Category Archives: Tom Bihn

Bags & Luggage, Packing, TeamUltraviolet, Tom Bihn, travelbunny

1 week in the @tombihn Night Flight Travel Duffle

It is actually very easy to travel to my family’s place in just the Tom Bihn Night Flight travel duffle. I pack my merino wool T-shirts, a pair of leggings and a hooded shirt. Winter in Texas is flip-flop weather, and minimal toiletries mean that I can travel super lightly and easily.

My airplane outfit serves as arriving and returning clothes, and I wear my tennis shoes in the airport so that I can walk the 3 miles between terminals comfortably. (Note that I  also a bring packable day pack to carry presents to everybody which then gets folded up and put in my bag for the return trip, or carries back presents that I was brought so it works out well in any case.)

In the main compartment I have some jammies  (the blue tank and some ex officio black boxer shorts), three T-shirts; all merino wool, and my buff (just in case). Then I have my orange toiletries kit (dry products), purple REI mini towel, two Tom Bihn pouches with first aid stuff and fiddly bits. You can’t see them, but in the bottom I have my flip-flops for noodling around the house.

The silver thing is my iPad mini with a Bluetooth keyboard cover, a hairbrush and a banana republic shopping bag that has an elephant on it – so that obviously has to come with me ;).

The base layer packed:

And then the second layer:

Right before I go through security I tuck in my clear plastic plane kit that holds my earphones, phone battery, adapters, etc. that hangs on the tray table while I’m sitting in my seat. It fits in the area where the space is left.

The side pockets:

The right side pocket holds my electronics. In the pouches underneath my CPAP I have my wall adapter, the CPAP’s accessories, my phone charger cable, and any other cables that I might need on my trip.

The outside right pocket holds my wet toiletries that get pulled out for security at TSA. This little case from Daiso holds about six days worth of supplies for me.

The left side pocket holds socks and underwear, my packable day pack and any other thing that might need to be squished into my bag. It’s not overly full but it doesn’t have a ton of room left either.

Left outside pocket holds my slim wallet when I travel so that I can put my phone and it in my bag before I go through the scanner at TSA. It helps keep them organized and I don’t have such anxiety over losing my ID etc.

In general I’m usually over optimistic about what I will wear, but I actually did wear all of the stuff I brought this time (though given my druthers I would just wear this particular outfit the whole time):

Yes those are cat knees on my leggings and that Columbia hooded shirt is the best thing in the world, I’m having to darn the holes all the time because I’ve been wearing it for three years solid and it’s starting to wear out a bit. I will be sad when I can’t wear it anymore. I hope they come out with a good replacement!

(This outfit fits in the bag but I was wearing it  so I didn’t pack it up to take pictures.) I have a pair of black pants and a shirt to wear on the plane and then I keep the Columbia hoodie either on me or tucked into the snap handle on the top of the duffle. The leggings get tucked into wherever they fit at the time.

I fly home later today so I can verify that this set up works really well since I’ve been gone for about a week now. The only thing I really feel I’m missing is my cats. But they don’t like to travel and don’t really fit into this bag. 😉

Bags & Luggage, Gadgets, London, Paris, TeamUltraviolet, Tom Bihn, Travel: Europe, Travel: Packing List, travelbunny

Paris packing list

We have the luxury of not changing hotels for a reasonable stretch of time, our hotel isn’t too far from a Metro station and there aren’t too many changes between Metro lines to get there.

I’ll be using my Aeronaut 30 and my Travelon daypack to carry me through 10 days of Paris and London.

Bags:

Clothes:

Bags & Luggage, Luggage, Packing, TeamUltraviolet, Tom Bihn

Organizing my travel stuff day

(I swear this is not a shrine to Tom Bihn 😉 )

Bags (from left to right):

1. Pacsafe Citysafe CS300 GII Anti-Theft Backpack

2. Tom Bihn SideKick and Tom Bihn Daylight Backpack

3. Tom Bihn Co-Pilot

4. Tom Bihn Synapse 25

5. Tom Bihn Aeronaut 30

On end: misc Tom Bihn stuff sacks

Below, right: Tom Bihn Night Flight Travel Duffle sitting on top of sunset orange Lug Puddle Jumper
In an effort to curb my wants for MOAR TRAVEL STUFFS I decided to gather my travel gear together to clear out any unnecessary duplication and be ready for my next trip.

I used a shoe organizer on the side of a portable coat rack to corral travel wallets, travel pill carriers, wet kits (liquid shampoo etc), dry kits (shampoo bars, toothpowder, etc), packable purses or day packs, and journals ready for filling with adventures.

(I don’t have my travel clothes hung up here as I have a good amount of wool based stuff so I keep them in an air locked bin with cedar and lavender to discourage the critters. )

Also, very important to leave space on top of a bin for a cat to crawl in and not wreak total havoc. 🙂

Packing, Tom Bihn, travelbunny

Night Flight Travel Duffle & an ultralight trip 

I went home for a visit recently and decided that I just didn’t feel like bringing much stuff at all. (It’s home; I generally end up running around in leggings and a sweater all week. My family isn’t all that dressy anyway 🙂  )

So I grabbed my Tom Bihn Night Flight Travel Duffle and put in the basics:

  • Survival kit (see contents below)
  • iPad and keyboard cover + cables
  • Noise cancelling ear buds
  • Travel cpap + wall plug
  • Some tshirts, socks and undies
  • Miscellaneous stuff (glasses case, 1st aid kit zippy, power bank, gorilla pod, slim power adaptor, etc.)

Here is most of the “stuff” that I took (my iPhone is taking the picture) and most of that went in one of the side pockets.

One of the things that really saves space is my “survival kit”.

It stands up in the corner of the center compartment and takes the place of several other pouches people tend to have. It is a LeSportsac Kevyn Cosmetic Case that has a large zip section and a side pocket. I have several dry toiletries in the big zip compartment, such as JR Ligget shampoo bar, tooth brush, tooth powder, an eyeliner pencil, lip stain, nail nippers, Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Swivel Stick (0.5 Ounce) and I made a tiny deodorant by remelting it into an empty swivel stick container. (Regular travel deodorants are handy but the form factor takes up a lot of room.) The side zip pocket has several short cables for charging my phone and iPad as well as micro USB for my travel batteries. I also keep a low profile power bank in there that stores tidily and lets me charge my phone at least once.

(I have a USB extender cable in my duffle so that I don’t have to worry about using those 3 inch cables in a wall plug 😉 )

This kit stays packed and moves with me from bag to bag. Mighty handy.

So aside from what I wore on the plane, this was the clothing I took and it fit in a Tom Bihn mesh packing cube that went into the same pocket as the little bit of stuff.

It fits under the seat rather nicely.

Not pictured: I do carry a pouch purse (usually the Side Effect) for my phone, wallet, etc.  it’s much easier to get through security with that stuff at hand.  I just got the Sidekick so it will be even easier to travel ultralight now!