One thing when you use the fold neatly strategy is that tshirts especially are thicker on one side than the other so I always alternate their direction so that one side of the stack isn’t thicker than the other. Just a suggestion I also use for our drawers.
@@highjinx6519 You say "OCD weirdo" I say observant and thoughtful. It's never weird to do what works... as long as you remember to factor time and resource expenditure into "works," that is.
I know from experience and from trying several packing methods against each other on bags and boxes that a combination of folding and stuffing, sometimes rolling things as well gets the most in regardless of if its a bag or a box. You have to stuff intelligently though. Folding certain items like jeans so they can lay flat. Then you stuff lighter items like t shirts socks and underwear around the corners or odd shapes of the bag etc. The best strstegy is always all of the strategies.
Not sure about cleantok, but I heard about rolling clothes from an experienced backpacker years ago - as I prefer duffle-style bags over suitcases, this works pretty well for me.
so true! the purpose of the trip also has to be kept in mind. if you're moving and want to fit as much items in the box/bag as possible a combination of all strategies works well. but, say, you're on a business trip and need your shirts & trousers clean and crisp, neatly stacking them by folding them standardly is the way to go. In general too, cotton/linen should be folded and stacked since to avoid the increased creases.
Exactly what I do! Small items like socks and underwear to fill in the gaps or uneven height from folded clothes, and also folded clothes between handles.
@jasonm9264-f2o On American TV shows/commercials, I've seen it, but I don't know enough Americans to say whether this is real or just a shortcut in TV productions.
I think the issue with return trips is that people generally don't want to, or think of, folding/rolling their dirty clothes. We're used to just tossing dirty clothes in a basket or hamper at home - not folding them up. I've become a packing cube convert. Roll clothing, stuff into cubes which are then rectangular in shape, and then, when possible, use the extra compression zipper on the cube to smoosh everything down extra tight. They fit in my suitcase so neatly.
Last summer I have used travel compression bags that allow to minimize wasted space drastically. As result a full and easily closing suite was weighting 50% above airline weight allowance. Which implies that higher compaction will be never needed. Inspired by these results, I was able to pack baggage for 1 week of travel into regular backpack.
I watched an animation years ago about a man feeling a connection to his dad from years of packing his suitcases. Some of the tips mentioned there stuck with me. Take the smaller socks and underwear and work them around the inner edge of the bag to make best use of space around shirts and pants. A belt will also nicely fit in that space, looping around everything else. In my experience this is a nice spot to tuck deodorant, cans, or other small things you don't want to spill or tip. Belt idea works just as well for charging cables.
Interesting conclusion. I lay my clothes out in a flat stack and shove rolls into the empty spaces. I feel like my method is more efficient than rolling everything.
I've done a lot of long backpacking trips, and I have (according to my family) perfected the art of the Wardrobe Backpack. The method: Big bag with a top AND front flap. Shoes, big jackets and other non-immediate stuff like swimwear pack in the bottom. Then, roll and place horizontally all your main clothing. It should look like a row of rolls from the top pocket and honeycomb from the front flap. Basically, everything is accessible from the front flap without having to unpack AT ALL. You can just slide it out like a Jenga block and fill the gap when you have clean rolled clothes to go back in.
There's an added element missing here. You don't want to just fold then roll into a cylinder like shown in the video. Look up the "Ranger Roll" for effectively getting tightly packed rolled clothes. We've been doing it that way in the Army forever. There's probably nothing better unless you can pack a vacuum sealer.
After traveling a fair bit. A mixture of roll and fold is the best, depending on what your packing. Some things like shirts and shorts. Roll. Jeans etc fold. Etc etc
Having screened carry-on luggage myself, make sure you put that kink into your checked baggage. We can take screenshots and have a good laugh at your expense.
I didn't know some influencer was resharing that rolling method. It's just a thing my family taught me ~40 years ago. Good on them for sharing a good method!
Theres no point in trying to save space when initially packing unless you’re going to spend that equal amount of effort when putting it all back at the end of your trip
Now we need to address the issue of *weight*! I can fit plenty into my bag, but if I pack it that densely, I'll be paying extra fees for a too-heavy bag.
I use a combination of tidy folding, and the roll to fill in the odd remaining gaps that are inevitable with the rectangles. Then for weight, I simply throw in my anti-gravity cube - best black Friday purchase!
Rolling has an added benefit of being able to see more items and being able to grab something without unraveling others. Very helpful if you're living directly out of the suitcase. I roll most of the items I put in a dresser to see more at a time when picking.
As someone who manages to pack relatively small bags, I found the best method is hybrid. You fold some stuff to fill out the majority of the space and then roll some stuff like socks and underwear to fill out the gaps.
As someone who moved to another country with just 5 suitcases, this was nice to hear. I did the neat folding put also put them in vacuum sealed bags and that helped even more. I just had to make sure they were under the weight limit.
