You Ain’t Gonna Need It

When I share with people that I travel for months at a time out of a backpack, the response generally hovers somewhere between light amusement and Lovecraftian horror. It sets a constraint in a space where many people want to be unconstrained. I’m travelling, it should be relaxed. And that’s precisely why you should pack light: the last thing you want is to be soaked with sweat from lugging around a heavy suitcase or awkwardly redistributing clothes to stay under the 50 pound weight limit your airline enforces.

I’m guilty of being a chronic over-packer myself, always stuck with the recurring idea that just maybe I’ll need a down jacket in Hawaii or five extra pairs of underwear. It’s symptomatic of my own runaway mind, constantly thinking through infinite what-if scenarios wherein I stain ten T-shirts in three days and thus absolutely must pack fifteen.

But on every trip I’ve ever been on, the same thought occurs: I should have packed less.

There’s a phrase that originated in software development: You Ain’t Gonna Need It. The idea is to put off additional items until absolutely necessary to avoid bloat and excess. This is particularly true for clothes. In my case, I’m often gone for months at a time, and the last thing I want to be doing is lugging around some huge suitcase on subways, buses, and cramped hostels.

But lest you think this doesn’t apply to your luxury beach vacation, consider how much better the whole thing would be if you could waltz off the plane without waiting for your luggage, how simple your day would be when you don’t have to think about what to wear. Fewer options means fewer decisions.

It’s not like bringing your whole wardrobe matters anyways. Think about it this way: what was your partner wearing yesterday? And the day before? What about your best friend? Your coworker? If you’re anything like me, anything beyond a day (or truthfully, a few hours) is lost to the sands of time.

And when you’re traveling, this is only exacerbated. Other people in whatever city or resort you’re visiting are focused on their own lives and aren’t looking at you, and even if they were, it’s not like you’ll see them again. You’re allowed to wear the same shirt twice.

Aside from overthinking, another reason we overpack is that we forget. We forget the last trip we took, or the one before that (or the one before that) where we had to wait for an hour while baggage was delayed at the airport, or where we had to sit on our suitcase just to get the zipper to close. We forget all those moments against the backdrop of a lovely vacation, and we doom ourselves to repeat this cycle again and again.

Even in recent months when I struck out with only a single (admittedly large) backpack, I still regretted bringing as much as I did. I’m still narrowing this list down to the essentials, but I’ve calculated out all the mainstays in my current rotation¹ with excessive amounts of detail over on Lighterpack.

And yes I know this seems extreme. But you don’t have to start here. Instead, the next time you pack, try switching from two bags to one, or from a giant duffel to a carry-on. Try taking only three extra shirts instead of five. See how it feels. If you’re anything like me, it’ll still feel like you packed too much; just take note of what you have and what you needed, then update your packing list for next time.

Another thing that’s worth noting is that packing less can in some ways be an infinitely long journey, and it’s worth asking what’s worth it and what’s not. There’s hundreds of backpacks to try, whole markets catering to people trying to shave off a few grams here and there. But this is a practice in paring down, and that means that buying something new generally isn’t the answer. I’ll use the bag I’ve got until my old one wears out, and then I’ll pick a better one next time.

Packing less isn’t just a practical exercise either. Sure, maybe you save some money on airfare, but it’s also about getting by with less, about seeing that part of you that demands more, demands unreasonable levels of security, and letting it go. There’s something freeing about not being beholden to worry and our infinite plans. Life can be heavy enough as it is – no need to add even more to it. I won’t harp on about it here, but it’s something to check in on.

That’s really all this is – check in, pay attention, and be deliberate about what you really need. Use less, pack light, try something new. What if everything works out?