Complete One-Bag Travel Kit (on a BUDGET)

You see, spending more than a third of each year abroad for business for the better part of a decade, it makes sense for me to take the time and effort to test and buy the absolute best possible travel accessories for my frequency and use cases. But what about folks who treat travel as a special event, a getaway, for whom flying is much less frequent and where money feels better spent on accommodations, experiences, or souvenirs? Every One Bag Travel Kit begins, of course, with the bag itself. Coming in at a shockingly low 80-ish US dollars, this TomToc 40 liter travel backpack has insane value and easily outclasses bags that double or even triple its price. But in order to demonstrate that, there are just five categories that all travelers care about in a bag, starting with airline compliance. And this is a quick one. As you can see here at the airport, with the bag completely stuffed, it slides into the most restrictive international carry-on size cage tester, no problem. From a weighing rules perspective, this bag strikes a good balance between weight savings and critical protective padding, coming in at just over two and a half pounds or 1.2 kilos. And this is an area where you need to do some of your own research because depending on who you are flying with, many carriers impose a weight limit. So just make sure you do not pack over. Moving on to the second category of storage and organization, this backpack is well thought out. I like to think of it as having a slim office and a cavernous cargo hold. With a full wrap zipper opening from the back, we can see the slim office. Truly minimalist, taking care of just what's most needed. There's a well padded laptop sleeve that accommodates even the biggest 17 inch laptops, as well as a small tablet sleeve. The only other compartment here is the mesh zippered pocket. No internal organization, but hey, when we are dealing with extremely long computer charging cables, a clean single compartment is often easiest anyways. That really does it for the slim office, which leads us to the cavernous cargo hold for all of your clothing, toiletries, and other items. Zipping it open, we can see we've got a gigantic bowl. And just like everything else in this bag, there are no sub compartments, which is perfect for maximizing customized packing when using packing cubes and organization pouches. Clothing is where most folks way over pack, but of course, this is a budget one bag travel video, and so we need other much cheaper options that sit in two rules. Rule one is no cotton. Cotton absorbs sweat and moisture, takes long to dry, and smells bad easily. Rule two is versatility, in that every top should work with every bottom, both in color and style, so we're not packing individual outfits, but rather we're packing a system that all plays nice with one another. When it comes to clothing, my recommendation is pieces from Uniqlo. No matter how long of a trip, whether men or women, I would pack three pairs of these extra stretch Dry-X jogger pants. Three Airism tops, again, for both women and men to wrap out the everyday wear stuff. And on top of that, I would recommend a pair of shorts and T-shirt that's dedicated for sleepwear and to serve as an emergency outfit. The only other piece of clothing I think is a must, even if you are headed to somewhere warm, is a thin hoodie. If you have been with me for a bit, you know that I've been using the Unbound Merino compact travel hoodie for so long, but it's expensive at $175, so options like an ultra thin Nike dry fit can absolutely work too. For socks and underwear, if you are a normal person, three pairs of undergarments and three pairs of socks is enough as well. But if you sweat abnormal amounts like me, I personally bring six of each since in hot and humid climates, I often shower midday because I leak that much. And I like changing my socks and underwear after all of my midday showers as well. Basically, before I switched to Merino wool, every single day before my nightly shower, I would take the 15 minutes to properly hand wash everything I wore that day and I'd hang it to dry overnight and into the next day so it'd be dry and good to go. Moving on to toiletries, instead of getting a dedicated Dopp kit, like the Air travel kit that's been my go-to for years, using thick Ziploc bags as your Dopp kit both directly complies with TSA rules, but also is much more budget-friendly. You can see here a very standard series of a couple of Ziploc freezer bags stores everything most folks need. And pro tip, have at least two, stuff that involves the mouth and stuff for everywhere else because if soaps, lotions, or detergents accidentally gets onto your toothbrush, that taste is never coming out. But as you can see with all my clothing and toiletries packed into the cargo bowl, there is still plenty of room left over. So depending on your preferences, extra organization pouches, whether it's for small tech accessories or cosmetics and first aid are a non-issue. To round out the storage and organization category, moving to the exterior, there is a large flatter zipper compartment on the front, as well as a passport size zipper compartment right at the top. Both great for very frequently accessed items like your phone charger, along with two pleated open top pouches on the sides suitable for water bottles and with the buckle straps, even heavier items like a travel tripod where you can cinch down for added confidence in transit. With the storage and organization category out of the way, we can move on to the third category for evaluating travel bags. And that is efficiency of access. We already went through the slim office, so I won't touch