You’re flying low-cost and don’t want to pay for checked luggage. You’re allowed one bag, 25 × 40 × 10 cm, small enough to fit under the seat in front of you, and everything you take must earn its place: every piece has to be both essential to you and acceptable by airport security.

You’re travelling for ten days, to attend an international gathering in a natural paradise. This time, you’ll have a room of your own. You need your computer, a swimsuit, and something formal enough for receptions.

Knowing all of this, how do you pack your bag? And how does the bag, in turn, shape you as well as your journey?

A parcel, a suitcase, a bag, a backpack, a bundle. An object which contains and safeguards everything the traveller owns. Within its fabric, canvas or imitation-leather shell, objects arrange themselves inside. They remain hidden while in transit, until they reach the oasis that is your destination, the place of rest, your hotel room or hostel. Then they emerge from their place of hiding, to unfold the familiarity of your world, and to construct a temporary home.

Very few people know how to travel with only the essentials. Most of us carry far more than we need. But among the small number of experts in travelling light, many are walkers, because, to travel on foot is to travel light.

More recently, at least on a geological scale, another way of travelling, radically different from walking, has ended up, paradoxically, demanding the same meagre amounts of luggage. The snake bites its own tail: the aeroplane, the fastest form of transport and the most technologically advanced, now forces us, through cost-cutting, aggressive pricing, and mass travel, to reduce our luggage to roughly what we can comfortably carry on foot. Low-cost flights have many unpleasant aspects, but in this respect their restrictions have taught us something. Almost without noticing, we now fly with the same volume and weight that we would walk with. And, in one of those perfect ironies, both these methods of propulsion have ended up demanding the same meagre amount of luggage.
For me, this is poetry.

But, for better or worse, I’m back at the start of my journey, at the moment of truth: the backpack lies open in front of me. What goes in? What do I need above all else?
Then, once everything is packed, I realise there is a certain perfection to what I have done, something that brings the mental and the physical together in an elegant solution.

An inventory. First: the ability to dress for regular occasions. Underwear, the bare minimum of toiletries and beauty products, a pair of trousers, a skirt, three T-shirts, a very short nightdress, a bikini and a long red dress. The dress is an indulgence… but in the end I make it fit.
Sartorial whims matter, like spices in food: they add something subjective and colourful to the often unwritten rules of what is considered appropriate attire. By this I mean that dressing properly also includes feeling happy in what you are wearing. Joy matters.

Second: for turning my destination into a home. A kettle, a small metal lunchbox, a little box of teas and herbal infusions, a tiny bottle of oil, a sachet of salt, and a napkin. Then another category: for keeping the mind in working order: A notebook, a pen, a pencil, my computer, a memory stick and a book: The Travels of Marco Polo.

Incredible but true: it all fits inside my bag. And the most interesting things amongst what I have packed is what is missing. Toothpaste, for example. But why take “your” toothpaste with you? You can buy it anywhere in the world, and if you bring one from home, you will only have to carry it back again. My beloved pocket knife, on the other hand, is missing for a different reason: it is not allowed in the cabin. And I am unlikely to find another one I will like as much. Worse still, if I would find one, I will not be able to bring it home.
It is sad, but there is nothing to be done.

The shawl is a special item because, although at first it may seem superfluous, it can in fact serve almost any purpose. It can stand in for a cardigan, double as a bath towel and, in the room or outdoors, be spread on the ground for yoga or sitting, used as a cloth to eat on, or can be wrapped around you, when you need something lighter than a shower towel. It can also become a turban, or even a makeshift awning against the sun. Or a bag for gathering almonds when you have gone out walking empty-handed. Years ago, people used their handkerchiefs for everything. The shawl is today’s handkerchief, only larger and, in my case, more colourful.

And now for the most controversial part of the list: the art of turning a hotel room into a home. Some of the things I am about to describe might be frowned upon, but I am going to write them down anyway, because I suspect that what I like most about them is precisely that they sit on the boundary between what is and is not considered proper behaviour in a hotel.

There is far more to do in a hotel room than to make love, watch television or sleep, and none of it need involve the slightest uncivil behaviour. We can read, write, chat with friends, have dinner and breakfast, set up a temporary office, meditate, practise yoga, paint our nails or remove unwanted hair, rehearse a choreography, or put our thoughts in order. We can dream, and we can play.

For all that, however, a few bits and pieces are essential, which brings us back to the little bag.

Climbing out of bed and having tea, or coffee and biscuits, before doing anything else to properly start the day, is a pleasure. So is drinking something warm before bed, or after a siesta. Or, on occasion, deciding not to go out for dinner and staying “at home” to watch a film.

None of this is possible without boiling water, unless you have a hot drink brought up to the room every time. Anyway, it’s now only higher-end hotels which still offer room service and, incidentally, I find it a considerable intrusion into the privacy of this improvised home. That is why, in my case, a kettle is indispensable.

My kettle is a marvel of design. The handle, lid and heating element in the base are made of rigid plastic, while the body itself, where the water boils, is silicone. For travelling, it folds down with the power cord tucked inside. It fits neatly into the lunchbox, and together they take up about as much space as half a goat’s cheese. Although, along with the book I pack, it is the largest object I carry, but, its size is negligible compared to its magical powers.

Once I have taken the kettle out at my destination, the lunchbox will hold something tasty to go with the coffee and tea: cheese, pâté, a little jam or butter, even if the room has no fridge. Finally, the napkin will serve as a tablecloth, so there is no need to use either the shawl or paper: a more ecological solution.

With all this, a room in a guesthouse becomes a friendly space.

I have stayed in many such rooms, some lovelier than others. My kettle strategy is particularly effective in rural areas during winter, when darkness can fall at five in the afternoon, with my visits and meetings over, and not a soul to be seen in the streets of the little town where I happen to be staying, before setting out to explore the territory again the following morning.

Wild cards are astonishing things, the pearls of our creativity. They are objects whose purpose we cannot quite foresee, while sensing that, sooner or later, they can, and will, prove decisive. Two safety pins, for instance, or a metre of string. Out in the countryside especially, a strip of adhesive tape, an elastic band, a small piece of foam rubber, or a plastic bag, can suddenly become a priceless object of necessity.

The art lies in carrying the wild cards that may turn out to be providential without burdening yourself with useless clutter. No miniature sewing machines, sleep masks, cotton buds, and the like. Though I also accept that, here, usefulness can only be subjective.

And what else is there to add? We pack our travelling bag with care for both body and spirit, guided by common sense, but allowing our emotions to have their say, even making room for our whims.

…

I flew, then took a bus, and later a taxi. My little bag fit snugly under the seat in front of me on the plane, and, afterwards, I didn’t even have to stow it in the luggage compartment of the bus. I carried it everywhere as easily as a simple accessory and, when I reached my destination, I took out everything inside and scattered it across the bed.

On the white bedspread, the objects from the backpack seemed to smile at one another, mischievously. The ones that were not entirely allowed, since it was not even clear whether eating in the room was permitted; the ones whose purpose remained uncertain; the ones destined for activities hardly suited to a hotel room. And also those that had slipped past every functional rule and been packed for no clear reason at all. Because, in the end, however many times you rewrite the list, whims always wreak havoc when the moment comes to actually pack.

Then I began placing each object in the cupboards, on the shelves and in the drawers, assembling that travelling puzzle which only the traveller knows how to put back together: the most beautiful of self-portraits.

…

Now that you have listened so patiently, I invite you to pack your own under-seat bag, the one you will later carry, on foot, to the ends of the earth. You will discover that there is more than one person within you, and you will experience the pleasure of hospitality’s first rule: knowing how to host yourself and become your own refuge.