• If you need to check a bag, see if shipping it FedEx, UPS or even USPS might be cheaper. Then you can track it as well, so there’s less chance of it getting lost.
• Bring clothes you don’t care for anymore and donate them before returning home, so you have room in your luggage for new stuff you buy.
• Buy a backpack-style suitcase that’s just big enough. Pack light and carry it on, then plan to mail purchases home.
• Pull everything you want to take and lay the items out on the bed; then put back 1/4 of them.
• Use compression stuff sacks for anything that can get a little wrinkly. Small, medium and large sizes are sold at camping stores.
• Keep luggage securely zipped up, in the hotel/motel bathroom, to avoid taking home bedbugs. Put the clothes you sleep in in a plastic bag (tie it up) and then toss them in the drier immediately upon your return to kill any potential hitchhikers.
