The things that are always in my personal item for easy access on planes and trains.
The bag
Osprey
Sojourn Porter 30L Travel Backpack
This is the best bag I’ve found to date, and I’ve been through plenty of them. Thirty liters, carry-on compliant, with a padded laptop sleeve and compression straps that pull everything tight. The harness and hipbelt tuck away into the back panel when you’d rather not wear it.
Lululemon
Everywhere Belt Bag 1L
My most-used travel item by a mile. It zips securely, sits close to my body, and holds my phone, cards, cash, and passport, so everything that matters stays attached to me. On the plane it keeps the essentials on me instead of in a bag under the seat.
In the seat
Airplane Pockets
Tray Table Cover and Organizer
Slips over the tray table and turns it into pockets for your phone, water, glasses, and snacks. No more digging in the seat pocket or watching your phone slide off. Bonus: you’re not eating off a tray a hundred people touched before you.
NOONCRAZY
Airplane Foot Hammock
You hang this off the tray table and rest your feet in it. It sounds silly until you try it, and then you can’t fly without it. Takes the pressure off your lower back and stops your legs dangling for eight hours. Sets up in seconds.
Dr. Motion
Women’s Graduated Compression Socks, 6 Pairs
You already know you should wear compression socks on long flights. These are the ones I actually want to wear because they’re cute, comfortable, and not the sad medical-looking ones people picture.
Snoozies
Skinnies Travel Slippers
Shoes come off on a long flight, and then you need something between your feet and an airplane floor. These fold flat into their own pouch, weigh nothing, and double as hotel slippers. I don’t walk to the plane bathroom without them.
Saucey Socks
Non-Slip Grip Socks
Warm socks with grips on the bottom, so you’re not sliding around the plane bathroom floor or a hotel’s slick tile. Cozier than the slippers when all I want is to curl up under a blanket. Bonus: they work for hotel room yoga.
Sleeping
Mack’s
Pillow Soft Silicone Earplugs, 8 Pair
These are my secret weapon for planes, loud hotels, street noise, and sleeping when the world around me has other plans. Foam earplugs never stay put for me, but these mold over your ear, block the noise, and don’t feel like they’re stabbing your brain at 3:00am.
LitBear
Side Sleeper Sleep Mask
Most sleep masks press right on your eyes and slide off the second you turn over. This one is contoured, so there’s room for your eyelids, and it stays put when you sleep on your side. Total darkness even with every cabin light on.
Rewondah
Inflatable Travel Pillow
Inflatable, so it packs flat instead of hanging off your bag like a giant donut. Blow it up when you want it, deflate it when you don’t. This is the difference between landing with a stiff neck and landing able to turn your head.
Vitamatic
Extra Strength Melatonin Gummies
Melatonin is what I use when I need to sleep on a schedule my body doesn’t agree with, which is every first night in a new time zone. Gummies are easier to travel with than liquid. Worth a word with your doctor first if you take anything regularly.
Too cold, too hot
BEDELITE
Travel Blanket with Bag
Airplane blankets are thin, scratchy, and not always there. This one is soft fleece, 65 by 40, and it packs into its own bag so it clips onto your carry-on instead of eating space inside it. I use it on the plane and again in cold hotel rooms.
PULI
Pashmina Shawl Wrap
A pashmina is the most useful thing I pack for how little it weighs. Blanket on the plane, scarf when it’s chilly, cover-up for a church or a temple, rolled up as a pillow against the window. Bonus: it makes a travel-day outfit look like you tried.
LICOBOD
Oversized Open Front Cardigan
Cotton, open front, oversized, with real pockets. This is my travel-day layer because it’s comfortable enough to sleep in and still looks put together when you land. Easy to pull on and off as the cabin goes from freezing to stuffy and back.
EasyAcc
Slim Rechargeable Travel Fan
Slim enough to stand on a tray table or a nightstand and strong enough to actually move air. This is for hotel rooms with no fan and windows that don’t open, which is more of them than you’d think. Rechargeable, so there are no batteries to hunt for.
Acshio
Folding Hand Fans, 10 Pack
No battery, no charging, no noise. You unfold it and you have air. Ten in a pack means one lives in every bag, and you can hand them out, which makes you extremely popular in a hot line at passport control.