6:03 Bees don't make hexagons because they tessellate the plane. They push the wax this and that until the shape is equal radius from the next chambers over. That is, they are doing a voronoi tessellation on points that are equal distant from each other, and the result is a bunch of hexagons.
They build cones that are offset front-to-back from each other. The pressure of these circular openings against one another deforms the circles and circular cross-sections of the cones into hexagons. You can see the same thing happen when spherical soap bubbles adhere to one another - they create flat planes where they connect.
My mom discovered rolling all on her own over the course of my childhood. She had always preached neatly folding over tossing our clothes in haphazardly and then over time, she realized that rolling typically saved us even more space. Definitely sending her this video!
That's how I always used to pack clothes and towels in my backpack when I went camping. After squeezing all the air out of a sleeping bag while rolling it up, it seemed to me that clothes would take less room if I rolled them up tight as well. I also think you'll get fewer creases by rolling.
@@verynick Yes, roll the clothes in the dirty laundry bag/side of the suitcase (depending on how much you have, which of course depends on how long you’ve had to go without doing laundry). That way, things don’t take up way more space on the way home.
5:55 wasn't it scishow reported that bees actually make honeycomb cells with circular cross sections, and that the hexagonal shape is instead the result of heat within the hive keeping the wax soft enough that surface tension causes it to flow into the hexagonal shape after the bee has moved on?
Yeah, Hank was so close to not continuing the myth bee's have any clue of geometry. They simply make squishy cells the size of their fat round bodies, so circular tubes, then let the weight/heat of every other bee's work just compress the whole thing, allowing physics to take care of the geometry. The exact analogy Hank was using. Squished packed circles become bestagons!
When I pack for trips I fold clothes into squares on the way there and roll them tightly on the way back....this ensures I have extra space to bring souvenirs back.
Same! And instead of stacking the clothes, I like to pack them with the folded edge upright, like a filing cabinet, so I can get to everything without fully unpacking. Clothes get rolled as they're used, so I always know what's been worn
I've always been a uniform-footprint folder, and I find the thing that introduces space has less to do with the crease and more to do with incomplete layers (like a short sleeve folded in), making the stack thicker towards the outside. In high enough stacks, a depression will form at the center of the top layer. THAT is where I put some rolled items like underwear and other irregular items pushed into nooks and crannies. When you were talking about folding I was thinking about my little rolls that I put on top, and I was SO PROUD when you said the ideal plan included rolls 😅
No, the reason why it’s more difficult to fit everything into my suitcase is, that I buy stuff while on holiday. Last year I bought two sets of those zipper bags to pack luggage in. These help to turn different types of sorted clothing into flat packages that are not just easy to fit inside my suitcase and easy to take out of it and move to a drawer, but also make it easier to live out of the suitcase when I move hotel every few days, because I don’t have to dig through a pile of loose stuff to find what I need.
I got given so much when I was on vacation. I wouldn't have bought as much as I did either if it weren't for my friend and her family being like "buy something from this town!"
I travel a lot, and I'm a heavy packer. (I like to dress well no matter where I go. I'd rather eat glass than wear things like "packable" nylon pants that make everyone look like some tool backpacker, or a dad from god knows where in Flyover.) I love packing cubes. They make it easier to keep like items together, and packing each cube tightly is far more efficient than trying to pack a whole suitcase tightly. It's also much easier to find things later without your whole suitcase exploding, and it's very simple to separate dirty and clean clothes for your return trip. I like to pack a laundry bag as well, so I can stuff that as I use it.
@@werdwerdus Good luck packing different size and shape garments that way, especially large ones. An unfolded knee-length circle skirt tends to have a diameter almost as large as the arm-span of the wearer, for example.
@@ragnkja This is how I pack which I'm really trying to cram a lot of clothes in a suit case (which I don't do very often cuz I'm an generally a light packer). lay everything flat starting from the biggest item with the parts that are bigger then your suitcase going over the edge. Then at the end you fold everything that's hanging over the edge into the middle.
I find a bit of both works well. Rolled clothes at the base of the case where you get the ridges for the handles. They once it's all evened out you can then use folded thicker clothes on top. then pop rolled up socks in the corners or spaces between the folded clothes. Of courses there are also wash bags and other non clothe items, use the rolled socks or smaller rolled items to fill in the gaps around them.
Navy boot camp teaches you to roll most of your things, and now I know why! I definitely roll a bit on the tighter side, I'll have to fix that, but this is just how I pack things now. Slightly faster than folding, and at least as efficient in most cases!
The rolling method is also endorsed by the military here in Canada and probably in the US. The cylinders are excellent for packing into duffles, yes, but also into rucksacks. Putting the cylinders in vertically allows you to have quicker access to EVERY clothing item simultaneously.
