Over here in Europe, gone are the days of budget airlines giving you a free carry-on bag. When flying any of the major low-cost carriers, such as RyanAir, EasyJet, and Vueling, you typically only get a personal item for free. And your personal item isn’t the one that goes in the overhead bin — no, it’s the small bag that fits under the seat in front of you.
During our trip through Europe this past fall, we had to bite the bullet and pay to bring our carry-on bags with us on every flight. Which really added up. In our defense, we were packing for two months and needed a lot more than we could fit in a small backpack. But now that we’re based in Alicante, Spain, we’ve been taking long weekend trips to other cities in Europe. And we’ve perfected our personal item packing lists so that we don’t have to pay for a carry-on.
Here are five tips for packing for a long weekend in a personal item bag, plus my personal item packing list. [Read more…]