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Back from our trip carrying 80 pounds of stuff we couldn't do without!

No one at Air France/LAX weighed our carry-on bags. On the trip home Air France/CDG weighed the roll aboards, but not the tote or backpack. After unpacking we weighed the empty luggage -- the tote and the backpack weighed 2 lbs. each, the "Rick" roll-aboard weighed 7 lbs and the other suitcase weighed 8 lbs. So 19 lbs. of our 79 pounds was the luggage itself.

Hubby packed/wore 4 slacks/4 shirts -- wore 2 & 2. Next time we'll try 3 & 3. Only wore his sport jacket once, though there were 2 other occasions where he could have worn it if we had opted to go back to our rooms to freshen up before heading from sightseeing to dinner. In one very nice restaurant half the men had pullover sweaters on -- hubby had one with him and probably the jacket can stay home next time.

I packed/wore 3 long sleeve knit shirts, 2 white T-tops, 2 dressier tops, 4 pants. I wore 2-2-1-4. Next time think I'd leave out the extra dressier top. Four pants sounds like a lot, but once I've worn the one pair close to 24 hours on the trip over I leave it out of the rotation until the next time we are changing cities, and the dressier slacks are for evening, so that leaves me with two for daily wear.

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186 posts

Further comments:

It worked well to bring no shampoo etc. since the first week was spent in hotels where we accumulated enough little bottles to last us the rest of the trip where we stayed in timeshares. As for the picnic supplies we made good use of our plastic plates & cutlery for fruit, cheese, croissant breakfasts the week we were in hotels.

The carry-on sized luggage worked out well on our train travel -- they are small enough to go overhead just like on an airplane, so suitcases don't have to be left in the accessible-to-anyone luggage compartment.

Our packing worked well for us and we'll continue to fine tune on future trips. Quite frankly I think the fact that we've been taking a moderately strenuous walk each day for the last two years helped as much as the smaller suitcases. Going up and down the subway stairs with our bags was a breeze compared to our trip in 2005

Posted by
905 posts

Faith -- Thanks so much for posting your results! Sounds like you had a good trip.