If I recall correctly, Bees make cylindrical honeycombs, but when the wax melts and reforms during warmer temps, they reform as hexagonal shapes naturally during re-hardening and surface tension of the wax. I will research!
Rolling is the way to go. Easier to rifle through your clothes without disturbing them too much when they are rolled instead of folded. I always use this when I'm packing and can quite happily live out of my backpack for short stays without faffiing around unpacking just to find my favourite shirt.
where I'm from you get to carry on and a personal when you go on the plane. most people only know about the first two but a lot of women really learn how to stretch the personal bags so far. since I always travel with two backpacks that are just just just just within the size limits, I always roll my shirts into cylinders so I can slide them into my backpack like arrows and a quiver and then fill the empty space with my socks and underwear and belongings. Then I stash my purse with as many things from my carry-on that I would like to add as possible and bam, you get an extra day of underwear and socks and a bunch of extra little toiletries that no one else in the family gets to enjoy.
I find the best method is rolling and then placing in smaller packing cubes! That way you can keep a really tight roll and i find it saves loads of space.
For suitcases with rounded corners, we use a hybrid method. Folded on the middle and rolled on either end. That’d usually sock, underwear, bottles, etc
Folding results in more wrinkles than rolling, plus I find it more difficult and slower. Taking a tip from camping and rolling sleeping bags, you can place bulky items on the bed ;(or floor, but bed's cleaner) -and kneel on them to keep the part you've rolled snug, slightly lifting up as you turn the bundle.
The correct answer is the hybrid approach. Fold your shirts and stack them (rotating each shirt 180⁰ alternating, to increase the density of the stack), and create as many stacks as you can. Then fill the gaps in the edges and corners with rolled clothes. Also, travel light 😉
My wife and I started NOT packing things like toiletries, hair products, and toothbrushes/toothpaste. Takes up a lot of space/weight. We just buy that stuff when we arrive at our destination. We go to Mexico a lot, and it saves us a lot of time and headaches. Also, shirts get rolled, and pants/shorts get folded. Rolling pants gets bulky real quick.
Toiletries are best packed in the carry-on and not the checked luggage, along with one change of underwear (including a shirt). The same obviously applies to any medicine you need to bring, whether prescription (don’t forget to bring the original packaging with the prescription info) or OTC.
I always use the rolling method, not only because it's super easy to pack and is space efficient, but it's also super easy to find what you're looking for without digging around too much and causing a mess in the process.
I do bundle wrapping, which involves tightly wrapping garments around each other in a bundle, and it is much faster than folding or rolling. I'd like to see the science on my extremely dense bundles of clothes.
I used to do this also when I traveled a lot & getting everything into one bag was worth the effort. Lay out my jacket then pants in alternating directions then shirts then shorts then underwear. Place toiletries in a bag in the center to start off the bundle and wrap everything tightly around one layer at a time. Much faster than folding (for me at least), very compact, no creasing and doesn't cause much wrinkling. Downside was needing a fairly large flat clean surface to lay everything out on. Needing to unwrap everything to get to anything. And not being able to see at a glance what you have packed. Worked best when traveling between long-ish stops where you'd be unpacking and hanging things up each time. For short consecutive trips or "living out of your bag" it's rubbish. Still a fun technique to have when you really need to cram things in tight!
Ziplock bags for me. Squeeze as many rolled or folded clothes into a ziplock bag. Zip it up abt 9/10 of the way. Sit on the ziplock it squeezing as much air out and zip it up to the end. Helps to keep my clothes dry too
That tracks. The biggest thing I took from my Marie kondo reading years ago was finding the optimal folded package for each item of clothing. These were a cross of folding and rolling into neat and fairly tight shapes. Since my clothes are approximately the same size, my Tshirt shapes all fit together neatly. Same for my husband and my kids. They neatly fit in drawers and are visible from above. Packing these shapes into a suitcase is perfect too.
I learned rolling from my Army days, not just packing a duffle bag, but also because we were absolutely required to roll things in our locker drawers. It works really well, but does result in some wrinkling. Nowadays, I use a hybrid approach: rolled stuff goes on the bottom to take best advantage of the spaces between the roller handle, another layer honeycombed on top of that, and stuff that I'd just as soon minimize wrinkling is neatly folded flat to rest on top. I usually save enough space that I don't have to worry too much about the return trip; between the extra space I didn't take up on the way out and the built in expandability of my bag, don't need to be so careful folding the dirty laundry to take home. Another tip: I bring my oldest, worn out undies and throw them away during the trip after one last hurrah, which leaves some extra space for small souvenirs, etc. on the trip home.
