What to wear:
What to put in your carry-on:
What to put in your daybag:
Wallet and Keys
Let me just get this off my chest: I
am beyond understanding how anyone can walk out of the house without their
wallet or their keys. This would, to me, be tantamount to walking outside
without pants on.
However, these two items are not much use when travelling, so it
might be best to find a safe place for them somewhere in your luggage. Your
money, passport, plane tickets, should all go into a pouch underneath your
belt or under your shirt (I prefer the latter). Some money you should keep
in your luggage (in case you are robbed), along with a back-up credit card.
Your wallet is better kept in the front pocket to avoid pickpockets.
Now I use a cigarette case for my wallet. It will fit in the front
pocket of a pair of jeans, and the size forces me to be frugal with what I
keep in it.
Carry-on Bag
The carry-on the traveller's quintessential piece of luggage, and
fulfills several tenets of the traveller's ethic. First, it can always be
carried on the plane. Second, it forces the traveller to be careful about
overpacking. Third, it frees the traveller for spontaneous changes of
plans, because the bag is always with you and shouldn't be too heavy to
carry. Fourth, it allows for little adventures, like getting into town way
too late and the only available hotel is across town and the public
transportation has stopped for the night (the Last Metro syndrome).
My carry-on is a black suitcase-shaped bag that has hidden backpack
straps and hipbelt, and it is by far the best bag I've ever used. I
travelled through Europe with an internal-frame backpack, which was
nice to carry but had compartments not suited for packing traveller's
things. I think the carry-on is just as good in backpack mode: it carries
less, so it weighs less, offsetting the advantages of the high-tech
backpack frame.
For maximum carrying capacity, one really needs a duffle bag. However,
they are unwieldy, and violate all the tenets expressed above. I would use
one over traditional luggage, though, if necessary, because it holds lots
of stuff, conforms well to odd-shaped contents, stuffs into odd-shaped
luggage racks, and doesn't take much space when empty.