Our Week Away in Two Cabin Bags: The 9 Things That Made It Fit
Two people, seven days in Lisbon, nothing checked. The night before, the security tray, a bathroom full of wet shirts, and the nine things that made a week fit.
9 products8 min read
The flight that cost less than the checked bag
We booked Lisbon for a week in late September on a fare so cheap that adding one checked bag would have doubled it. So we didn’t. Two people, two cabin bags — a small wheeled case we already owned and a backpack we didn’t yet — and the rule that nothing could go in the hold.
We had done long weekends like this. A week was different: laundry, shoes for more than one kind of day, and the real possibility of a bag half a kilo over at the gate with a queue behind you.
So we listed the four moments where a week in a carry-on goes wrong — the night before, the airport, the hotel room and the way home — and bought for those. This is that week, with the gear appearing where it appeared for us.
9 p.m. the night before — everything on the bed
The night before, everything we wanted to take was laid out on the bed, and it was obvious at a glance that it would not fit. The bed was the problem: a pile has no edges. The first two things we bought gave it edges.
The bag that opened like a suitcase
The 40x30x20 cabin backpack, about $28, unzips on three sides and lies flat, so you pack it face-up like a suitcase rather than feeding things down a hole. That turned out to be the whole trick. Open on the bed, it showed us exactly how much space a week was: four cubes, a shoe bag and a toiletry bag, and nothing else. Two compression straps pulled it down to the shape of the sizer at the gate, and the passport pocket inside the lid got used eleven times in seven days. It is not a comfortable backpack for a long walk when full — the padding is modest and the weight sits high — and if you pack more than one pair of shoes, 20 centimetres of depth runs out fast.
40x30x20 Cabin Backpack (Suitcase-Style Opening)
$28.39
The cubes that turned a pile into a grid
The HOMEFISH 6-piece compression packing cube set, about $23, is four zip cubes in three sizes, a drawstring bag and a shoe bag. Each cube has a second zip around its middle; close it and a cube of rolled T-shirts drops to about two-thirds of its height with a satisfying crunch. Tops in the large, trousers in the medium, underwear in the small, and the cubes went into the open backpack like tiles. The honest caveat is that compression makes things smaller, not lighter: our bags looked half empty and weighed exactly what they had before, which we found out at the gate.
HOMEFISH 6-Piece Compression Packing Cube Set
$22.79
The bag for the things that could leak
The HOMEFISH two-compartment toiletry bag, about $25, has two separate zipped sections, which is the only feature we cared about: everything liquid in one, everything dry — razor, brush, plasters, the toothbrush charger — in the other. It stands up on its own on a narrow shelf because the nylon is stiff, and the side handle hooked over the towel rail in a bathroom with no shelf at all. It is a tan, tactical-looking thing with webbing on the front we never used, and one of us thought it looked like it belonged on a camping trip, which in fairness is what the brand makes.
HOMEFISH Two-Compartment Toiletry Bag (Carry Handle)
$24.99
We closed both bags at half past ten and weighed them the old-fashioned way: stand on the bathroom scale, then stand on it holding the bag. Both were under. We went to bed slightly smug, which is how we learned about the second moment.
6 a.m. — the security tray
Nobody enjoys the security tray. The things we had bought for this moment were the ones we had thought about least and were most glad of.
The bottles that went straight into the tray
The refillable travel bottle set, about $21, is three soft silicone squeeze tubes, a pump bottle, a fine-mist spray and two screw-top jars in a clear zip pouch. Every one is under the cabin liquid limit, and the pouch is the clear bag security asks for, so the whole thing went from the toiletry bag into the tray and back in one movement. The tubes have wide mouths, which makes filling easy and overfilling easier; one of us filled a tube to the top with shampoo, and at altitude it quietly pushed a teaspoon into the pouch. The pouch held it. Leave a thumb of air next time.
Refillable Travel Bottle Set in Clear Zip Bag (Tubes, Pump, Spray, Jars)
$21.33
The second bag that was inside the first
The Naturehike 18L packable daypack, about $19, folds into its own front pocket to the size of a sandwich and weighs about as much as a paperback. On the way out it was a lump in the lid of the cabin bag; in the hotel it became the second bag — the day bag, the beach bag, the bag for bread and tomatoes from the market — for the rest of the week. The straps are thin webbing with no padding, fine for a jumper, a bottle and a camera and not fine for a laptop.
Naturehike 18L Packable Daypack (Folds into Its Own Pocket)
$18.59
The flight was two and a half hours. We landed at ten, took the metro into town, and found the third moment waiting in a room with one socket and no shelf.
7 p.m. — a hotel room with one socket and wet shirts
The room was good. The room also had a single socket by the bed, a bathroom the width of a corridor, and by the third evening, two people with a pile of worn clothes and a week still to go.