Honestly if I acquire too much new stuff on a trip then I just mail some of my laundry home a couple days before leaving using the cheapest method available; the least valuable part of my luggage goes in the mail and I keep the rest with me. Yeah the shipping might feel a little expensive for your old shirts and underwear, until you consider that mailing it home is a) cheaper than replacing those clothes with new ones, b) still cheaper than buying/checking an extra bag, c) slightly less likely to get lost in transit than checked baggage, and d) on the off chance you do lose it then at least it's the least valuable part of your luggage.) Other than that I just make sure that I initially pack with the expander zippers closed so that I can go home with them open if I don't have as much time to pack neatly on the way home.
I was taught to alternate the unfolded items in the suitcase, then fold them as a single item. fits a ton, but a pain if you want to remove an item w/out unpacking everything
I had the same experience with this method. A week's worth of clothes can pack into a small space, but everything has to be unpacked to get just one thing.
I used to do this also when I traveled a lot & getting everything into one bag was worth the effort. Lay out my jacket then pants in alternating directions then shirts then shorts then socks/underwear. Place toiletries in a bag in the center to start off the bundle and wrap everything tightly around one layer at a time. Much faster than folding (for me at least), very compact, no creasing and doesn't cause much wrinkling. Could get a weeks worth of clothes into the center compartment of a decent backpack that way. Downside was needing a fairly large flat clean surface to lay everything out on. Needing to unwrap everything to get to anything. And not being able to see at a glance what you have packed. Worked best when traveling between long-ish stops where you'd be unpacking into your room (closet or dresser) each time. For short consecutive trips or "living out of your bag" it's rubbish. Still, a fun technique to have when you really need to cram things in tight!
(1) Stack your shirts in one stack and pants in another, alternating directions so that the thick end, like shirt collars and pant waists, go on the opposite end of each layer. (2) Roll the stacks. This gets around the "circles in a box" problem and makes unpacking an absolute breeze. When you unpack, you just need to unfurl a couple of rolls then fold things roughly in half and stick them in a drawer.
I can’t believe he didn’t mention the method I use. I lay everything as open as possible, only folding the bits that don’t fit, then alternating so no corner gets too bulky. Why I love this method? Because clothes arrive with minimum wrinkles and also, I can fit a lot!
I don't remember where i learned this, i use the fold method then put them in a ziploc gallon bag, kneel on it to squeeze the air out and compress the clothes while closing the bag, saves a ton if room, keeps dirty clothes from stinking up clean clothes, and they are waterproof
rolling has the advantage of being way easier than carefully folding everything. the cheat code is to stack two shirts on top of each other and roll them together. half as many cylinders to fit in your bag.
It's not just the weird corners, or the handle gaps that rolling helps with. In theory you could fold your clothes to the exact size/shape of a square suitcase to be able to get 100% packing efficiency of your high efficiency clothing units. In practice that's a lot harder than rolling them AND the odds of your clothes being the correct size to have the same dimensions for both optimal packing efficiency in the suitcase AND high efficiency withing each clothing brick aren't great. (If you're really careful, it's also better in terms of getting creases out at your destination - the single fold in your dress pants might show, but if you avoid creases while rolling you don't have any sharp folds to worry about. This is at least as large a factor in why I always roll clothes.)
One of my scoutmasters suggested rolling clothes up when packing to me back in the 90s. We were typically squeezing clothes into gallon size ziplock bags to increase protection from water.
I like to pack my stuff as each days of vacation ends. You can take the time at the end of each day to sort out which needs to go where and check how much space you have left for new purchases.
With the exception of my first trip (2005), the only times I've had problems packing things at the end of a trip is when I've acquired a lot more things to bring home and am trying to fit the *new* stuff in with the things I had to start with. On my first trip I had problems *because* I was folding clothes. I've never had a problem getting clothes to fit in my suitcase since I started rolling them instead.
Still in the intro… I’ve always had it the other way around - packing is much easier when it’s time to go home, even when I was a child, on the first sleep away school trip^^
Having bags or other things within the case is the best idea for me, & how I always packed. There was a bag for bathroom kit, a bag for clean clothes, a bag for underwear, & so on, with a spare bag for dirty clothes. As the clean clothes bags came closer to empty, they'd get combined to leave another spare bag as the dirty clothes bag filled. For the packing, bigger items are rolled, smaller ones stuffed into the corners. I could live for a week in a bad hostel on the contents of one suitcase & one backpack with ease, even to the point of my own sleeping bag & pillow. Also, as I was often going on nights out, I'd have a party outfit in its own bag, which would return to it once worn & dirty.
My brother, after 20+ years in the Army, believed in rolling his clothes. Showed me the best way to do it for almost anything from a duffle bag, pilot bag, and so on.
I've done the roll packing for years... And then you add socks and underwear in some of the crevasses. It works so much better than straight folding, and usually the clothing is no more wrinkled than folding as well! Actually, it's sometimes less wrinkled because you don't have the defined edges that folding makes! Yep. It's the best. Not for daily storage, but certainly for packing a suitcase.
