My son had the chance to go on a week-long mission trip with Back to Back Ministries through the small Christian private school he attends two days a week. The first email about flying instructions stated a $25 fee for checked luggage. I immediately decided, “I refuse to pay for a service that used to be free, so carry-on it is.”

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Then, I read the included packing list in detail and began to doubt myself. The list suggested two outfits a day due to the hot and sweaty conditions. Also on the list was a twin sheet set, beach towel, swim trunks, notebook and Bible, snacks, flashlight, batteries, hat, socks, work shoes, flip-flops, sunscreen, soap, shampoo, deodorant, underwear, anti-nausea pills, Imodium, ibuprofen, wet wipes, hand sanitizer, and, of course, snacks.

Since he was going for an entire week, that meant he needed 12 outfits. With my son’s agreement, I packed 12 T-shirts, 12 pairs of boxer shorts, and eight pairs of shorts. We both figured he could change the things closest to his body after working and reuse the shorts for the rest of the day.

If my son were not such a picky eater, snacks would have been unessential, but I couldn’t let the boy, who likes roughly 20 different food items, completely starve, so we ended up packing 12 granola bars and 12 snack-sized containers of fish crackers.

My son is also extremely heat intolerant and gets dehydrated quickly, so I packed 24 sticks of Gatorade so that he could have two sticks a day to put in his purified water to ensure he keeps his electrolytes up.

I knew I only had a backpack that he could consider a personal item and the black carry-on bag seen in the photo above to fit that all in. So, I used some of my husband’s tricks for compact packing and then came up with a few of my own.

How to Maximize Your Carry-On Luggage Space

1. Purchase good quality zip lock bags

From past experience, I know that packing clothes in Ziploc bags takes up less space and keeps them clean until the child wears them. The second half of that tip is handy when you send younger kids to summer camp.

The key to this step is to use good quality gallon sized zip lock bags. I have used and liked the Aldi brand and the Ziploc brand.

If you want a more environmentally friendly option, you could try compression packing cubes like these. When I originally wrote this article, these were not as popular as they are now. Well Traveled sent me a set to try, and I like the wide variety of sizes and colors they offer.

2. Roll or fold the clothes to fit the bag.

Here is how I fit the T-shirt and boxer shorts in their bags

I placed a pair of folded in half boxer shorts inside a folded in half t-shirt. If my 14-year-old ever reads this, I am sure he is not going to like me talking about his boxers so much, but hey, at least there are no photos of them. (but you do get to see my foot in this picture 🙂 ).

I then folded the top down to mid-way down.

I folded the bottom over the top for the final fold.

I then slipped the t-shirt into the gallon sized Ziploc bag. You will notice it matches the width of the bag almost perfectly. My son is a large adult (he is almost 6 feet at 14 years of age), so depending on the size of the pack, you might have to play around with your folding to achieve the width.

I then harnessed the power of my behind and sat on the Ziploc bag to get out all the air. While sitting on it, I sealed it. I left all the space at the top so that the bag could fit upright in the carry-on. By having the bag upright, I could squeeze more in.

The result is a vacuum-sealed bag effect without the vacuum seal machine. The Ziploc bag does seem to regain a bit of air over time, so I did all of the t-shirts and shorts at the same time so that I could get them squeezed in while they were at their smallest.

For shorts, I rolled them up and then…

placed 2 in a bag, one on top of the other, and used my bottom air vacuum technique to get them as small as possible.

3. For items that don’t fit in zip lock bags, roll them to fit the remaining space

The twin-sized sheet set and beach towel did not fit in zip-lock bags, so I rolled them to fit the space beside the bags. This left me with a tiny square space at the end, where I put in his quart-sized bag of personal items like shampoo and soap and a small travel-sized flashlight and batteries.

The carry-on also had two front pockets. I used one to hold his Bible and notebook and the other to hold his bandana and socks.

I was also able to put a few of the snacks in the bag.

The black carry-on bag contains six shorts, 11 shirts, and boxers. I will show you what I did with the last two pairs of shorts, a T-shirt, and a few other items.

I packed the last T-shirt and two pairs of shorts in this backpack. I probably could have squeezed it into the carry-on. Still, I was sending these things with a very absent-minded 14-year-old, and I just had this fear of him walking onto the flight with the backpack slung over his shoulder and the carry-on left by itself next to the chair he was sitting on while he waited for the flight. Rather than leave him with just the clothes on his back, I made sure he would have at least a spare outfit if this happened.

In this backpack, I also packed his water bottle (empty for refilling at the filtered water station) and his anti-nausea pills (he gets travel sick). The other over-the-counter items the mission recommended were his wallet and passport, chewing gum to pop his ears, tissues for bleeding noses (I get them almost every time I fly, and I didn’t know if he would or not), wet wipes for his hands, and a few other travel papers he needed.

The shirt on the front of the photo is his group travel shirt, which he put on just before he left.

I am pretty happy with how I was able to fit things in. I could have even taken things smaller if I had not divided his snacks into one day’s worth per zip-lock bag. However, knowing that my son is a picky eater, I wanted to help him ration out his snacks to last the week (whether that worked or not, only time will tell).

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