Travelling can be a stressful event. Whether travelling alone, in group or with family travelling long distances with luggage can be one of the most stressful scenario a person may endure during his or her lifetime.
From booking the seat right through to getting to the check-in two hours before take of, to ensuring your bag has been packed to the correct safety standard and weigh limitation.
- Have you placed the most valuable items somewhere in the checked in luggage or carried on your hand for personal comfort and peace of mind?
- Do you know where you are at the airport whilst holding your most valued possession, do you know where you family and group members are and where to board the flight?
These concerns are continuously floating in your head during the entire duration of the journey whilst in an unfamiliar vicinity during both take off and again during landing.
Frequent flyers may be more comfortable upon landing but even those that travel via air once and twice a week will tell you that the airports, safety, security regulation and time allocation is so uniform and regular that self-assurance at every flight is diminished.
All of these factors including hunger and needing to go to the toilet, paying for food, reading, watching other passengers and attempting to pass the time as peacefully as possible are all reasons for amplified stress that may increase your chances of forgetting or misplacing an important item.
The shear prospect of forgetting your wallet, headphone or even passport at the last seat you were sitting at or in the hand bag you forgot at the bathroom is enough to accelerate stress levels.
Light Travel
In order to mitigate these occurrences and thoughts, which have occurred to the best of us, travel as light as you can.
If you have nothing on you to forget or leave behind then that is the best solution. Check all your luggage in, putting 100% faith in baggage handling and collect at the other side at baggage collection. You can place essential items such as passport and boarding cards in your front or back pocket and mobile in another pocket.
However this may not be a pleasant experience for most passengers as the duration and patience required at the terminal gates encourages you to carry at least a fannypack or small bag for essential items. You may want to carry a magazine or a change of t-shirts, or a pack of chewing gum.
Some people carry hand luggage that is sufficient for them if the checked-in luggage gets delayed or lost for any reason. A sort of contingency bag with underwear, wallet, and most valued possessions.
Hand luggage is usually placed at around 10kg weight limit, some airliners may have higher weight tolerances than others and it is wise to make use of this facility.
A small compartmentalised bag that has different storage for passport, wallet, clothes will do your brain the favour of pre-organisation so you can recall any packed item at an instant without having to stress or panic.
Panic attacks can be very real when travelling and the best of travellers can have at least 2 – 3 miniature attacks before realising where everything is. Reducing the need to rummage through the luggage every so often to check where you last placed your passport for example.
Having pre-organised bag is similar to having an organised work station. It helps take stress levels from where your belongings are and enable you to focus attention on getting to where you should be and if you have business or meeting on the other side, you are composed focused and fresh.
Pre-organisation takes some of the weight from your brains short term memory and lets your brain focus on the important things which will represent the positive energy emitted from you as a person throughout your journey. Panic attacks and heightened levels of nervousness from what are somewhat trivial incidents can be put to rest with an effective travel plan and correct luggage strategy.
Most importantly pre-organisation reduces the likelihood of losing or misplacing a valued item, an unforced error that can cause trauma for you and those around you. Depending on the frequency and magnitude of the loss, it may give you a stigma or bad reputation as someone who is not trust worthy of carrying a bag, a child or holding anything for that matter.
