While traveling, your Carry-on bag can make you feel like a pack mule. If you don’t organize what you carry with yourself, you will find it difficult to fish through all the stuff to find the one thing that you need. Here’s a list of essentials and important things to keep in your carry-on bag when traveling overseas.
ID and money.
While this may sound obvious, it is worth mentioning. You must keep all your identification with yourself. After all, losing any kind of id is no fun, and if the airline loses your check-in bag, you may never find it again. Similarly, money shouldn’t be packed in your check-in Luggage either.
Medications.
If there is a medication that you take on a regular basis, you should pack it in your carry-on luggage. If your medication involves liquids and/or needles, you should get a letter from your doctor to avoid trouble. As someone who takes a decent amount of medication, I can’t stress this enough! There’s your luggage being lost and having to travel without your inhaler!
Electronics and fragile items.
Baggage handlers aren’t known for being careful with your luggage, and even if they were, an airplane is a moving vehicle and turbulence can always be expected. Fragile items could easily break, and hence, it’d be advisable to keep them in your carry-on luggage.
Besides, electronics come with the risk of being stolen too. Like money and jewelery and other expensive items, you wouldn’t want your electronic gadgets to get stolen either. Apart from this, if there’s anything that has sentimental value, make sure to carry it with you as it won’t be possible to replace something that has emotional value after it’s stolen.
Toiletries and a change of clothes.
Even if you’ve packed big bottles of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, facewash, etc., it’d be a good idea to carry a small pack of approved liquids with you in your carry-on luggage along with your toothbrush. Apart from toiletries, it’d make sense to pack a change of clothes as well.
If your check-in luggage gets lost, you’d still be able to brush your teeth, take a shower, and change into fresh clothes without rushing to a store immediately.
Overseas Travel Insurance.
Travel insurance is one thing you can actually carry in your pocket. While travelling to a foreign location, you do not have the normal insurance coverage for that country as you have in your home country. Travel Insurance works to cover this exposure and make things comfortable even in foreign locations.
Benefits of online travel insurance on an overseas trip are plenty, as it covers you against almost all the local risks. For example:
- Theft/loss of baggage
- Loss of Passport
- Hospitalisation
- Emergency extension of your stay
- Cancellation/missing connecting flight
Travel insurance can be easily bought online within few minutes. So, there’s no reason to leave travel insurance behind even in most urgent of trips.
Other Things You May Want to Carry:
Books
Flights can be boring if you’re traveling alone. Even if you have someone to talk to, it would be a good idea to carry a book (or a kindle), a music player, or a laptop loaded with movies to help you pass the time.
Snacks.
I’m the queen of buying snacks before I head to the airport for my flights. You may carry something you brought from home or you may pickup something at the airport. Many airlines don’t provide you with free food anymore, and even if you do get food on your flight, it’s highly likely that it won’t be any good. Having something to snack on will help you get through the flight.
Tissues.
It’s always a great idea to carry tissues with you. The air in the sky is dry and can be irritable to your face and your nose. Also, bathroom hassles may begin if they run out of toilet paper, hence, even though you’re trying to keep the carry-on luggage light, tissues are always a good idea.
As much as we’d love traveling only with our carry-on bags, we know it’s not practical and is surely not comfortable for everyone. But the items mentioned above are essentials that you must carry with yourself. Check-in baggage gets lost frequently and sometimes it may take days to get it back. It is a good idea to get online travel insurance to protect you against any such circumstances. We hope these essentials will make sure you don’t panic in such an unfortunate situation and keep your holiday mood intact.