I'm terrible at neatly folding, so rolling has been my go-to...if you're really good at it like my mom, you can have things like suits stay pretty wrinkle free too!
Bees don't build hexagonal honeycomb directly. They make hemispherical cubbies stacked interlaced (including behind them) and then the warmth of the hive keeps the wax liquid enough to compress into hexagons. The same way if you put several bubbles around one bubble the cross section on the flat surface will be a hexagon.
Rolling is almost always better than folding cause unless you are packing super tight, folded clothes slip and crumple up in transit where rolled clothes tend to stay in/bounce back into place better when your bag gets tossed around (making them better to put around valuables), and even if they slip a bit, don't get more wrinkly. As for the original problem - stop overpacking. There's almost never a good reason to pack to the point that you don't know if you'll be able to pack well coming home, and that means you have no room to bring home anything cool you find. If it's a casual trip, pack some older t-shirts you don't care about throwing out if you need to. If you are packing crazy tight for flights you're likely to come close to weight limits too, and that really isn't worth the hassle or cost. (and if you packed a carry on to the point it won't fit in the overhead properly, yes, YATA) I usually pack rolls then if there's room and I'm taking an extra jacket, wind breaker, or something else soft, I lay that over the top of everything and strap it in as an extra layer of padding/puncture protection for anything like toiletries or computer accessories in the middle. When I head home if I have dirty and clean clothes, I roll the dirty clothes and wrap them inside a garbage bag on one half of the bag, then pack everything else around it. I have literally never run into the scenario at the start of the video (though a couple times I've left a lot of room planning to just lazy pack for short car trips, then just expand the suitcase and toss everything in on the way home :D ).
Adhering to any given rule about packing precludes the flexibility that is really required to make the optimal use of the space. Remember that suitcases are not necessarily perfect rectangles; the handles retract into the suitcase so there are odd spaces that need to be filled, and you need a little creativity to fill them efficiently. There are also spaces in your shoes, in the corners, perhaps down the sides. And if you fold your clothes on the way home the way you had folded them before leaving, there is no reason they shouldn’t fit back in the suitcase. That’s physics too.
Packing is not about fitting the maximum amount of stuff in your suitcase. Packing is about packing in a way that helps you keep neat and organized throughout your trip. Packing cubes!
I learned from scouting to roll my clothes to pack them. I also learned to make sure that everything is packed by the night before I have to leave except for my last change of clothes.
My experience is the other way around…the same stuff always seems to magically take up less space on the return trip. Sometimes it even takes up less space including stuff added to it during the trip.
One thing when you use the fold neatly strategy is that tshirts especially are thicker on one side than the other so I always alternate their direction so that one side of the stack isn’t thicker than the other. Just a suggestion I also use for our drawers.
Thank you, I do too! Also pants, shorts, skirts, well anything with a waistband. Alternating placement works wonders.
@ I forgot to mention those! So glad I’m not the only OCD weirdo that does that!
Same!
@@highjinx6519 You say "OCD weirdo" I say observant and thoughtful. It's never weird to do what works... as long as you remember to factor time and resource expenditure into "works," that is.
I dp that too.
I know from experience and from trying several packing methods against each other on bags and boxes that a combination of folding and stuffing, sometimes rolling things as well gets the most in regardless of if its a bag or a box. You have to stuff intelligently though. Folding certain items like jeans so they can lay flat. Then you stuff lighter items like t shirts socks and underwear around the corners or odd shapes of the bag etc. The best strstegy is always all of the strategies.
Nice, I use that strategy too!
Not sure about cleantok, but I heard about rolling clothes from an experienced backpacker years ago - as I prefer duffle-style bags over suitcases, this works pretty well for me.
so true! the purpose of the trip also has to be kept in mind. if you're moving and want to fit as much items in the box/bag as possible a combination of all strategies works well. but, say, you're on a business trip and need your shirts & trousers clean and crisp, neatly stacking them by folding them standardly is the way to go. In general too, cotton/linen should be folded and stacked since to avoid the increased creases.
Exactly what I do! Small items like socks and underwear to fill in the gaps or uneven height from folded clothes, and also folded clothes between handles.
6:00 Hexagon is the bestagon!
+
I opened the comment section just to look out for this comment
Bees make circles which are then transformed into hexagons with heat and pressure.
0:44 Immediately triggered by those shoes with their soles placed on top of clothes. Why!? 😨
The same people who wear shoes in bed, I assume.
The same people who walk outside with socks on, I presume too.
Have they never heard of shoe bags?
@@tichu7 Is that a thing?!?
@jasonm9264-f2o On American TV shows/commercials, I've seen it, but I don't know enough Americans to say whether this is real or just a shortcut in TV productions.
