Travel Products - Newbie needs travel gear recommendation

Need recommendation on a medium sized luggage for M-F travel. Newly turned road warrior from industry.

Stuff to carry...

3 pairs of dress slacks
2 pairs of jeans
6-7 shirts (dress and casual)
workout clothes
3 pairs of shoes (casual, dress, workout)
1-2 sport coats or suit
undershorts, undershirts, socks etc
toiletries
2nd laptop for personal use (work machine in the backpack)

Although I am traveling by train right now, so slightly bigger than carry-on is not an issue. However if I can get to fit all in a carry-on that would be AWESOME!! Seems impossible though. Or maybe I just dont know how to pack right....

Eagle Creek offers some packing products to compress and pack dress clothes without wrinkling them. Any suggestions as such?

I do sun-friday travel almost every week...by plane. I fly to 3+ cities a week. No time for laundry. I work out every day.

You are bringing WAY WAY WAY TOO MUCH.


For starters...
1 pair of jeans.
1 sport coat
2 pairs of shoes. (loafers and running shoes)

A convertible/expandable carry-on sized bag should work for you.

I guess, I need a pair of loafers that can be used with dress clothes and as casuals. Still doesn't cut a lot of stuff down.

I have to be at same client 5-days/week and wearing same jacket/clothes would get old pretty quick.

you'll wear a pair of shoes on the flight. Same with slacks.

For a four night work trip, you are brining way too much crap. Do you really need to totally change into a different outfit after work?

You may think you do.. But if you are new to the road warrior thing, you'll probably quickly discover that by the time you are done working for the day, you find no need to change. Just go to dinner in whatever you worked in. Take off the tie and jacket if you like.

The client won't notice if you wear the same pair of slacks twice. just have a different shirt for each work day.

Way too much stuff man. I do Sun-Thurs, sometimes Sun - Fri and here's what I have.

Loafers
Workout shoes
1 x pants/slacks (1 worn)
1 x jeans
5 x shirts
underwear
socks
toiletries
1 x coat (1 worn)
1 x polo shirt
1 x t shirt

Yep. As they say. Way too much stuff. Plus, as you say, you must not be very proficient at packing or have very big clothes because that stuff, despite being way too much, should fit in a 22" carry-on. The question is if you'd still like to lift it. :D

Do read the packing sticky on top of this forum. It will tell you pretty much everything you need to know including sample packing lists and how to best pack the stuff and what to pack it in. :)

Important question: Can you wash? If you are only in one location it should be possible to wash.

Here's what I'd take in your situation completely accounting for the fact that you are seeing the same client every day.

4 sets of underwear. Wash on 3rd evening, Wednesday in your case. You may even be good with 3 sets, so 4 is already generous. Giving stuff to hotel laundry should be deductible as a work expense or included in your per diem anyway. But with the right equipment, a handwash is less trouble. Ironing won't be necessary. And sometimes you do meet nice people at the laundry room. ;) Choose colors in the same light/dark tone so you can wash everything together at 40C. Yes, that's hot enough, unless you have heavy stains.

4 dress shirts, long sleeve, non-iron. Brooks Brothers comes highly recommended and is not crazy expensive.

2 Polo shirts, plain color.

2 pairs of chinos. 1 dark grey, 1 british khaki. Or 1 dark grey wool slack instead of the grey chino.

1 suit. Dark blue, no stripes, plain wool cloth.

1 sport coat, brown, with pattern if you wish.

1 pair of shoes for your workout.

1 pair of either Penny loafers or Bluchers (look it up if you are not familiar) for everything else. Burgundy color.

You can wear both the sport coat and the suit jacket with your trousers. This will give you exactly five outfits that never repeat.

List as an example:

Day 1: suit
Day 2: sport coat and dark grey chino
Day 3: suit jacket with khaki chino.
Day 4: sport coat with khaki chino or trousers from suit.
Day 5: suit jacket with dark grey chino

Match shirts as you see fit. They will never see you in the same combo twice and you will give your clothes enough time to aerate and hang out any wrinkles. Important.

The shoes in burgundy color will work well with a suit or in a casual setting. I'd prefer the Bluchers but the loafers will be easier to slip on and off for travel.

On occasions where you could wear a jean, you could just as well wear a chino, especially a light colored one. So no need to pack jeans. Combine the chino with a polo shirt or roll up the sleeves and undo one more button for an even more casual look (relaxing after work). Or even don your sneakers with the chinos. Hell, if you wanna play the kool kid, combine them with your suit and skip the belt (only looks good if you're slim). BTW, belt should match shoes.

Use plastic shoe trees in your leather shoes because at this rhythm they will need it.

For Polo shirts, which can be worn on casual Fridays instead of a long sleeve shirt, use a fast drying, wicking variety. C9 by Target is actually quite good and not too costly. You can use these for sports in the evening, too. A quick hand wash in the sink and then put them on a hanger to dry. They will be dry by the next morning.

