. (Note: consult a physician before taking any medication)
Soft luggage, or a case that collapses. Hard-sided cases are wonderful on land and awkward in a cabin with 30ms of clearance under the bed.
A light windproof layer, always. The temperature on deck is not the temperature ashore. Ten knots of apparent wind changes everything.
Non-marking soles. Many small ships request them, and dark soles that scuff a teak deck will not endear you to the crew.
A dry bag or waterproof phone pouch for Zodiac landings and tender transfers, where spray is guaranteed and full immersion is not impossible.
Binoculars. On a boat, they contribute greatly to the whole point of standing on deck.

The systems: what separates organized travellers from the rest

The most striking thing about the session was that the best travellers in the room did not have better items. They had better systems.

Photograph everything. Marilyn A. photographs both the inside and the outside of her packed suitcase before every trip. This takes eleven seconds and gives you, in the event of loss, a complete visual manifest for the airline’s claim form and an unambiguous picture of the bag itself. Extend it to your passport, your prescriptions, your insurance policy and your credit cards, stored somewhere you can reach without your phone.

Start early and pack passively. Coleen S. lays her open suitcase out about a month before departure and adds things as she thinks of them. Rowena does the same thing in her head, packing mentally for weeks before she packs physically. Both are solving the same problem which is that the forgotten item is almost never forgotten at packing time; it is forgotten 2 weeks beforehand, when you thought of it and had nowhere to put the thought.

Keep a written record, trip by trip. Janet J. writes a packing list for each trip with the dates, the locations and the climate, and keeps them. Years later she can look back and see what worked. This is, quietly, the single highest-return habit in this document, because it compounds.

Build a reusable checklist by trip type. Susan B., a professional organizer before she retired, has built the most rigorous system we heard about: an Excel spreadsheet with a separate page for each kind of trip: camping and hiking, boat trips, discovery tours, LiveAways, hot climates, cold climates. Every page shares the same columns: Clothes, Ablutions, Admin, Miscellaneous, Things To Do Before Leaving Home. Most of the contents repeat; the differences are what matter. She simply opens the right page. She neither forgets nor over-packs.

We have built a simplified version of Susan’s idea into the printable checklist that accompanies this article.

Never fully unpack. Fran R.’s discipline, and mine as well: the Ziplocs, the foldable hangers, the clothespins, the AirTag, the adapters, the laundry kit — none of it ever leaves the suitcase. When you return, the accessories go straight back in. You never search the house for the thing you know you own. The bag is always eighty per cent ready.

Keep the medical and toiletry bag permanently stocked. Laverne W.’s rule, and it belongs in the same family.

What we would add

A few items the room did not name that we think belong in this list, for the way our members travel:

Compression socks for long-haul flights. Not glamorous, genuinely useful, and increasingly recommended for anyone over 60 on flights beyond four hours.

An eSIM, arranged before departure. Although Canadian telecom providers are finally offering more cost competitive international roaming plans, for occasional travellers there is a more cost effective solution. Some modern phones can hold a local or regional data plan alongside your Canadian number, activated on landing without visiting a shop or swapping a physical card. It is the single biggest improvement in travel logistics of the last decade, and we will devote a full session to it.

A multi-currency card. Sandra S. named the Wise card in the chat, and I said at the time that I will leave the American Express (and every other Canadian credit card) at home before I leave the Wise card. It holds balances in dozens of currencies, converts at rates that retail banks cannot match, and works as a debit card at ATMs abroad. Whatever provider you choose, carry two cards from two different networks, kept in two different places.

A paper copy of the essentials. Passport photo page, insurance policy number and emergency line, prescriptions, and the address of your first night’s accommodation. Phones are lost, stolen and drained. Paper is not.

A doorstop or rubber wedge. Weighs nothing, costs three dollars, and provides genuine peace of mind in a ground-floor room with an uncertain lock.

Know the European entry rules before you go. The EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) is now operating across the Schengen area, which means biometric registration, fingerprints and a facial photograph, on arrival rather than a passport stamp. Expect the first entry of a trip to take longer than you are used to. ETIAS, the separate pre-travel authorization, is expected to begin sometime in 2027 with a transitional grace period thereafter. And the rule that catches people every year: your passport must be valid for at least three months beyond your planned departure from the Schengen area.

The list is yours, and it is not finished

What strikes me most, reading back over the transcript of our Kaffee Klatsch, is how little of this is about products. The suitcase brand matters less than the palette. The cube matters less than the system. The most valuable things said that morning were a towel roll, an open suitcase left out for a month, a written list kept for years, and a bag that is never fully unpacked.

There is one more thing worth saying. Almost everything in this document was learned by someone the hard way, through a confiscated knife, a ruined suitcase, an ear infection in Spain, ten dollars for two bandages in Portugal. That is the actual value of a travel community: you get to acquire the lesson without the maple syrup.

This list is a living document. We will add to it as members contribute, and we will link to it from our trip documentation, because the best answer to “what should I bring?” is not a generic list from a search engine; it is the accumulated experience of people who travel the way you do.

To Marilyn, Coleen, Susan R., Susan M., Jane, June, Christina, Diane B., Jennifer, Laverne, Rowena, Pamela, Maureen, Diane R., Juanita, Susan B., Bonnie, Susan G., Susan L., Sandra, Janet, Fran, Cheryl, Lori, Sherri, Frances, Linda T., Linda U., Susan L-P., Danielle, Judy, Paulette, Jean, Sue, Zoya and everyone else who participated in our Kaffee Klatsch 5….

Thank you. This is yours.

The Wheel & Anchor Collective Suitcase is compiled from the fifth Kaffee Klatsch, held in July 2026, together with the pre-session member survey. Member tips are reproduced with light editing for length and clarity.