on that, but here is where things get interesting. That large cavernous bowl compartment can of course be accessed when it's fully unzipped, but also tucked behind these cinching buckles on the front of the bag is this full horseshoe zipper that enables you to access the bottom of that bowl compartment from the outside of the bag. This is of course your cue to pack your second most frequently accessed items at the bottom of that bowl when you are doing your main packing. So whether it's your once a day medications, cosmetics bag or accessory pouch, if you pack those beneath your clothing, when in need, you don't have to fully spread open awkwardly. Instead, just unzip the front of the bag, grab and go. With category three out of the way, we can migrate over to category four, security and durability. Kicking things off with durability, I have no qualms with the manufacturing and materials used. I mean, the core materials themselves are not made with a trademark brand name like Cordura or XPAC, yet still inspire enough confidence in terms of handling normal travel abuse. Again, at just 80 some odd dollars, it far outpaces bags at two to three times its price, even in this regard. From a security standpoint, zipper pulls are closed loops, so a TSA lock can indeed be fed through. The front flatter zip compartment and the top passport size zipper pockets are both not lockable single zips, which is why I certainly would not recommend putting your passport in either. And that's where the segment sponsor of this video comes in. And it's in fact, the maker of this very bag we've been talking about this whole time, Tomtoc, but in the form of their everyday carry sling and passport holder. And this sling by Tomtoc has the most important feature to me when searching for a small cross-body bag for travel. A dedicated recessed zippered pocket against the back to store your emergency cash, passport, and valuables right up against the body hidden from view. And yet can accommodate their passport holder, which is the only passport wallet I have found for families traveling with children. As you can see, can comfortably accommodate four passports with separate pockets for each, has a dedicated cash sleeve, a full-size boarding pass flap, as well as four card slots for your airline loyalty card, lounge access pass, travel medical emergency policy, and emergency contact card. A sexual pen loop to ensure you have a pen to fill out customs forms and a mesh zippered compartment for coins and SIM cards with the zipper pull itself featuring a push to rotate SIM card ejection tool. All of this wrapped in an RFID blocking layer with a full Cordura outer and watertight AquaGuard zippers. This insanely over-engineered passport case nestles cleanly inside of that sling. So an entire family's most important items can be secured right up against the body. Bonus security points if it goes over a t-shirt, but under that thin hoodie we mentioned before, so snatchers can't grab it from your blind side. And like everything else in this video, you can find them linked down in the description below if you want to research them more for yourself. Thank you so much TomToc for sponsoring this portion of the video, which leads us to the fifth and final category that matters to travelers when vetting a bag. And that is comfort and appearance. Appearance is of course subjective. And although I think it looks great, it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what you think. So here is what it looks like on me, a six foot tall guy of average build, where as I spin, you can see the full 360 degree view. Comfort wise, these straps have what feel like memory foam to me in them, making them really comfortable for carries of up to an hour straight. However, for longer uninterrupted carries, an additional stiffer foam layer would help with overall stability. But I don't know any vacationers who would ever be carrying a fully loaded bag for even one hour straight. I mean, they may walk all day with it on, but most of the heavy contents would be left back at their accommodations. It has the same type of memory foam against the back, which serves as additional padding for the laptop sleeve, but also comfort against the back with these channels cut out to allow for maximum airflow. There are not load lifters, nor is there a stability hip belt, but I feel like TomToc designed this bag for vacationers, not hardcore hikers or expeditioners. So for leisure travelers, this is very comfortable. After all, those comfort features that only a small minority of travelers would even use in the first place would increase the price significantly. And that's the real point here. I tabulated the cost of my business travel kit versus this budget-friendly one. Including the Merino wool clothes, Dopp kit pouches, packing cubes, everything, it's over $1,700 US dollars. Compare that to this TomToc bag, complete Uniqlo wardrobe, extra large heavy-duty zip locks for both packing cubes and toiletries kit, and a few pouches for accessories, we are well under $400 total, including clothes. That's a more than 4X difference. That said, if you are new to the idea of one bag travel and the notion of it seems so sacrificial, you can see how not one, but two people travel abroad comfortably sharing just one single bag in this video right up here. Or you can check out the travel everyday carry kit I've honed after more than 200 flights in this video down here. I'll leave them both on screen for a few seconds so you can choose which one to watch. But while you're deciding if you got value from this video, consider liking, subscribing, and hitting that bell so you'll be notified the moment new videos just like this one drop.