Packing
Why the bag weighs more on the way home
The return leg is where allowances are breached, and the reason is structural rather than a failure of discipline.
Solveig Rein
Rail correspondent, Suitcase Theory
Solveig covers European and Asian rail networks and keeps a spreadsheet of night trains.
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18 articles
Packing
Toiletries are the heaviest thing most people decant
A washbag is mostly water by weight, which makes it the fastest place to lose a kilogram without giving anything up.
Packing
Packing for two climates without doubling the bag
Cold and hot in one trip is a layering problem, and layering is a system with three parts rather than a pile of clothes.
Packing
What to carry when the checked bag might not arrive
Delayed baggage is a routine event with a predictable shape, and the entire cost of it is decided by what you kept with you.
Airports & Flying
Fast track, priority and lounges: what each actually buys
Airport upsells solve three different problems, and only one of them is time you would otherwise lose.
Airports & Flying
Why the aircraft is late when the sky is clear
Most delays are inherited from earlier in the day, and the aircraft you are waiting for is usually somewhere else entirely.
Airports & Flying
What happens to a bag between the desk and the hold
The baggage system is a sorting machine with known failure points, and understanding them explains most of what goes wrong.
Airports & Flying
Cabin air, pressure and why you land feeling worse
The aircraft environment differs from the ground in three measurable ways, and each produces a familiar and explainable effect.
Airports & Flying
Immigration questions have a purpose, and short answers work
Border officers are assessing a small number of specific things, and knowing which ones makes the encounter shorter.
Airports & Flying
Same-day changes and standby: flexibility you may already own
Airlines sell rigid tickets and then run a set of quiet mechanisms for moving people between flights, and some of them are cheap.
Packing
Rolling versus folding is the wrong argument
Both methods move roughly the same volume of cloth. What changes is the shape of bag they suit, and how the clothes look when you…
Packing
Why the same bag weighs differently at every desk
Two check-in desks in the same hall can disagree about your bag by a kilogram. The reasons are mechanical, and several of them are…
Packing
A packing list is a subtraction exercise
Most lists grow with every trip because nothing is ever taken off them. A list that shrinks needs a rule for removal.
Airports & Flying
Checking a bag is a time calculation, not a comfort one
The cost of checking a bag is measured in minutes at both ends of the flight, plus a tail risk you cannot control.
Airports & Flying
Self-service bag drop moves the failure point
Automated check-in is faster when everything about your booking is standard. When something is not, the recovery path is longer…
Airports & Flying
Why walking distances inside terminals keep growing
Terminals get longer because aircraft need space and passengers do not. The geometry is fixed, and it changes how much time you…
Airports & Flying
Flying with a cold, an injury or a recent procedure
Cabin pressure changes the volume of gas trapped in the body. That one fact explains most of the situations where flying hurts or…
Airports & Flying
The last departure of the day carries all the risk
Delay accumulates across an airline day and lands on the final rotation. Choosing a departure time is a choice about how much of it…