How to Pack Your Personal Item⎜Organization TIPS for your Flight!

In today's video, I'm going to show you how to organize your personal item luggage. I've made tons of mistakes over the years when packing my personal item luggage. And in today's video, I'm going to share some strategies and techniques that I've learned along the way to make travel a lot more efficient and a lot less stressful. Make sure you stick around to the end of the video as I'm going to share quite a few mistakes that a lot of travelers make when packing their personal item. If you can avoid these mistakes, you'll not only have a much easier time packing your personal item, but you're also going to be way more efficient through airport security as well as using your bag in flight. Let's get started. Let's start by talking about my personal item bag itself. This is from a company called Wandered and it is their 31 liter provoked bag. I've talked about it in quite a few of my other videos. So if you're interested more about this bag specifically, I would recommend watching one of those videos. I'll make sure to link it above in the screen or down below in the description. But in general, to be honest with you, this bag is maybe not the one I would recommend for a personal item carry on just because it's a little bit large. The reason I have this bag is it really helps me when we're doing longer term travel to have a bit more space with still being able to fit under the seat. Now, some of you might question if I can actually fit this bag underneath the seat and believe it or not, I can, but I will say if you're looking for a personal item backpack, I would definitely go smaller than this. You'd be totally fine with anything from 15 to 25 liters on your backpack for a personal item carry on. I'm really excited to share this video today because I just got back from a one month travel and I actually haven't even unpacked this. So this is the exact setup I use for not only a weekend trip, but as well as a long term travel trip. So hopefully whether you're traveling just for a weekend or for months at a time, this video will be super valuable in giving you the tools to pack an efficient personal item carry on. First, when packing my personal item, I like to get everything laid out that I plan to pack. Kind of like, well, not exactly like this. We're going to get this a little bit more organized in three, two, one. Okay. This is much better, much more organized. Now what I've done here is I've taken all this stuff that I plan to put in my personal item and I've organized it by category. There's a couple reasons I do this. The first and major reason I do this is I can see everything laid out in an organized way. So that way I know I'm not forgetting anything or missing something from my packing list. Number two, it's also going to make it a lot easier when I go to actually put this stuff in my backpack. But you also might be asking the question, what should I be packing in my personal item? And as you can probably imagine, this is going to vary from traveler to traveler. It's also going to vary depending on what kind of trip you're going on. But in general, there's a few categories that I like to think about when packing my personal item. The first one being anything that is valuable. Anything that is valuable you plan to bring with you on your trip, you want to make sure that is in your personal item. I'm talking about things like a passport or expensive electronics. Anything that is important to you that you don't either want lost or broken, I would highly recommend packing in your personal item. Category number two is electronics. Any electronics you're going to want to pack in your personal item, not only just for security, but as well as, like I just said, it's most likely a valuable item, and that's going to be something you want close by. Category three is going to be toiletries or liquids. You're going to want to make sure those are in your personal item, mainly because it'll make security a lot easier, as well as you might need this while traveling. So make sure that you have those toiletries, medications, liquids with you. Another category is an extra pair of clothes. I'll talk more about that in a second though. And then last but not least, making sure that you have anything that you will need while traveling or in flight. Obviously, you need that stuff with you, so having it in your personal item is key. I always like to start with my tech, my electronics. So let's start by packing this stuff. I travel with a lot more tech and electronics compared to the average person. So with that, I need quite a bit of space for this stuff. So I utilize the back kind of main pocket of my backpack from all of my tech and electronics. Right now, you can already see I have my drone in here. Next, I usually put in my green dry pack, which if you've seen any of our other videos, you'll know that I am a big advocate for a dry pack because it has so many different uses. But when I'm traveling, I use it for my GoPro as well as all my GoPro accessories. So that's going to go ahead and slide right in here. Then I'll kind of just start to put some of the little stuff in. Actually, my power bank travel adapter, this is going to stay out for the time being. I'll tell you why in a second. As well as my headphones is going to stay out as well. But some of the other things that I like to put in the back pocket here, SD card holder, and that is pretty much all of my tech. Now we are on to category two, which is going to be apparel or clothes. The main reason I pack some clothes in my personal item is the obvious reason, maybe something that you've heard before and is in general a great travel tip. And that is because if you lose your checked bag, you need a backup plan. You need something to get you by. So that way, if you lose your luggage, you have something to wear for a day or maybe two days until you hopefully find your luggage. For me, what I like to do is just put basically one outfit. So I have a pair of socks, pair of underwear, pair of shorts, a swimming suit. Believe it or not, I always pack a swimming suit. I know it's kind of weird, but just makes me feel comfortable to have just in case. I usually use a swimming suit on almost all my trips. A short sleeve tee. I also have a long sleeve t-shirt and some compression socks, but these are going to actually go off to the side for the time being. And then all of these other apparel or clothing items will go into this packing cube. So I'll go ahead and just kind of load up this packing cube with my backup clothes, essentially, or my personal item clothes. Once I have in the packing cube, this is going to be the base in the top pocket of this backpack. So I'm just going to go ahead and slide this right inside. There's another thing that I like to put in the top of this backpack, and that's going to be my toiletry bag. And this is my non-liquid toiletries. And here I have things like