How to Fit a Week's Worth of Clothing in a Carry-On

I am an expert at packing.

My strategy is to pull out everything I want to wear, or that I think looks vacation-ey, and throw it on the bed. Once I've pulled out at least half of my wardrobe, I get out my suitcase and proceed to stuff until my arms get tired. When I realize that it won't fit, I dump it all back on my bed, toss a few things on the floor, and start over. Then I repeat until I can close the suitcase.

This method usually leaves me with an overload of one thing (like, five different black swing dance t-shirts) and a severe lacking of another thing. I recently went to India and forgot my pajama pants, meaning that I spent my nights sleeping in the same jeans that I had just gotten monkey poo all over earlier in the day. I also forgot a warm jacket and spent many a night shivering in cold train stations and envying the local people huddled on the floor with warm blankets. Okay, there were also rats on the floor, so maybe I didn't envy them too much.

I'm apparently not an expert at packing.

But I could be, if I packed smart! Here's a checklist of clothing to bring on your next 7 day vacation:

• 6 tops (Spring/Fall: 3 long sleeve/3 short sleeve, Winter: 2 short/4 long, Summer: 2 long/4 short)
  
• 1 dress
• 1 skirt
• 1 pair of dress pants
• 1 pair of jeans
• 1 sweatshirt/light jacket
• 1 pair of pajamas
• 7 pairs of socks
• 7 pairs of underwear
• 3 bras
• 1 bathing suit

Winter Additions:

• 2 pairs of long underwear/underarmor
• 1 winter coat
• 1 hat 
• 1 pair of gloves
• 1 scarf

(For an even better idea, make your own personal list of clothes, print it out, laminate it, and keep it in your suitcase with a marker to check off as you're packing for your next trip.)

So, you get all your clothes in your suitcase and fold them up neat, and it looks like this:

But if you're like me, there's no way it's going to stay like this as soon as you start taking clothes out. Me and neatly folding things go together like orange juice and toothpaste. Eagle Creek Pack-It Cubes to the rescue!

For my imaginary 1 week vacation I used 2 Half-Cubes and 2 Regular Cubes.

• Regular Cube #1: Tops
• Regular Cube #2: Dress, Skirt, Jeans, Dress pants

• Half-Cube #1: Socks, Underwear
• Half-Cube #2: Bathing Suit, Bras, Pajamas

And the jacket got thrown on top of it all. I may be organized, but I'm far from perfect.