Right now I am packing myself for our holidays in Italy. I am going with my mum and my sister. We will check the suitcases, although it could be possible to get them on board, but I am so tired with all the people getting those heavy suitcases on board ... We have lost, as an average, one suitcase every year, but it has always been on the return trip, and it has been great, because they have brought it home the next day (and when you are arriving at midnight, you are way too tired to carry your luggage home).

I know that I pack more than Linda (my mum is more on her line, I don´t know how she does it). I am bringing three pair of shoes : sandals and a light summer pair, and a thicker pair, kind of the bowling shoes that we have been wearing in Europe lately.

The big problem will be the guide books. As I am bringing the National Geographic Italy guide, and that one is in english, I had to compromise with the spanish Condé Nast guides for Rome and Venice, for my mum. I think that this time I won´t bring any extra reading material. It will be hard, anyway.

A couple of years, when I went to India, I took a bigger suitcase. Well, I don´t think I´ll do it anymore. I know that I can manage with my small hard-sided rollerboard and the beauty case transformed to a carry-everything-possible. My transformation has been forced by the size of the suitcase. You learn to combine the clothes, and to bring just two lipsticks and one perfume (not three bottles, as I used to do).

My suitcase is heavier than my mum´s and my sister´s one, but I carry it on my own without problems, and that´s the most important part. If you have to ask for help in order to move around, that´s a big problem.

If I were you, I would practice on weekend trips. Nowadays I just bring the beauty case, and I managed to get in there CDs for the car and the book I am reading at the moment :)) And it does free you !

Kind regards, Covadonga in Bilbao (Spain)