an electric razor, some deodorant, q-tips, nail clipper, things like that. That's also going to go in the top. It may seem like I'm kind of randomly placing these items in my backpack, but I promise you there's a strategy. And there's really two things that I'm thinking about when deciding where to put what items. The first one being is, am I going to need this item in security? Meaning liquids, batteries, and laptops. Usually those items in security will need to come out. The second thing I'm thinking about is, will I need this item in flight? Because when my bag goes underneath the seat, I want to make sure those items are in positions that I'm still able to access even with my bag underneath the seat. And I'm going to show you right now how I execute that. Let's start with security. As you've already seen, I've put all of my electronics and technology in this back big pocket. So I have things like my battery packs, my battery for my camera, as well as my laptop in the top here, which as we know, we will need to remove for security. I'm also going to add my liquids as well as my medications bag. Though this doesn't really fit the category of electronics and technology, it does fit when it comes to efficiency getting through security. Because now everything that I need to remove for going through that security line is in one pocket. It is in this back pocket. So that way, when I go through security, I'm only opening up one zipper. There's nothing worse than opening up one pocket for your laptop, and then your liquids are in a different pocket, and now you've torn your entire bag apart. So that is why I put this stuff in the back pocket. Here are some items that I have strategically left out for packing because these specific items are items that are most likely going to be used in flight. And I save these items towards the end of packing. So that way they're in a location in my backpack that I have easy access to them. First, starting with some clothes, I have a long sleeve tee. It's always good to have an extra layer in your access on a plane because as you know, or maybe you don't know, planes are chilly. I also have my compression socks. I use these for a lot of longer flights, and I want to have easy access to them. I also have things like my headphones, phone charger, power adapter, as well as a neck pillow. Now, let me come a little bit closer here because I am on record in a lot of my other videos saying I'm anti-neck pillow, which is still the case for the most part. But on my last long international trip, I did try out this turtle neck pillow coming from recommendation from you guys. So many people commented on some of my other videos saying you need to try the turtle neck pillow. So I bought one, I tried it out, and what I will say is this is by far the most comfortable neck pillow I have used to date. I can't say I'm fully sold on the neck pillow yet, but I did use it for my last trip and I did thoroughly enjoy it. So this is also something I'm going to pack near the top of my bag, being that I'm going to want access to it in flight. And let me show you how I do that. Okay, pretend this is an airplane seat. I know it's not, it's a chair, but it does the job as far as depicting what my bag looks like underneath the seat. So let's start with the clothes. We have our top roll pocket on this backpack. So for me, I put my long sleeve, so it's right on top, as well as my compressions, socks, and then I will also put my neck pillow in this pocket as well. And then what's great about this backpack is I can kind of just roll it up and boom. And while I'm sitting down, even if my bag's underneath the seat, I can get access to this pocket. And then secondary, we have some of these items, electronic items. There's a little zipper pocket right on the back here. Boom. That's where this item goes. So I put my power bank in here. I put my headphones as well as phone charger slides right in there. And then that way, I still have access to all of those items in flight, which is something that needs to be really thought about when packing your backpack, because there's nothing worse than getting on a flight and realizing your headphones are at the bottom of your bag and nearly impossible to get at. So make sure you have a game plan for that. I would like to mention just a couple more miscellaneous items that I like to bring in my personal item. The first one being this, a spork. Really important for me. Believe it or not, I actually use this a ton. You never know when you're going to need to eat something. So I slide this in the front pocket, just like so. Another thing I like to pack is kind of this collapsible water bottle, which may be confusing to how this would be effective, but for travel, it's really effective because that way when you're not using it, you're not carrying around this big clunky water bottle. Though it is a little awkward to drink out of, you get kind of used to it. And the benefits of it packing down small when you're not using it, way outweigh the weirdness of drinking out of it. So I also put this in the front pocket just like so. And that is pretty much it. This is exactly how I pack my personal item every single time I travel. Now remember, this has taken quite a bit of time for me to perfect. A lot of mistakes have been made along the way. And I figured I would just leave you with a couple mistakes that I see travelers often make. And the first one being overpacking your personal item. Try to always leave a little bit of space in your personal item. So that way, first of all, you're not cramming things in your bag. But second of all, it also leaves you some space for maybe a souvenir or something that you pick up along the way. The second mistake I would like to mention is something that we've talked about a lot in this video, but making sure that you have a strategy and a routine for how you pack your personal item every single time. If you know exactly where everything goes, it's going to make your packing process a lot quicker. You're going to lose a lot less stuff, as well as you're going to be able to function a lot better on your travel day, meaning getting through security a lot easier, as well as your in-flight experience is going to be a lot less clunky if you have access to all the things that you need. Thanks for watching this video. Hopefully you came away with some ideas on how you can better pack for your next trip, especially when it comes to your personal item. If you enjoyed this video, though, I would also highly recommend checking the video out we made about how to effectively pack your carry-on luggage. We have a little bit more space to work with, and with that comes a different strategy and technique, so I would highly recommend checking out that video. I'll make sure to link it below. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up, as well as subscribe to our channel for more content like this. We will see you in the next video.