Alison

~ Packing our suitcases and flying to Malaysia! ~

We’ve finally booked our next trip and tomorrow we fly to Malaysia. We have the same old conversation every time we travel, what suitcases shall we take. Not that we have many! We recently bought a new one in the UK, average price, the handle broke when Anthony picked it up from the conveyor belt. Every time we do travel my dear husband asks the same question “can I share your suitcase?” “Sure” I reply “if you are planning on just a change of underwear”. So he has to resort to packing his own case. He always manages to surprise me though as his suitcase appears to be some sort of tardis, there seems to be an enormous pile of clothes going in. The suitcase pictured is not mine or his!

A couple of years ago a friend bought me some travel pouches and I’ve used these ever since. They come in different sizes and I can find everything easily, instead of rifling through and upending clothes to find a particular top. My shoes are covered by the disposable shower caps that you get free in hotels, although as we haven’t stayed in any hotels recently my stock has dwindled.

How about you, are you a roller or a stacker? Do you use travel pouches? Do you take just enough clothes or like me take a different outfit for every day!

Before
After

My two bags for the plane, one for my laptop, iPad and scarf/cardigan and my Hedgren security bag for passports, credit cards and phone. Nothing can be scanned through this!

Before we get to the packing stage though we have the debate about how to get there, what airline, the times and most important of all according to Anthony the plane itself. He wanted to go via Singapore from Perth and then travel by bus into Malaysia! I asked him why we couldn’t just fly directly and he said he doesn’t like Malaysian planes. Anyway that’s not happening. We fly directly to Kuala Lumpur for one night on MAS, before departing the next day for Penang.

I researched nearly every hotel on Booking.Com and booked, cancelled and rebooked until I was fairly satisfied. You have to read between the lines somewhat about the reviews!

Do you use Booking.Com or another similar website or go straight to the hotel direct. How about flights, a travel agent or do-it-yourself?

Getting to the airport and going through security is another hassle, especially when we disagree when to leave the house. I am the type of person who likes to get there on time and with time to spare. On the other hand dear husband likes to arrive shortly before take off! His mantra “they won’t leave without us” . Really, I say, are you the pilot then? Security is another problem. When the security officer asks “any tablets, laptops phones etc” he promptly hands over his medicine bag. Then we have the problem of his titanium shoulder, backwards and forwards he goes, then has to be frisked from top to bottom.

Do you arrive with minutes to spare or like to check in early and relax?

I will hopefully be posting regular updates of our travels to Malaysia and any hiccups we experience.

✈️ Have a great weekend ✈️

24 comments

  2. Wa hey! Have a fab time in Malaysia – we loved it! (And did the bus the other way round, Malaysia to Singapore). To answer your questions…we take backpacks not cases, we roll not fold, we have become very good at minimal packing…you can’t take an outfit for every day when you go for 13 weeks!! Our backpacks weighed 12kg & 15kg for our last trip. We have loads of “clever” ways to pack but love your “shower cap shoe cover” idea, that’s definitely going on the list for future reference. As you probably guessed, we book everything independently, can’t quite work why anyone would pay an agent…but then we find all that bit great fun anyway as we love the planning stage, so I suppose that helps. Your hubby has packed more clothes than I take on a 3-month trip! Anyway, have a fabulous time, we’ll be very interested to read whereabouts you go and what you do….ENJOY!!!

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    • Thanks for your comments Phil. I would imagine you travel very light! Haha that’s not Anthony’s case, he’s a pretty light traveller going but does love a good shop so will always come back with more.
      Have fun on your next trip

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  3. Ooh exciting! I consider myself an in-between packer. I certainly don’t pack an outfit for every day but I do always seem to take a little bit more than I need. However I’ve got much better in recent years, and on a longer trip will usually get laundry done (it’s so cheap in many countries). I tend to roll most things and lay a few smarter tops on the top of everything else.

    Whether we book ourselves or not depends on where we’re going. For a single destination trip or maybe two centre we will normally book ourselves, and always for Europe. I also like to plan and book our US road trips myself. But we do use tour companies when we want to travel around a country we don’t really know, with just a few days in several places. The logistics for that sort of trip can be challenging and I don’t want to waste precious time while away sorting out transport problems or hunting for hours for accommodation!

    When we book independently I almost always use booking.com. I get Genius discounts now, and I like their very flexible cancellation policies. I also trust their reviews more than, say, Trip Advisor. I know hotels have been known to pay for reviews on the latter whereas on booking.com you have to have stayed in the hotel to review it.

    I like to get to the airport way ahead of time, but that applies to anywhere I’m going. I’m the sort of person who thinks that if the person I’m meeting arrives bang on time, they’re late 😆

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  4. Great to hear of another upcoming adventure. Malaysia is wonderful, I enjoyed my time there some years ago. Packing has become a bit of a nightmare for us lately. We’ve accrued too much stuff on our trip that we now wonder where the souvenirs and gifts for Sladja’s family will go. We might need to get a bigger suitcase. We are stackers and generally tend to take more clothes than we ever end up wearing on a trip.

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    • Thanks for your comments Leighton, the trouble with bigger suitcases they are hard to lift and get into the trunk of a car. Might be cheaper to post things back

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  5. How exciting! Have a wonderful trip. We use travel pouches – they make finding things much easier. We are minimalist packers, unless we’re only going for a week or so. And it does depend on access to washing facilities. We do all our own bookings too, either with travel sites or directly with airlines or accommodations sites. We use Airbnb a lot. Happy Travels!

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  6. So by the looks of it, you are already there on your destination. Have a great time and safe travels my friend! And I do hope to see some of those mouth watering Malaysian food!

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  9. Loving Husband is the one with spatial know-how … I am completely hopeless. If left to it, I would be the one sitting on the suitcase to get it to close. So, I just pack our travel pouches and he fits it all in our duffles & rollies.

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