How to Pack a Small Case

The proper packing of a small case begins some time before anything is folded, for the question is not how much the case will hold, but what the traveller is actually likely to require. A man who opens the wardrobe and proceeds by inclination commonly takes too many shirts and, having exhausted his attention upon them, leaves some indispensable little article beside the basin.

Method

Write down the engagements of the journey, count the nights, and consider the likely weather. The clothes should be chosen as a small company rather than as separate favourites: a second pair of trousers earns its place more readily when it can be worn with either shirt, and a coat which answers for the evening as well as the journey will save a surprising amount of room.

Lay the proposed contents upon the bed before permitting them to enter the case, since duplication is easier to recognise there. Wear the heaviest shoes and coat in transit; the other shoes go at the bottom in a bag, their empty interiors being perfectly serviceable places for socks.

Fold trousers along their crease and place them lengthwise. Shirts follow, buttoned and folded with the collars protected. Underclothes, sleepwear, and other forgiving articles may fill the spaces at the sides. Keep washing things together in a sound, leakproof bag.

Tickets, medicine, spectacles, and the means of charging one’s telephone belong where they can be reached. An object required on the train has been packed badly if its recovery demands a public excavation.

Leave sufficient ease for the lid to close without being sat upon. Even the most disciplined journey has a way of producing laundry, folded papers, and some object purchased in a railway station which appeared quite reasonable at the time.

Common errors

Packing directly from the wardrobe encourages abundance, particularly in the vague category of garments carried “in case”; each of these should be made to answer which case is meant. Loose shoes and an overfilled washing bag consume more room than they appear to do, while a belt rolled into a tight coil creates an awkward little fortress around which everything else must be arranged.