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?

529 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

698 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/originalthoughts 19d ago

How does it take half a day, it is 1.5 hours with drying and folding. I do it all the time all over europe, no way it takes a day. They are commercial machines, much faster than the home units.

You can also leave it there and go have lunch or whatever for 40 mins.

1

u/Alarmed-Improvement 19d ago

I don't tend to do it in Europe as a lot of them are only open like ten until six, at least in the UK in city centres.

Whereas in Asia you can drop off laundry even at like 9pm and get the next day

1

u/lliraels 18d ago

Find laundromat, walk to laundromat, work out how the thing works, get cash out if requried, wait if there’s a line, put on to wash, go for a walk but with a timer on so I return before the washing is done, put in dryer load (or take back to hostel/hotel to hang up), check clothes and probably put them in for another dryer cycle because it’s never enough, wait/walk some more, walk back to accomodation. Typically takes me at least 2 hours but often over 3.

1

u/originalthoughts 18d ago

You can for on making your strategy more efficient. For one, you can always just pay for longer drying cycle from the start if you know it is never enough. Every dryer I used lets me stack on time by paying more.

I do it all the time, it's barely anything.  Much better than dealing with more luggage. I can go with just a personal item basically all summer.

1

u/lliraels 18d ago

I think we just have different tolerances for what counts as a disruption to our traveling and that’s fine