Jisulife
3-in-1 Portable Fan with Power Bank and Flashlight
This goes in my personal item because travel is full of places where you cannot control the air: hot planes before takeoff, stuffy trains, warm hotel rooms, long lines, crowded buses. Tiny fan, immediate relief. Bonus that it doubles as a portable charging bank and a flashlight.
Sound and power
Apple
AirPods Pro 2
Noise cancellation is the biggest single difference between landing wrecked and landing fine. These knock down engine drone, crying babies, and the guy on speakerphone. Small enough that they’re already in my bag rather than something I have to remember to pack.
Twelve South
AirFly SE Bluetooth Audio Transmitter
This is literally one of the best travel products I’ve ever found. It lets me use my own noise-canceling headphones with the airplane screen instead of being stuck with the terrible airline earbuds.
miisso
6000mAh Card Size Power Bank
Card size, so it disappears into a pocket instead of weighing down your personal item. This is the one I grab on a day I know I’ll be navigating on my phone for hours. A dead phone in an unfamiliar city is a problem you don’t want to be solving.
Firsting
4-in-2 Multi Charging Cable, 5 ft
This is one of those tiny things that saves you everywhere: on planes, in cars, in hotels, and in airports. One cable charges multiple devices - perfect when you have exactly one outlet and lots of things to charge.
Beats
Studio3 Noise Cancelling Headphones
Over-ear noise cancellation for the flights when earbuds aren’t enough. These knock out engine drone for a whole long haul on one charge, and the cushions are comfortable enough to sleep in. Matt and I stopped fighting over one pair and packed both.
BUISAMG
AirPods Anti-Lose Strap
A soft silicone strap that connects your AirPods behind your neck. Drop one on a plane and it dangles instead of disappearing under seat 34C forever. Costs almost nothing and saves you crawling around an airplane floor asking strangers to move their feet.
EPICKA
Universal Travel Adapter
One adapter that covers outlets in over 150 countries, with USB ports built in so several things charge at once. It lives in my personal item, not my checked bag, because the airport layover is exactly when you need it. One thing to pack instead of a bag of plugs.
BAGSMART
Electronics Organizer
Every cable, charger, and adapter in one zippered case instead of loose in the bottom of your bag. When something needs charging, I grab one pouch and it’s all there. It also means I can see at a glance that nothing got left in the hotel wall.
The small stuff
Advil
Ibuprofen 200mg, 10 Count Vial
A tiny vial instead of a full bottle. Cabin pressure headaches, a sore back from a bad seat, whatever the day hands you. It costs almost nothing and it saves you hunting for a pharmacy in a country where you don’t speak the language.
Sea-Band
Ginger Travel Lozenges, 24 Count
Ginger in a lozenge, for a bumpy descent or a winding mountain road. Sugar free, and they don’t make you drowsy, which matters when you still have to find your hotel. I keep a few in a pocket for whoever turns green first.
UCO
Utility Spork, 3-in-1
Spoon on one end, fork with a serrated edge on the other. Means airport food, a hotel room yogurt, or whatever you picked up at a market doesn’t depend on someone handing you plastic cutlery. Weighs nothing and lives in the bag permanently.
LANDNEOO
Travel Pill Organizer, 3 Pack
Fourteen little grid compartments, so vitamins and medications for a whole trip pack into something the size of a card case. It comes with sticker labels, and there are three so Matt gets his own. Beats hauling five bottles or fishing pills out of a plastic bag.
grace & stella
Under Eye Masks
The landing fix. Twenty minutes before descent, these go on and take the puffiness of a red-eye down with them. You look like you slept even when you didn’t, and they’re flat little packets that weigh nothing in a personal item.
Propel
Electrolyte Packets
Plane air dehydrates you faster than you notice, and water alone gets boring by hour six. These pour into any bottle, they’re zero sugar, and they make me actually drink instead of just meaning to. A handful covers the whole trip for pennies.
LIVINGO
Nose Hair Scissors, Rounded Tip
Rounded-tip scissors handle nose hair, eyebrows, cuticles and a loose thread on a shirt, all from one small thing that lives in the toiletry bag permanently. In the US, scissors with blades under four inches are fine in a carry-on. Rules vary by country and by screener, though, so if these matter to you, a checked bag is the only place they’re guaranteed to arrive.
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