How to travel for one month with only a carry-on
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Are you going on a one-month (or longer) trip and don’t want to worry about paying insane baggage fees? Then you’re in the right place. Hi, my name is Arielle, and I have travelled for up to 7 weeks (so far) with only a carry-on and personal item, so I’m here to give you some of my tips.
All packed in my carry-on and a backpack for one month in California, waiting in the outdoor JetBlue lounge at JFK airport.
Choose a warm destination
Now this one might sound obvious, but choosing a warm destination means you don’t have to worry about packing bulky layers or chunky shoes. Personally, I mainly travel to warm destinations, so the clothing I pack is going to mainly consist of light linen pieces and flat sandals. Feel free to take a look at my shopmy page for fashion inspiration!
Stick to a color palette
Deciding on a color palette ahead of time, means that pretty much all of your pieces can be worn together, or you can at least mix and match quite a bit. Personally, I tend to stick to separates in solid neutral colors, with some pops of blue and/or red. Solids are easier to pair together than patterns in my opinion, as well as neutral colors. For shoes, I mainly own ones in neutral colors to begin with, so that makes it easy for me. If I am going to pack something harder to match, I’ll make sure it can be an outfit on it’s own and won’t need to be paired with any other clothing pieces, only accessories. For example, a bright red dress, while the rest of your travel wardrobe is cool colors. If you need some ideas, take a look at my shopmy fashion list!
My wardrobe (including clothes, PJs, shoes, a hat and one of my bags) for three weeks in Portugal.
Bring a wash bag
If you’re staying at an AirBnb that has a washing machine for example, you can easily use that to wash your clothes. However, if you’re staying at mostly hostels or possibly camping, I recommend bringing a Scrubba wash bag, because you’re going to of course end up needing to wear your clothes multiple times. I brought mine on a backpacking trip to the Balkans I took in 2024 and used it plenty of times.
Using my Scrubba bag on the balcony of my AirBnb in Corfu, Greece.
Bring flat shoes
If you’re anything like me and love to have shoe options, this is essential. Skip the block heels and chunky sneakers, and go for flat shoes. I do like to bring a pair of sneakers for travel days, or days with lots of walking, so I’ll usually wear those on the plane. For the rest of your shoes, stick to flat sandals or ballet flats. If you do want to bring a pair of heels, I recommend kitten heels because they take up way less space. And if you really do need to bring a heavier pair of shoes, such as boots, just have those be the ones you wear on the plane.
Be intentional with accessories
Accessories can really make the outfit. It’s also one of the ways I like to make a daytime outfit work for evening. You can change up the jewelry, purse, shoes and hair accessories. I’ve already talked about shoes, so my recommendation is similar for other accessories, keep them small and flat. For jewelry, I like to keep my pieces organized in a jewelry organizer, this helps keep my necklaces from getting tangled and earrings from getting lost.
For bags, I like to bring a cotton tote for daytime or going to the beach, it’s roomy enough to fit a water bottle, towel and anything else I might need, while also being flat enough to fold into the smallest space in my luggage. Another bag I’d recommend for daytime or more active days is a nylon crescent bag, which is super durable also can fold down very small. For evening, I usually bring only one little purse, my current one is the J.W. Pei Joy Shoulder bag, mine is in black, but it comes in a variety of colors.
For hair accessories, this really depends what you like. But I usually will bring a few hair ties, a couple of scrunchies in colors that match my wardrobe, and one or two hair clips. I personally don’t really use hair styling tools, so I typically don’t bothering packing these. But if you do want to bring these, I would recommend just packing what you really feel like you’ll use. Most hotels, and many boutique hostels, will have a hair dryer you can use. And a flat iron can also be used to curl your hair as well. You can also coordinate with friends, so you only have to bring one styling tool each.
Minimize products
I know you may be tempted to check a bag so you can bring large beauty products, but most of the time, this really isn’t necessary. Unless you’re headed somewhere super remote, chances are you’ll be able to find products such as body lotion and toothpaste if your travel sized ones run out. For skincare or makeup, try to just bring what you actually feel like you need, the things you truly use on a daily basis. If you need some ideas, here’s my favorite beauty products. Usually I just bring my everyday makeup, and maybe one or two extra lipsticks for evenings, since they take up minimal space. For perfume, I’ll usually bring a travel size bottle, worst case scenario if you run out, you’ll most likely be able to find one you like from a local store, especially if you’re mainly staying in cities. For deodorant, I really like the AKT one for travel, since it comes in a tube that gets smaller with use.
Items I had with me while traveling in Europe, including a perfume I purchased in Greece, after shattering the one I had brought from home.
Roll your clothes
I normally roll up any of my clothes that I normally keep in drawers. It’s a great way to quickly see what you have and minimize wrinkling. If I’m using my usual carry-on suitcase, I will almost always use packing cubes to organize everything into categories such as daily clothes, activewear, pajamas, etc. If I’m using a backpack or duffle bag, however, I typically will not use packing cubes but will still roll up my clothes so that they stay more organized. I have yet to try out those compressible packing cubes, but I feel they would be helpful!
Use little pouches for everything
Having dedicated pouches or little bags for everything is key for staying organized. I’ve been slowly finding and collecting cute pouches to use for this, however, I used to just use ziplock bags. They’re lightweight, it’s easy to see what’s inside and you can clean them and reuse them several times in my experience. I still sometimes use ziplock bags to save on space now, but am also in the process of finding better quality bags that will still take up minimal space.
Travel with a friend and swap clothes
While I’m normally a solo travel girlie, if you can travel with a friend who’s down to swap clothes, this is a great way to have access to even more outfits! Just make sure to chat about this beforehand, and don’t push it if your friend would prefer not to share.
Be a serial outfit repeater
And my last tip is honestly, don’t worry so much about being an outfit repeater! Society makes us think that we need a whole new wardrobe for every trip, a new dress for every event, a different outfit for every Instagram post, but I promise you don’t. It’s so much more sustainable, and mentally freeing, to release the pressure to never be seen wearing the same clothes. Because at the end of the day, if you really like your clothes, why wouldn’t you want to wear them a bunch of times? I personally don’t shop before a trip unless I think I need something specific and nothing I already have will work in it’s place. For example, for my trip to the Balkans, I was told I would need water shoes for the rocky beaches. But I already owned a pair of Teva sandals, which ended up working just fine!
Enjoying Santa Monica Pier, wearing clothes I’ve had for a few years.
I hope all or at least some of these tips were helpful! As always, feel free to comment below or reach out to me with any questions or requests for future blog post topics. See you on the road!