I think the issue with return trips is that people generally don't want to, or think of, folding/rolling their dirty clothes. We're used to just tossing dirty clothes in a basket or hamper at home - not folding them up. I've become a packing cube convert. Roll clothing, stuff into cubes which are then rectangular in shape, and then, when possible, use the extra compression zipper on the cube to smoosh everything down extra tight. They fit in my suitcase so neatly.
Last summer I have used travel compression bags that allow to minimize wasted space drastically. As result a full and easily closing suite was weighting 50% above airline weight allowance. Which implies that higher compaction will be never needed. Inspired by these results, I was able to pack baggage for 1 week of travel into regular backpack.
I bought one as well as some packing cubes for my next trip!
I watched an animation years ago about a man feeling a connection to his dad from years of packing his suitcases. Some of the tips mentioned there stuck with me. Take the smaller socks and underwear and work them around the inner edge of the bag to make best use of space around shirts and pants. A belt will also nicely fit in that space, looping around everything else. In my experience this is a nice spot to tuck deodorant, cans, or other small things you don't want to spill or tip. Belt idea works just as well for charging cables.
"Negative Space" Thankyou for reminding me about that little gem.
Yes, even with the rolling technique, always pack the big things first, and then fit the smaller things around them.
I'm a big fan of delicates bags for cables and small items. The space savings of tucking them into random places doesn't outweigh clutter control.
Tetris
Depending on your level of foot stank, shoes are an overlooked place to stuff things. Belts, cables, socks, deodorant, etc
This proves once again, that hexagons are bestagons
Interesting conclusion. I lay my clothes out in a flat stack and shove rolls into the empty spaces. I feel like my method is more efficient than rolling everything.
Once again, hexagons are the bestagons
I've done a lot of long backpacking trips, and I have (according to my family) perfected the art of the Wardrobe Backpack.
The method: Big bag with a top AND front flap. Shoes, big jackets and other non-immediate stuff like swimwear pack in the bottom. Then, roll and place horizontally all your main clothing. It should look like a row of rolls from the top pocket and honeycomb from the front flap. Basically, everything is accessible from the front flap without having to unpack AT ALL. You can just slide it out like a Jenga block and fill the gap when you have clean rolled clothes to go back in.
Thanks!
THATS KICKASS
There's an added element missing here. You don't want to just fold then roll into a cylinder like shown in the video. Look up the "Ranger Roll" for effectively getting tightly packed rolled clothes. We've been doing it that way in the Army forever. There's probably nothing better unless you can pack a vacuum sealer.
You sound like you'd be really fun at parties.
I have no idea what kind of backpack you're describing 😢
Step 1: Throw your clothes into a black hole.
Step 2: ... i probably should've thought about step 2.. but it's very densely packed now!
My compression algorithm results in 1 byte files
Just have to write the decompression algorithm now
After traveling a fair bit. A mixture of roll and fold is the best, depending on what your packing. Some things like shirts and shorts. Roll. Jeans etc fold. Etc etc
I agree! Rolling jean shorts is not an option!
Yeah, well science doesn't share my very specific kink or its storage demands.
Having screened carry-on luggage myself, make sure you put that kink into your checked baggage. We can take screenshots and have a good laugh at your expense.
@@Horus71 Joke's on you. I'm into it.
@BuildinWings ha ha
This comment! Absolute gold!
It's cosplay.
I didn't know some influencer was resharing that rolling method. It's just a thing my family taught me ~40 years ago. Good on them for sharing a good method!
Theres no point in trying to save space when initially packing unless you’re going to spend that equal amount of effort when putting it all back at the end of your trip
The man of wisdom has spoken! You learn this the hard way unfortunately..
Now we need to address the issue of *weight*! I can fit plenty into my bag, but if I pack it that densely, I'll be paying extra fees for a too-heavy bag.
I discovered this issue the first time I tried the compression bags
But your stuff will weigh the same anyway... Badly packed clothes just add air in
@ailaG But if you pack more efficiently, you can fit more stuff into your bag. More stuff weighs more.
Get a smaller bag and stuff that instead of
I use a combination of tidy folding, and the roll to fill in the odd remaining gaps that are inevitable with the rectangles. Then for weight, I simply throw in my anti-gravity cube - best black Friday purchase!
MY TL;DR KEY POINT: We typically do not fold dirty laundry… so it takes up more room on the return trip.
Rolling has an added benefit of being able to see more items and being able to grab something without unraveling others. Very helpful if you're living directly out of the suitcase. I roll most of the items I put in a dresser to see more at a time when picking.
(Almost) like that classic song. You gotta know when to fold 'em, you gttaknow when to've rolled 'em.
- and lay dem flat is the best in the end. And close
Well done Hank! You really packed a lot of information into this video! 👍👍
I see what you did there...