Jsmeeker was exactly right. You can go to after-work activities in your work clothes. No problem. Besides, that's why you have 2 polos and an extra shirt, so you can change the shirt if you think it's necessary.

If you do have a formal invitation in the evening, then you need to change into your suit, put a white shirt (take 2 white shirts, 1 striped and 1 with a little panache (not Hawai'i)) and a dark, plain color tie. The loafers won't be ideal in the evening, the Bluchers would be better. But if you don't have that sort of evening gig, then the loafers are fine.

If you can swing it, get a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes. They will be around $350 but they are the cheapest entry to the world of good footwear. A burgundy or oxblood color (possibly in cordovan leather) will look great with the blue suit (or a grey one), the dark grey pants and the khakis. They will also look nice with jeans if you can't help yourself and pack those.

Most importantly, as you are getting the hang of it, DO question yourself, be critical of what you take, how it performs and if it is really necessary. Treat it as you would a business or engineering decision and you'll be golden.

Congrats on the new gig and good luck! ^

Till

Addendum: If you go to see the same client again in the close future, it is a good idea to change up the wardrobe a little. Take a grey suit instead of a blue one for example. Change the shirts and the tie selection. When you go for the grey suit you can also wear brown shoes. Mind you, brown shoes will be a no-go for any fancy evening activities. For after-work drinks with the colleagues it's totally ok. Black shoes are very universal but black loafers look strange and black shoes with British Khaki pants are also not ideal. With a dark green chino pant it could work. Dark green chinos will also work with a black sport coat whereas the contrast with the light brown of British Khaki will be too pronounced. All colors mentioned above will look quite dashing with a pink or light blue (or even pale yellow if you are daring) dress shirt, that has a fine woven tone-in-tone pattern (usually herringbone). Choose shirts without a breast pocket. You'll be better dressed. ;)

Two ways to have enough clothes for 5-day trip;

1) Pack just one pair of underwear: back-to-front, front-to-back, inside-out, outside-in, commando!

OR

2) Pack Shout Color Catcher laundry sheets. They let you wash your whites and colors together, which means only one trip to the washer/dryer. They work great.

George

Very good advice here about what to pack. I wholeheartedly agree.

Re what to pack it in, I would strongly encourage you to include in the products you review those from tombihn.com. Look at the Tri-Star or the Aeronaut. If you only had one laptop, the Tri Star would be perfect. You might need to have a second briefcase-style bag. I'd also look at Red Oxx, though I personally don't care for the style of their stuff they by all accounts make a great product.

Very good advice here about what to pack. I wholeheartedly agree.

Re what to pack it in, I would strongly encourage you to include in the products you review those from tombihn.com. Look at the Tri-Star or the Aeronaut. If you only had one laptop, the Tri Star would be perfect. You might need to have a second briefcase-style bag. I'd also look at Red Oxx, though I personally don't care for the style of their stuff they by all accounts make a great product.

The TB products are indeed quite good. However, even with the reduced packing list I proposed, even if he would be able to fit the stuff inside, they would still be very heavy. Esspecially if in addition he has to hand-carry a briefcase. This he could alleviate by transporting them on a rolling briefcase. But neither the Tri-Star nor the Aeronaut are very suitable for packing suits. The footprint is not big enough to store a properly folded men's jacket. He'd be much better off with an Airboss or even a cheap ($40) A. Saks 21" exp. bag. The latter being a sheer space wonder and packing a suit or two without any problem. Moreover it has a loop to secure it over rolling luggage, which the Aeronaut and Airboss BOTH do not have. so with these bags we have the weight problem. With the TriStar we have the space problem. And all of these cost more than $200.

With the A. Saks. there is no space problem, no weight problem, no loop problem and it only costs $40. It's an excellent bag and can be turned into a very organized bag with a couple of packing cubes and a shirt folder.

It also looks decidedly clean and professional which cannot be necessarily said of the TB and Redoxx bags.

@gnolly That is a very cool tip with the laundry sheets. Thanks for that. And I had a good laugh at the underwear weight savings. If your underwear is so big that skipping it would entail major weight savings, you got bigger "problems". :D

Till

Need recommendation on a medium sized luggage for M-F travel. Newly turned road warrior from industry.

Stuff to carry...

3 pairs of dress slacks
2 pairs of jeans
6-7 shirts (dress and casual)
workout clothes
3 pairs of shoes (casual, dress, workout)
1-2 sport coats or suit
undershorts, undershirts, socks etc
toiletries
2nd laptop for personal use (work machine in the backpack)

Stick to carry on, take a look at the Ryan Bingham thread here (search for it). You can easily fit all of this into a 22" IATA case and a Scottevest, but not one or the other...the shoes will take up too much space (even assuming you wear the bulkiest pair).

Take some space bags (of the non-vacuum-cleaner-required variety) to compress your clothes for the top "half" ie lid of the case (assuming also that's where you'd put your laptop. For everything else you can just roll it.