What To Bring In Your Day Bag While Traveling
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When we have a busy day of touring and exploring, we want to have everything that we could need for the day without overpacking our day bags. After traveling across Europe for a month and going on countless trips over the years, we have mastered packing our travel day bag! When you’re packing a smaller bag like your day bag or your carry-on, it’s helpful to have some packing hacks to make it easier!
In this guide, we’re sharing with you everything you need to bring in your day bag while traveling!
Top Things to Pack in Your Day Bag While Traveling
Which travel bag is best? Our Favorite Travel Bags and Backpacks
A lot of times, you’ll hear people say that you shouldn’t carry a backpack while traveling because it makes you a good pickpocket target. However, if you pack your bag the right way and carry it safely, you can still carry a backpack if you prefer. Do some research on safety in the destination that you’re visiting and use your best judgment to decide how you want to carry your personal items with you.
Fjallraven Kanken Backpack
We love the Fjallraven Kanken Backpack for its simplicity. The Kanken backpack has gained popularity among travelers because it’s lightweight, water-resistant, fashionable, and easy to pack! And this bag would be quite difficult for someone to pickpocket because of how the zippers are! Opening the bag would mean opening the entire main pocket. The Kanken Backpack only has one small front pocket and a large main pocket.
Brevite Backpack
The Brevite Backpack is also great for women who are traveling with a lot of camera equipment and still need to carry personal items. Very often, camera bags don’t have space for your phone, wallet, or anything else you might need while traveling! So, the Brevite bag overcomes that by having multiple functional pockets for your items and a large customizable pocket for your camera gear. You can easily take your camera and lens cases in and out of the bag while also fitting other personal items inside as well!
If you want to be on the safe side without a backpack, crossbody bags for travel are great because you can have your bag in front of or around you. If you go the crossbody bag route, you can get any kind of purse or bag that fits your style. We’ve traveled with Coach crossbody bags in the past and were happy with them!
Nordace Backpack
Nordace has emerged as a popular travel backpack brand for its functional pockets, clever designs, and fashionable look. Nordace prides itself on offering smart organization and being gadget-friendly. Both collections of backpacks and crossbody bags are great for travel!
Tortuga Backpacks
Tortuga Backpacks aims to make travel easier by offering functional and easy-to-pack backpacks for travel. Tortuga Backpacks offers a collection of sling bags and backpacks that are carry-on-sized and can fit a remarkable amount of stuff!
15 Things You Need to Pack in Your Travel Day Bag
- Waterbottle. Bring a refillable water bottle. You can keep refilling it throughout the day and reduce plastic waste! There’s nothing worse than being thirsty during a day of traveling! The Refillable Yeti Water bottle makes really durable and nice water bottles!
- Passport/ID. Personally, we like to carry our passports with us instead of leaving them in our rooms. We always either carry them in a wearable case or deep in our bags (usually in a inner zipper pocket). If you aren’t comfortable carrying your passport with you, lock it in a safe in your room and at least carry an ID card in case you need it.
- Small umbrella. If you’re in an area where rain is common during the season, carry an umbrella with you. An umbrella takes up less space than a rain jacket.
- Camera. Don’t forget your camera! And bring extra memory cards, you never know when you might fill a memory card. We use the Canon R and Canon EOS M50 when we travel!
- Wallet. This is an obvious one. Don’t forget your money!
- Kleenex. There have been so many times while we were traveling that we needed Kleenex.
- Medications. If you have any medications that you need to take throughout the day, don’t forget them! It’s also a good idea to bring over-the-counter pain relievers and anti-nausea meds. You never know when you’re going to need them.
- Chapstick There’s nothing worse than chapped or dry lips!
- Spray/Deodorant Stay fresh everyone. During a full day of touring and being outside, you’ll want things to freshen up.
- Hand sanitizer When you’re touring all day, you pick up a lot of germs and you never want to get sick while you travel!
- Charger Cord and Portable charger A diminishing phone battery is always a sad sight. It’s a good idea to have either your phone charger or portable charger with you because you never know when you’re going to need to charge up!
- Notebook and Pen When you’re on a tour or visiting a museum, you may want to jot down some interesting facts or notes about what you’re learning. Or for those moments where you’re given directions or an awesome tip from a local, you’ll want to have some paper and a pen!
- Snacks We like to have snacks with us because there have been moments during our travels where we want to eat but not go out for a whole meal.
- Phone Don’t forget it!
- Sunglasses for sunny days!
How To Pack Your Travel Day Bag
Now that you have everything you need for your travel day bag let’s get to packing it! Whether you decided on the cross-body bag or the backpack, you can still pack them in similar ways!
When packing your travel day bag, give each item a “home” in your bag so you remember where each item is throughout the day. And so you can avoid any moments of panic by thinking you lost something!
We personally put our water bottle and camera case in the bag first since they are the bulkiest. Then put your ID or Passport in the inner zipper pocket for extra security. When it comes to packing your bag, always put your valuables like your wallet and phone in a zipper pocket inside or deep within the bag. Avoid putting anything valuable in the outside pockets that would be easily accessible. For the small things like medications, chapstick, and hand sanitizer, we like to put those items in smaller pouches or pockets so they don’t get lost at the bottom of the bag. This will keep them organized and easy to find.
After you get all of your personal items packed into your travel day bag, pack up your camera equipment. If you’re using the Brevite Jumper Backpack, this step will be super easy. But if you’re using another backpack that doesn’t have designated camera pockets, pack your camera in a camera case and pack it into the backpack!