Well, I’m on the plane on my way to visit my family for 10 days, so I’ll find out for sure how good this check list is. I’ll call it my Summer Travel Checklist for Flying – it’s just the basics for a trip to the Midwest in the summer months. The only limitation is that I’m flying and everything needs to fit in one large suitcase and a carry-on bag. The carry-on has to include my laptop, so I won’t be stuffing it with extras that should have fit in the suitcase. I’m still paying the extra $15 to check the bag on Delta, but for a ten-day trip, I think it’s worth it to have all my “stuff”.
The thing I struggled with the most before the flight was deciding what laptop bag I would use as my carry-on. I have a beautiful shoulder bag, but with my neck pillow and other carry-on items it would have been overstuffed and probably very uncomfortable for carrying over the shoulder. I was leaning toward bringing my larger laptop bag with wheels, but was concerned that it wouldn’t fit under the seat and I wanted to be able to get to the laptop easily during the flight. I set out to find a laptop sleeve so that I could put the computer under the seat if I had to put the bag overhead, but my search for the sleeve led me to a different choice altogether. The least expensive sleeve I could find (at a nearby store) was over $20 and I knew I had seen them at IKEA a few weeks ago for $5, so I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that much. However I did find a Targus laptop backpack for $30 and it seemed that it would have all the space I needed, fit under the seat and be reasonably easy to carry… so now I have yet another bag for my laptop! As it turned out, by the time I got on the plane, the airline was gate-checking any bags that didn’t fit under the seat as all overhead space was taken. My decision was a good one.
Here is my Summer Travel Checklist for Flying:
Excel Version
Word Version
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