I totally get this, and I've gone over a week out of just a backpack, which also included all of my toiletries and my laptop. But it really depends on the situation. There are days where I may have to change clothes twice for different settings/purposes.

And doing laundry while traveling can be risky, one of my favorite shirts was nearly ruined by one of those garbage Bosch high efficiency dryers while traveling. Somehow after 3 or 4 cycles nothing was dry, but this was all I had access to and I'd run out of clothes. Hanging everything up in a hotel bathroom while cranking the heat and hoping everything dries in time for a flight in a few hours...not exactly how I like to spend my time traveling!

Ah - I misunderstood. Yeah I don't recall seeing good/consistent enforcement of 1 bag in the overhead

Strange thread, people suggesting what others should wear and how much their bags should weigh.

This problem was created by arbitrary baggage fees. I check my free bag just so I don't have to deal with this mess and my put my one laptop bag in the overhead when open.

Traveling last weekend, I was reminded of the stupidity and obnoxiousness of checking bags. One of the first off the plane in each direction, and then 20 minutes of sitting at baggage claim like an idiot. I genuinely do not know how anyone advocates for European-style carry-on limits.

Only in part. The inability to securely lock bags post 9/11 (which has increased the risk of theft from checked luggage) and the airlines' general ineptness when it comes to getting the checked bags returned to their passengers in a timely fashion have also majorly contributed to the problem.

People would not care how much others' bags weighed if it didn't affect anyone else. But it does, so of course they care.

Arbitrary? Some airlines have 20-30% of their revenue from baggage fees and premium seat fees so I wouldn't say arbitrary...

Well, for two years running around this time of year I've seen families of 4 trying to carry everything with carry-ons. In one case they were well-organized and fashionable and mom, dad and the two kids all had matching identical rolling bags that would just fit the size-wise. Maybe they were of Swiss descent. But they're hardly alone in trying to do that, given the alternative of $50 RT per checked bag.

Airlines created the mess by charging for the first bag, a move still resented and not really accepted by customers, but one that has created addiction to the "ancillary revenue." The locked-bag issue mentioned is also unhelpful.

I have also recently flown UA from Anchorage to Houston via Seattle and I can tell you the junk we had up there was crazy. Granted we had our 8 kilos in a backpack too but we checked our other junk and only carried valuables like laptop, cameras, meds and a change of clothing (this only because our trip was over 26 hours...... from Houston it was on to Frankfurt.

However we had musical intruments, about a dozen fishing poles!!! and just about everyone else had roller boards of the size you would normally have to check in up there. It was an absolute zoo and it most certainly cannot be safe to fly with those big things up there. I would ban those damm roller boards over a certain size. Theyshould have thoses sizers at the gate. If they don't fit then the bag has to be checked end of story and not let the FA have to deal with it especially when flights these days are full

Bags over a certain size ARE banned, and I still occasionally see the tubular steel frames at the gates that define the carry-on bag size limit. But those limits are not enforced. GAs let people walk on with anything, and FAs watch as they put multiple bags in the overhead bins, instead of using their foot space. If rules are not enforced, don't expect anyone to follow them (except those of us with internal "rule follower" tendencies).

Airlines just need to enforce their own rules. It is not about charging for this that and the other. It is about enforcing the rules they made. It really is not rocket science.

The Big Panic to Find Overhead Storage Space
 

Is it me or does it seem that this is more of a problem for flights in the US than in the EU?

The size of carry on baggage does seem to increase when you get outside Europe.

Wirelessly posted (Apple iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1_4 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B350 Safari/8536.25)

Perhaps checked luggage delivery is more reliably punctual in Europe.

If I could be guaranteed no more than 15 minutes from gate arrival to priority-tagged bag delivery, I might consider checking luggage. But I think it would be impossible for any airline to make this guarantee at hubs and other large stations where bags must travel a long distance on carts and/or belts.

Airlines just need to enforce their own rules. It is not about charging for this that and the other, or how long checked luggage takes to appear. It is about enforcing the rules they made. It really is not rocket science.