What is the correct way to measure how long one has gone without spilling food on ones’ pants? Is it hours/days or number of meals consumed? Right now Sarah and I are on a tight pants budget (the constraint is not financial nor waste size, it’s pack space.) Our matching backpacks are 25 litres each – for comparison around forty litres is the maximum sized bag you’re allowed to bring in the cabin of your average commercial airliner.
The past few years have seen a marked increase in belt tightening (see what I did there?) by a lot of air carriers where the main innovation has been charging passengers for their checked bags. This makes prefect sense to me as the more weight on a flight, the higher the fuel costs. What this means though, is that more passengers are cramming all their underwear into their cabin bags and on busy flights the overhead bins are getting filled to over capacity.
We decided early on that one of the main goals of this trip would be to reduce the likelihood of encountering any luggage related issues. We purposely purchased the 25 litre packs because
A) they can be taken into the cabin of the plane (no lost luggage)
B) they are small enough to fit under the seat in front of you (if there’s no space in the overhead bins)
C) even if the overhead bins are full and can’t fit a large-size carry-on bag, there’s a good chance we can fit our smaller bags in there
D) they make public transportation and foot travel a breeze because their small capacity forces us to limit what we bring with us therefor reducing our overall pack weight – the main discomfort factor in carrying ones luggage while traveling without a car.
Which brings me to my question from the first paragraph – is it the hours or the meals? I’m asking this because I managed to get exactly one meal (or about seven hours) into our trip before I dropped a spoonful of pasta noodles on the one pair of pants I have to wear for the next hundred and twenty meals. You’re probably wondering, “who eats pasta with a spoon?” and this is a completely valid question. But it’s one for a future blog post. In three days we’ll have access to a laundry machine *and* (hopefully) a clothes dryer. Until then, my pants and I bid you, adieu.
Die Hard Three 
Leave a Reply