Highly Opinionated Techniques for Highly Mobile Conference Travel (the bag post)

Date Tags travel

Background

I’ve done a lot more conference travel post-COVID than I ever did pre-COVID. The pandemic wasn’t the reason, just that I’ve got more places to go and people to see. Since March 2024, that’s been:

Washington, DC area:

Northeast:

Southeast:

I drove to the trips around the southeast, and flew to the others. I’ve got plenty of options for packing when driving, since I won’t have to carry anything any real distance. But when flying, I’m usually at a location with decent public transportation, and I don’t like the hassle of a rental car or traditional taxi, or the business model of ride-share companies. So, at PEARC24 in Providence, RI, I ended up rolling or carrying a carryon-sized suitcase down a few thousand feet of sidewalk to get from the Amtrak to our hotel. And that was the last time I wanted to deal with a suitcase for travel.

Personal Proclivities and Capabilities

  1. I’m a typical-looking middle-aged guy, around 5‘10” in height and at least a bit overweight at 215 pounds.
  2. My usual work clothes are almost always a polo or Oxford shirt, jeans, and comfortable shoes or hiking boots.
  3. I don’t have any chronic conditions related to mobility or carrying things. I can walk a mile up and down Tennessee hills in 18 minutes or so, if I’m not carrying much.
  4. I like seeing scenery, neighborhoods, and people. I don’t want to just see an airport and a conference center when I travel.
  5. I like having a normal (bladed) multitool available.
  6. I don’t want to have to worry excessively about an airline misplacing my luggage.

Priorities

  1. Everything needs to be compatible with public transportation (Amtrak, local rail/subway, bus) and extended walks.
  2. The most critical items for travel pack down into a personal item rather than a carry-on.
  3. Anything past that can go into a checked bag. If I plan for a checked bag, I don’t have to worry about carry-on size limits or not having my multitool. I obviously have to wait at baggage claim, but I can get off the plane very quickly, depending on where my seat was.

How It’s Done

The core of things is an Osprey Farpoint 70 Travel Pack. This is really a 15 liter daypack and a 55 liter traditional backpack that can be strapped toegether or separated as needed.

Farpoint 70L, together (from Osprey website) Farpoint 70L, separated (from Osprey website)

The larger backpack can also stow away its hip belt and shoulder straps, making it more like a duffle bag.

Farpoint 70L, main backpack with straps and belt unstowed (from Osprey website) Farpoint 70L, main backpack with straps and belt stowed (from Osprey website)

I also picked up an Osprey Airporter Medium for some extra protection between the backpack and the baggage handling environment. It worked out well for that purpose, but the medium size absolutely swallows the main Farpoint backpack. I may try the small size later, even though it might be a snug fit.

How It Works

This is how the bags looked near the DCA baggage claim a few weeks ago, right after I unzipped the Airporter, removed the main backpack, and packed the Airporter back into itself (for scale, the floor tiles measure 12 inches from left to right). Farpoint 70L, separated (at DCA)

This is how the bags looked after I stowed the Airporter into the main backpack compartment and strapped the daypack into its location on the backpack. Farpoint 70L, together (at DCA)

After that, I could unpack the main backpack straps and hip belt, put it on, and head to the airport shuttle stop.

Once I got to the hotel and unpacked, I separated the items that went into each bag for more details.

Daypack contents view: Unpacked contents of daypack

Items included:

  • basic black rain poncho from university bookstore
  • Anker dual USB-C power bank (similar to Anker A1259), plus USB-C and Lighting cables, a super-portable Anker USB-C Apple watch charger, and a Magsafe power cable (all atop a copy of NIST 800-223)
  • Kinmac vertical laptop sleeve, usually containing:
  • Sidebyside Power Packer that usually holds:
    • Aukey 100 Watt multiport charger
    • Magsafe power cable (seen above)
    • Logitech MX Anywhere 2S
    • CyberPower GC201 6” heavy duty extension cord with extra outlet
    • Micro-USB cable (almost never needed now)
    • Retractable Ethernet cable (also almost never used now)
    • Pen, mechanical pencil, clicky eraser (you can take the RCD professional out of engineering, but you can’t take engineering out of the RCD professional)
    • Flash drive for sacrificial content (not shown, was doing its duty as part of recovering from the Great Data Center Fire Suppression Event of 2025)
    • 3-way charger cable for Lightning and Apple Watch
  • Emergency health/hygiene/sanity items for being stuck in an airport or without the rest of my luggage:
    • Kind bars
    • a week’s worth of prescriptions, vitamins, and supplements
    • shampoo, face soap, sunscreen, contact lens items, toothpaste, manual toothbrush, hairbrush, ibuprofen

Main backpack contents view: Unpacked contents of backpack

  • packing cubes of shirts, underwear, socks
  • extra pair of jeans
  • extra-light backpack for carrying soft drinks or other items back from the nearest pharmacy/grocery
  • Airporter
  • electric toothbrush
  • eyeglasses
  • electric razor
  • half-size notebook
  • ESR nightstand-style charger for iPhone and Apple Watch

This time, there was a lot of spare room in the main backpack. I’ve previously fit all of the above items in there along with a CPAP machine, a full set of exercise clothes and shoes, and a bag of trail mix.

Worst case, everything I’d want to carry in those bags for a week has a gross weight of no more than 30 pounds. It’s not nothing, but it’s more than manageable for my body size and weight.

I’ve taken this setup through DCA, the DC Metro (both train and bus), airport shuttles, and hiked around a good bit of Arlington (including the back gate to Fort Myer, where the guards will very politely tell you that you can’t go through there to Arlington National Cemetery, regardless of what Apple Maps says). It’s worked great so far, and I don’t expect I’ll do differently until I can’t walk around as easily.