As someone who manages to pack relatively small bags, I found the best method is hybrid. You fold some stuff to fill out the majority of the space and then roll some stuff like socks and underwear to fill out the gaps.
As someone who moved to another country with just 5 suitcases, this was nice to hear. I did the neat folding put also put them in vacuum sealed bags and that helped even more. I just had to make sure they were under the weight limit.
I kind of hate how there's mathematical proof that my wife was correct.
Get a divorce if you don't like your wife, stop whining to us about it
@@ninjalectualxi cant tell if this is ragebait or youre an edgy 9 year old
"Wife bad" hahahaha hilarious joke, it's funny when men hate their wives 🤣🤣🤣😭😭
@@ninjalectualx wow, chill, edgelord.
@@user-dj6lj1dl1cedgy child, look at the cringe ass name
Wow, how did you all know I was packing for- oh yeah, the calendar
6:03 Bees don't make hexagons because they tessellate the plane. They push the wax this and that until the shape is equal radius from the next chambers over. That is, they are doing a voronoi tessellation on points that are equal distant from each other, and the result is a bunch of hexagons.
So… Bees tessellate the plane by making hexagons?
They build cones that are offset front-to-back from each other. The pressure of these circular openings against one another deforms the circles and circular cross-sections of the cones into hexagons. You can see the same thing happen when spherical soap bubbles adhere to one another - they create flat planes where they connect.
My mom discovered rolling all on her own over the course of my childhood. She had always preached neatly folding over tossing our clothes in haphazardly and then over time, she realized that rolling typically saved us even more space. Definitely sending her this video!
That's how I always used to pack clothes and towels in my backpack when I went camping. After squeezing all the air out of a sleeping bag while rolling it up, it seemed to me that clothes would take less room if I rolled them up tight as well. I also think you'll get fewer creases by rolling.
My mom always rolled my clothes when packing and I've been doing the same myself for decades.
I always recommend it to friends.
Do you roll the used clothes are well? Thinking maybe I should lol
@@verynick
Yes, roll the clothes in the dirty laundry bag/side of the suitcase (depending on how much you have, which of course depends on how long you’ve had to go without doing laundry). That way, things don’t take up way more space on the way home.
5:55 wasn't it scishow reported that bees actually make honeycomb cells with circular cross sections, and that the hexagonal shape is instead the result of heat within the hive keeping the wax soft enough that surface tension causes it to flow into the hexagonal shape after the bee has moved on?
I don't recall that one. But Matt Parker (standupmaths) did.
Yeah, Hank was so close to not continuing the myth bee's have any clue of geometry. They simply make squishy cells the size of their fat round bodies, so circular tubes, then let the weight/heat of every other bee's work just compress the whole thing, allowing physics to take care of the geometry. The exact analogy Hank was using. Squished packed circles become bestagons!
QI had an episode with this fact in it.
@jamiew6326 the crossover we need
Just to be clear, it flows into the hexagonal shapes "because of their optimal packing properties"
Added benefit of roling: no folds in the fabric.
When I pack for trips I fold clothes into squares on the way there and roll them tightly on the way back....this ensures I have extra space to bring souvenirs back.
Same! And instead of stacking the clothes, I like to pack them with the folded edge upright, like a filing cabinet, so I can get to everything without fully unpacking. Clothes get rolled as they're used, so I always know what's been worn
I've always been a uniform-footprint folder, and I find the thing that introduces space has less to do with the crease and more to do with incomplete layers (like a short sleeve folded in), making the stack thicker towards the outside. In high enough stacks, a depression will form at the center of the top layer. THAT is where I put some rolled items like underwear and other irregular items pushed into nooks and crannies. When you were talking about folding I was thinking about my little rolls that I put on top, and I was SO PROUD when you said the ideal plan included rolls 😅
No, the reason why it’s more difficult to fit everything into my suitcase is, that I buy stuff while on holiday.
Last year I bought two sets of those zipper bags to pack luggage in. These help to turn different types of sorted clothing into flat packages that are not just easy to fit inside my suitcase and easy to take out of it and move to a drawer, but also make it easier to live out of the suitcase when I move hotel every few days, because I don’t have to dig through a pile of loose stuff to find what I need.
I got given so much when I was on vacation. I wouldn't have bought as much as I did either if it weren't for my friend and her family being like "buy something from this town!"
I travel a lot, and I'm a heavy packer. (I like to dress well no matter where I go. I'd rather eat glass than wear things like "packable" nylon pants that make everyone look like some tool backpacker, or a dad from god knows where in Flyover.) I love packing cubes. They make it easier to keep like items together, and packing each cube tightly is far more efficient than trying to pack a whole suitcase tightly. It's also much easier to find things later without your whole suitcase exploding, and it's very simple to separate dirty and clean clothes for your return trip. I like to pack a laundry bag as well, so I can stuff that as I use it.
