The psychology of the suitcase

By Rebecca Willis

Full disclosure: I hate packing. More, even, than the first whiff of aviation fuel, getting out the suitcases makes my stomach flip over. I regard those unruffled business travellers, with their capsule wardrobes folded into tiny, carry-on wheelie bags, as an alien species. Admittedly I am a nervous flyer, so while I’m packing there is always a corner of my brain wondering what my belongings will look like hanging from a tree on the tele­vision news. But that’s far from the only reason packing is stressful.

There is plenty of advice in the cyber­sphere and declutter-your-life books about packing. There’s the luggage itself. Hard- or soft-sided? Four wheels or two? Then there’s whether it’s better to roll your clothes or pack them flat. People with naive ideas about how suitcases are treated at airports swear you must pack your shoes at the “bottom”. Others will tell you to put everything into plastic bags first – true, I think, only of sponge bags, which are prone to leaking at altitude. On arrival, if your clothes are creased (perhaps you forgot to interleave them with tissue paper?) you can supposedly transform them in a bathroom filled with steam. And so on, and on.