Packing your Erasmus suitcase

Hey guuuys! I hope you're all well!

Today I'm coming at you with one of the biggest Erasmus problems. How to fit everything you need to live 6 months or a year away from home into a suitcase. It seems impossible, but I promise you that you can take your entire life in a suitcase to your Erasmus destination.

Well, today's post is long and has loads of information, so I hope you're sitting comfortably. Let's get started.

First and foremost, think about the bags that you're going to take with you on your Erasmus year. I made a rookie mistake and bought my suitcase before thinking much about how I was going to use it, and I bought one that was too big. So, make sure you consider all three bags you'll have with you on the trip: handbag, check-in bag and backpack.

My advice to you is to start with the carry-on bag. That is undoubtedly the one you can take the most advantage of. The carry-on bag obviously has to be one that adheres to the regulatory measures so you don't get in trouble with the airline when you get it into the cabin. In reality they don't make hardly anyone pay for it, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

On all my flights during my Erasmus year, only once did I see some girls have to pay because their suitcase was too big. Though I should mention that these girls had to pay as they weren't European. I was the next after them, and carrying a much larger handbag and nobody said anything. But since the fact they were American was noticed from far away, the flight attendant showed no mercy. I don't usually try to get away with a bigger bag but the problem was that it was Christmas and I had everything I needed in my suitcase (I'll tell you how I did it later, skills developed by Erasmus haha). I promise you that I took everything and that I didn't forget anything, you will see the virtue of the suitcase packing skills you'll develop throughout your stay abroad.

This is why the carry-on bag is important. It is the bag that does not get weighed or they'll let you have for free on a busy flight regardless of what it weighs.

The following images are photos of hand luggage measures to give you an idea.

The idea is that when you buy your hand luggage, you get the one that adheres to the airline with the most restrictive measurements. This way, you can always use it without any problem.

Going back to weight, I don't know anyone who has never had their suitcase weighed, so it's not so easy to get around this one. In my personal experience, my hand luggage was 17 kilograms when the maximum supposedly is 10 and I was allowed to take it on for free. This has happened to me several times and it has never caused me any problems. Therefore, what saved my life at Erasmus, and my advice to you, is the following:

What you see in the photos above, is the wonderful, beautiful, perfect and amazing thing that is a vacuum bag.

Although it seems a bit over-the-top, I could add a hundred more brilliant adjectives without over doing it. So, as I was saying, these bags are the salvation for your suitcase woes, since you'll be able to fir everything you could want, and more, inside your suitcase.

My great advice is that you use them for your carry-on bag or suitcase to bill the requisites at this size. I'll explain. The issue is that as I have already told you before, when I bought my suitcase, I thought that the bigger the better (WROOOOOOONNNG), since kilograms are kilograms and no matter how large it is, if you exceed the weight limit you're not going to get your money's worth..

So, I propose the following. First you put everything you are going to take on the bed. You fill your handbag with these vacuum bags without putting anything more than 100ml of liquid in there because they'll make you throw it out at the airport.

Another great recommendation is don't take shampoo or anything like that. Buy it in the supermarket as soon as you reach your destination city so that you have extra space in your suitcase. I also recommend you get your bedsheets, bedspreads and all those kinds of items at the first market or outlet you come to as soon as you arrive. To be frank, worst case scenario you'll just be the Erasmus student with the shabby, weird patterns on it. Not the worst thing that could happen to you by any means hahaha.

Well, back to the subject at hand. Once you have everything in your carry-on bag, assess the size of the suitcase you'll be checking in and check its weight. My advice would be to fill half the suitcase with the vacuum bags and to fill the other half with shoes without deforming them.

On the other hand, once you have packed your hand luggage bag and the check-in bag, you'll only have the backpack left. You can put the your computer and documentation in here.

If you're like me, you won't have enough space. In the next instalments, I'll show you how to send things over to your Erasmus destination.

I hope, as always, that this has been useful for you and in a little later I'll tell you more!

Sources for all the images:here, here, here y here.

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