The socket that became four
The Baseus 6-in-1 universal travel adapter, about $37, is a chunky black cube with sliding pins for UK, EU, US and Australian sockets, a 45W USB-C port, two USB-A ports, a universal socket on the front and a USB-C cable that pulls out of the side and winds back in. From one wall socket by the bed it charged a laptop, two phones and a toothbrush overnight, and the retractable cable meant one less thing to lose in the sheets. It is heavy for its size and sagged out of a loose Portuguese socket until we propped it on a book, and it does not change voltage, so anything with a heating element rated for one country stays at home.
Baseus 6-in-1 GaN Travel Adapter (45W, Retractable USB-C Cable)
$36.69
The line across the bathroom
The retractable travel clothesline, about $16, is ten metres of cord in a reel the size of a bar of soap, with a carabiner at each end. We washed three days of T-shirts in the sink on the third night, rolled them in a towel and stood on it, then hooked one end to the shower rail and the other to the window catch and hung everything up with the extractor on. By morning the synthetic tops were dry and the cotton ones went onto the balcony for an hour. You need two anchor points at about the same height, which in a hotel bathroom can mean tying one end to the shower head, and the line sags with eight wet things on it.
Retractable Travel Clothesline (10 m, Carabiner Hook)
$16.12
The rest of the week was easy. Then on the last morning we opened the bags and discovered that a week of clothes had somehow become more than a week of clothes.
8 a.m. on the last day — everything has grown
Worn clothes do not compress the way folded ones do, and sand gets into everything. The two things we had bought for the way home were the two we had been least sure about.
The bags that made the laundry small again
The FLEXTAIL x VOLLYC Nano vacuum bag set, about $15, is a handful of zip-seal vacuum bags with a USB-rechargeable pump the size of a marker pen. Everything worn went into two bags, the pump went onto the valve, and in about thirty seconds each bag went from a pillow to a slab. The backpack closed with room for a bottle of wine, which is the real reason we are recommending this. The clothes came out needing a wash and an iron, which they needed anyway; this is a laundry trick, not a packing trick, and we would not vacuum anything we wanted to wear on arrival.
FLEXTAIL x VOLLYC Nano Vacuum Bag Set with Mini Pump
$15.36
The bag for the wet swimsuit
The HOMEFISH roll-top dry bag set, about $12, is five thin waterproof bags in five colours from phone-sized to swimsuit-sized. The orange one held two damp swimsuits and a towel that would not dry in time, the small blue one held a phone on the beach, and on the way home each of us had a colour for our own laundry. They are thin coated fabric and feel it — fine for wet cloth, not for anything sharp — and at this price we will not mind when one tears.
HOMEFISH Roll-Top Dry Bag Set (5 Sizes)
$11.59
Both bags went through the sizer at the gate without being asked. We got home with everything we had left with, two bottles of wine and a tan line, and have not checked a bag since.
What we’d leave at home
Everything in this story
40x30x20 Cabin Backpack (Suitcase-Style Opening)
$28.39
HOMEFISH 6-Piece Compression Packing Cube Set
$22.79
HOMEFISH Two-Compartment Toiletry Bag (Carry Handle)
$24.99
Refillable Travel Bottle Set in Clear Zip Bag (Tubes, Pump, Spray, Jars)
$21.33
Naturehike 18L Packable Daypack (Folds into Its Own Pocket)
$18.59
Baseus 6-in-1 GaN Travel Adapter (45W, Retractable USB-C Cable)
$36.69
Retractable Travel Clothesline (10 m, Carabiner Hook)
$16.12
FLEXTAIL x VOLLYC Nano Vacuum Bag Set with Mini Pump
$15.36
HOMEFISH Roll-Top Dry Bag Set (5 Sizes)
$11.59
Everything here comes to about $196. Prices in USD; they move a little from week to week.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pack for a week in just a carry-on?
Pack for four days and plan to wash once. Roll clothes into compression cubes, decant liquids into bottles under the cabin limit, and take a bag that opens flat so you can see everything. Our whole kit for two people came to about $196, and the bag, the cubes, the bottles and the adapter were about $109 of that.
Is a cheap cabin backpack good enough for a week away?
Yes, for a week of city travel with one wash. The 40x30x20 backpack in this story cost about $28, fitted the sizer at the gate and opened like a suitcase. The trade-off is comfort: the padding is modest, and a full week on your shoulders is noticeable on a long walk from the station.
What size packing cubes do I need for a carry-on?
A set with three or four cubes of different sizes, at least one with a compression zip. One medium cube per person for tops, one for bottoms and a small one for underwear filled our two bags exactly. Pick cubes by the bag's depth, not its height; a cube deeper than the bag never lies flat.
Do I really need a universal travel adapter or can I just buy a plug?
If you only ever visit one country, buy the plug. If you visit two or more, a universal adapter with USB-C charging pays for itself on the first trip, because hotel rooms almost never have more than one usable socket by the bed. Ours gave us four ports from one wall socket for about $37.
How do I dry clothes in a hotel room overnight?
Wash in the sink, roll the clothes in a towel and stand on it, then hang them on a line across the bathroom with the extractor fan on. Thin synthetic tops dry by morning; cotton needs a day. A retractable clothesline that strings between two anchor points made this a two-minute job.