LUGGAGE ANXIETY
One of the difficulties with traveling inexpensively for two months, as I am about to do, is deciding how to fit everything necessary into as small luggage space as is allowed. For a basic economy ticket I am allowed one carry on bag and one hand bag on most airlines, although on some airlines I am only allowed a small bag and no carry on bag. A checked bag can cost up to $70 each way, which I want to avoid.
There are several reasons for not having a checked bag. One reason often given is that a checked bag is liable to get lost, maybe forever. But this is not likely to happen. Another reason for not having a checked bag is that you have all your luggage with you and can race to catch a connecting flight without worrying about your checked bag. But a third reason, and most important for me, is that I often have to go on foot from one point to another as I will have to do twice between buses in Milan to get to my hotel. If I have a large checked bag in addition to a carry on bag and a small bag, even if I can balance one on another so that I can roll them, I will have trouble on city streets and curbs and will wear myself out.
So I am determined to have only a hand bag and a carry on bag. But even after this decision I still have problems. That is because different airlines in different countries, especially budget airlines such as EasyJet, which I am taking from Milan to Catania, have strict rules about dimensions and weight and they differ from airline to airline.
My experience is that the major, and most expensive, airlines have rules about size and weight but don‘t pay much attention to them. People come with all kinds of oversize carry ons which they are allowed to board with. And bags are hardly ever weighed.
But sometimes a cranky or officious person at the gate will stop you and force you to pay $70 extra for a couple of inches too big or five pounds too much. The result of this is that unless you want to buy new luggage on each trip to meet the requirements of the particular airlines you are flying on you are forced to go with the smallest size and weight limit that might be demanded of you.
So that is what I did this week. I abandoned the Travelite carry on bag that I bought last year in Germany when Susie and I were short a bag. It is one inch too wide. On Amazon I bought a new carry on that is the size listed by most airlines. It also is 20% exandable because on the rest of the trip I can use a larger bag. And has good wheels. The day after my new bag came I saw a sale on Woot, the Amazon discount site, for a hard shell, expandable carry on with good wheels for $18 and, because it was so cheap, ordered it. When it got here the original price tag was still on it, $120. It is the bag that I am taking. My black backpack, which is also expandable, is the right size for under the seat bags. And then I packed everything I am taking into those two bags and it all fits. And whenever on a trip I think I will run into a problem of either weight or size I will take out and wear several layers of clothes and fill my pockets with 20 pounds of electronic gear. So now I can travel without being blindsided by some over officious bag measurer.
It has taken me forever to describe this process, and it took me quite a long time to figure it out. But it means that I won‘t have to fret about whether I am overweight or oversize on trips from now on. And it also means that at 86 I will be forced to pack carefully and will not have much stuff to drag around.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 