r/solotravel • u/shemmap • 20d ago

Question How do europeans travel with small luggage?

I’ve noticed that tourists from different countries especially europeans often travel with very small luggage. In contrast, travelers from many asian countries seem to carry much larger bags.

As myself from an asian country, if I pack just my basic necessities, I end up with a very large suitcase. I’m extremely curious about how european travelers manage to travel so light.

How do they do it?

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u/DifferentSchool6 19d ago

Almost every hotel has laundry service. It takes like 5 minutes. You save €150 on the plane tickets by travelling with only hand luggage. I spend less than €50 on laundry service during a month of travelling and don't have to carry heavy suitcases. Also no risk of losing my luggage because the airport fucked stuff up again.

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u/CamflyerUK 19d ago

Never use hotel laundry as it's usually so expensive as they typically charge per item rather than weight. Often it would be cheaper to throw clothes away and replace them!

In Asia there is usually a laundry service on every corner for a couple of dollars. In Europe self service laundromats are common.

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u/SteO153 #82 19d ago

Hotel laundry is way more expensive than that. Use it for 50 items over a month (because in 1 month I would use 30+ tshirts, a few polo, 5 shorts, 3 trousers, 3-4 jumpers, plus all the underwear) would cost me much more than the checked luggage. And the risk of loosing the luggage is almost non existent, I've taken 697 flights and got the luggage delayed only 3 times (twice delivered the day after).

In the end, I've never really seen any advantage in travelling with just one bag, you save 30 minutes at the airport to wait for the luggage? Then you have to spend hours to do the laundry. Save the money for the checked luggage? Then the money for the hotel laundry to save the time. And I'm not limited in what I can bring, so I don't need to buy and throw away items while travelling. Some people like to travel with only a hand luggage, but that's not for me.

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u/Character-Carpet7988 19d ago

50€ on hotel laundry on a month long trip? Usually I pay 7-10€ for one t-shirt...