Minimalist packing tips

Your back will thank you!

Aug 30, 2023

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To listen to part of of this post via audio, hit the play button below!

Last week I had the delight of speaking (twice) at the Prevent Child Abuse America national conference with my influencer hat on. Digging deep into adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) education in 2019 at a convening with the CDC Injury Center and American Academy of Pediatrics changed my life so it was a tremendous honor to travel to talk about my experience engaging my audience in ACEs education and action—initially through my then-blog Boston Mamas and organically over the years through my personal platforms.

You might be wondering what Prevent Child Abuse America and ACEs has to do with minimalist packing. Well, I could only spend one day at the conference because I wanted to make it back to celebrate my Mom’s 87th birthday. And as I started to pack, I realized I was playing a fun minimalist game with myself to see how little I could bring because, well, I just wanted less to carry and track. Since people love when I go granular—and I had a number of people respond “WHAT?! HOW?! HERO!” when I shared an airport selfie with a minimalist packing update—I thought it would be helpful and fun to walk through my process.

First, it’s worth noting that I am very committed to not checking luggage. I traveled for 10 days in Ethiopia with carry on! So in general, I usually only take a small duffel (mine is similar to this one but there are no side pockets) or my lightweight roller luggage + a work bag for under the seat in front of me. In this case since I only was staying one night I was planning on a small handbag and the duffel, but realized the duffel was not very full so my minimalist packing game began because I wondered if I could make the trip with just one tote bag that would look reasonable to carry around during the day and fit under the seat on the airplane.

Reducing to one bag ended up being great because:

I was on a very small plane—two seats on either side of the aisle and the overhead bins were tiny. I didn’t need to stress about getting a space overhead which meant I didn’t need to rush getting at the front of the queue for my boarding group. Yay for less rushing!
Only having one bag meant less to haul, and thus less physical strain, which was great because I am still gimping around on a dumb everyday injury from 12 weeks ago.
Since I was not staying at the conference hotel I wasn’t sure if I would be able to put luggage into the conference hotel hold space. I imagine I could have sweet talked my way into it, but because I didn’t have luggage, I didn’t need to worry about it!

Here’s what went into my Madewell Transport Tote (and there was still plenty of extra room!):

One dress for the conference
One pair of flats to go with my dress
One pair of underwear
Pajama shorts + a t-shirt
My iPad in its carry case
A charger for phone + iPad
One toiletries/cosmetics bag
A wristlet that held my small business card sized folio with ID and credit cards, a USB thumb drive (with my presentations on it), and earbuds
A few odds and ends: keys, masks for the airplane, my phone, a pen

And here’s how I did it:

To get down to one bag, I needed a tote that could look like a day bag while I was at the conference while basically being my luggage. The Madewell Transport Tote was perfect.
I didn’t want to bring the tote for going out to dinner so I used my Coach wristlet in lieu of a handbag. It’s the perfect size to carry my ID and credit cards and a phone and also helped keep those essentials organized and easily accessible when I was walking the conference with the tote.

The big space saver is committing to only packing the clothing you will wear. I originally was going to bring one dress + a backup in case I spilled something on myself and I decided to strip out the backup dress. The key is to try everything on to make sure you are happy with how things look (vs. just tossing a bunch of things that might work into your luggage). I also figured that if I spilled something on myself I was traveling to a city where I could buy an emergency outfit if needed. But I’m not a spilling type person so I figured it was unlikely!
Shoes take up a ton of space so as you try on your outfits commit to shoes and bring as few pairs as possible. I have bunions and sometimes my feet get swollen in air transit so I always like to have something like flip flops or Birkenstocks so my feet can breathe. I wore these gold Birkenstocks on the way down but had a pair of Birdies flats to look professional at the conference. I have worn sandals all summer so it wasn’t until I spent all of last Tuesday in the flats that I realized that they are so comfortable that I could have worn them in transit and skipped the Birkenstocks and not even packed shoes. Next time!
I only wore the jewelry I was going to wear for my entire trip; I didn’t pack anything extra. Obviously jewelry doesn’t take much room but it is easy to lose and I didn’t want to worry about losing anything.
I reduced to a less bulky makeup bag. I swapped my usual toiletry bag to a slim bag that measures 9.5 x 6 x 2 inches. I only brought the essentials: toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, mini cleanser, mini moisturizer, Woosh Beauty fold out face kit (a makeup palette that comes with travel brushes), brow gel, one lip color.

I originally was planning on bringing my large barrel curling iron but instead curled my hair the day before and sprayed the crap out of it in the hopes that the hairspray would help my waves withstand the humidity. It worked out great! LOL.
I didn’t bother bringing a hairbrush or hair styling product since I usually am able to just smooth out my hair with damp hands if I have sprayed the crap out of it. This also worked just fine.

I used every single thing I packed. It was freaking fantastic. Give minimalist packing a try!

And here are details on the dresses I committed to:

There was no full-length mirror in the BOS bathroom near my gate so you will have to trust that I traveled to Baltimore wearing my gold Birkenstocks along with an old and amazing Trina Turk shift that feels like PJs. I think this shift is closest in terms of silhouette but it’s almost sold out so I would say that this Lusinda shift is next closest, though long sleeved and with a zipper. Yay for the tote that held everything!

For the conference I wore a super comfortable J. Crew dress I rented through my Rent the Runway membership (use my code CHRISTINEKRTR for a discount!), along with my Birdies flats. I’m pictured here with my amazing co-presenters Kinzie Lee from the CDC Injury Center and Tammy Hurley from the American Academy of Pediatrics. They are incredible people and professionals and it was such an honor to present with them. For further resources on preventing adverse childhood experiences and creating positive childhood experiences, visit the landing pages at CDC Injury Center and AAP’s Healthy Children.

And also, I wanted to share a picture of the amazing Melissa Merrick, president of Prevent Child Abuse America. I had an opportunity to learn from Melissa about ACEs back in 2019 and also talk with her about community solutions for families more recently last year (see embedded player below). Melissa is so smart and energetic and I was thrilled to bump into her while she was rushing around being a total badass hosting this impressive, biggest-ever, sold-out conference and I was just hanging around in the lobby between sessions LOL.

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