If you’ve got a trip coming up, read our top tips for travelling light.

Each of our tips is simple to follow and will save you not just space but time and hassle too, leaving you free to enjoy your holiday.

So follow our tips for travelling light and take the stress out of preparing for your trip — soon, you’ll have packing down to a fine art!

1. Start small

Sounds logical, doesn’t it? But most of us are guilty of taking the biggest suitcase we can find to stuff as much as possible in.

Try stepping down one size. So if you’re used to taking a large suitcase on your hols, step down to a medium.

And instead of taking a small carry-on case with wheels, switch to a rucksack. It will double up as a bag you can take on days out. This also means that you’re less tempted to take all those things you might need 'just in case'.

2. Keep it core

Instead of packing lots of choices of outfits, stick to a core wardrobe.

There are a couple of ways of doing this. The first is by following the 80/20 principle. This means packing 20% of your wardrobe that you wear for 80% of the time. Doing this will help you select only the clothes that you are likely to wear.

The other way of achieving this is to select a core holiday wardrobe by colour. You can either stick to a palette of neutral tones or a group of colours that complement each other.

Either way, sticking to a set colour scheme means that you can mix and match all your pieces and don’t need to take so many individual items.

3. Pack your lightest shoes

Shoes can be the bulkiest items in your luggage. So ditch multiple pairs and stick to two pairs of your lightest shoes (this includes the ones you’re wearing).

Pack the lighter pair, which should be flat and easy to carry, so think thongs, sandals or canvas shoes.

Trust us — you’ll be amazed how much this tip will slim down your luggage!

4. Bundle up

Compress the contents of your suitcase by bundling items together. You can do this by securing them with our silicone binder bands — they’re like oversized elastic bands that stretch to keep your items tidy and secure.

By choosing different coloured bands, you can allocate a colour to a family member so that your luggage is nice and organised too!

Binder bands are also good to secure on the outside of your luggage so that it’s easily identifiable at baggage reclaim. You can customise them with your name for exactly this purpose!

5. Plan to do laundry

Instead of taking lots of clothes and wearing each piece only once or twice, pack fewer and plan how you are going to do your laundry while on holiday.

If you’re going to a warm destination, you can get away with packing a travel-sized bottle of laundry detergent and washing key items by hand. Then simply hang them up in your bathroom overnight and they’ll be dry by the morning. (Bonus tip: You can even take a travel clothesline to make hanging up your laundry super easy.)

Most self-catering accommodations will have a washing machine and possibly a drier too, while the larger hotels often have a laundry service. Failing that, if there’s a laundromat in the area where you’re staying, invest a few dollars in dropping clothes off for a service wash mid-trip — think of it as a little luxury that’s part of your holiday.

6. Fold it up

Everyday items that fold away when not in use are your friend when it comes to packing light.

Check out our foldable water bottle — the perfect accessory when you’re out and about exploring your holiday destination.

You can even attach it to your bag with the inbuilt hook to make travelling light super easy and hands-free too!

7. Go digital

There are very few documents that you need hard copies of these days. Most tickets and boarding passes are available digitally on your smartphone, for example, and the same goes for other essential paperwork like travel insurance documentation.

And if you love nothing better than reading a good book while you’re on holiday, switch to an e-reader like Kindle if you haven’t already done so — remember that you can download newspapers and magazines too, saving a lot of space in your luggage!

Slimmed-down travelling with Handband

Packing is a chore that most of us dread before we go on vacation. But now that you’ve read our packing tips for travelling light, you should be looking forward to throwing together your suitcase and getting excited about your hols!

And for travel-sized essentials like wipes and hand sanitiser, pop over to our sister company FeverMates, where you’ll find a range of products to keep you safe and well on your travels.

All that remains to be said is…happy slimmed-down travelling!