1:18 you skipped this method of simply laying all you clothes flat, unfolded. perfect 1:1 ratio!
@@werdwerdus
Good luck packing different size and shape garments that way, especially large ones. An unfolded knee-length circle skirt tends to have a diameter almost as large as the arm-span of the wearer, for example.
@ragnkja this is a physics video. everything is assumed to be uniformly sized and shaped 😂
@@werdwerdus
Then assume every garment is a dress with a full skirt.
@@ragnkja This is how I pack which I'm really trying to cram a lot of clothes in a suit case (which I don't do very often cuz I'm an generally a light packer). lay everything flat starting from the biggest item with the parts that are bigger then your suitcase going over the edge. Then at the end you fold everything that's hanging over the edge into the middle.
@@georgelongshadow2747
How do you ensure that you don’t end up with either a mound or a hollow in the middle?
Instructions unclear, suitcase now smothered in honey.
I find a bit of both works well. Rolled clothes at the base of the case where you get the ridges for the handles. They once it's all evened out you can then use folded thicker clothes on top. then pop rolled up socks in the corners or spaces between the folded clothes. Of courses there are also wash bags and other non clothe items, use the rolled socks or smaller rolled items to fill in the gaps around them.
It's amazing how many haven't figured this out when it comes to storing plastic bags. Most people crumble them instead of just laying them flat.
I fold any plastic grocery bags I have into neat right isosceles triangles. That way they fit nicely in my pocket for the next shopping trip.
The only and right way to store plastic bags, triangles
Nah I have to have one big bag that gets to show up all the other bags
it's true that when you buy them from the factory they come in a flat brick. and i'm sure some number cruncher had a look at the process at some point
How many bags do you have that storage is a concern?
I've been rolling stuff for packing for at least 20 years! Glad the science backs up what I already knew.
Navy boot camp teaches you to roll most of your things, and now I know why!
I definitely roll a bit on the tighter side, I'll have to fix that, but this is just how I pack things now. Slightly faster than folding, and at least as efficient in most cases!
The rolling method is also endorsed by the military here in Canada and probably in the US. The cylinders are excellent for packing into duffles, yes, but also into rucksacks. Putting the cylinders in vertically allows you to have quicker access to EVERY clothing item simultaneously.
If I recall correctly,
Bees make cylindrical honeycombs, but when the wax melts and reforms during warmer temps, they reform as hexagonal shapes naturally during re-hardening and surface tension of the wax.
I will research!
Rolling is the way to go. Easier to rifle through your clothes without disturbing them too much when they are rolled instead of folded. I always use this when I'm packing and can quite happily live out of my backpack for short stays without faffiing around unpacking just to find my favourite shirt.
where I'm from you get to carry on and a personal when you go on the plane. most people only know about the first two but a lot of women really learn how to stretch the personal bags so far. since I always travel with two backpacks that are just just just just within the size limits, I always roll my shirts into cylinders so I can slide them into my backpack like arrows and a quiver and then fill the empty space with my socks and underwear and belongings. Then I stash my purse with as many things from my carry-on that I would like to add as possible and bam, you get an extra day of underwear and socks and a bunch of extra little toiletries that no one else in the family gets to enjoy.
I find the best method is rolling and then placing in smaller packing cubes! That way you can keep a really tight roll and i find it saves loads of space.
A great tip I found is to ship a backpack or empty bag, especially when traveling overseas. Bonus points if it fits in your first bag.
For suitcases with rounded corners, we use a hybrid method. Folded on the middle and rolled on either end. That’d usually sock, underwear, bottles, etc
Folding results in more wrinkles than rolling, plus I find it more difficult and slower.
Taking a tip from camping and rolling sleeping bags, you can place bulky items on the bed ;(or floor, but bed's cleaner) -and kneel on them to keep the part you've rolled snug, slightly lifting up as you turn the bundle.
I've been rolling my laundry since I was like 12-13. I didn't know anyone else did this. Neat.
So the best strategy is to fold clothes into hexagons. Got it!
The correct answer is the hybrid approach. Fold your shirts and stack them (rotating each shirt 180⁰ alternating, to increase the density of the stack), and create as many stacks as you can. Then fill the gaps in the edges and corners with rolled clothes. Also, travel light 😉
My wife and I started NOT packing things like toiletries, hair products, and toothbrushes/toothpaste. Takes up a lot of space/weight. We just buy that stuff when we arrive at our destination. We go to Mexico a lot, and it saves us a lot of time and headaches. Also, shirts get rolled, and pants/shorts get folded. Rolling pants gets bulky real quick.
Toiletries are best packed in the carry-on and not the checked luggage, along with one change of underwear (including a shirt). The same obviously applies to any medicine you need to bring, whether prescription (don’t forget to bring the original packaging with the prescription info) or OTC.
I always use the rolling method, not only because it's super easy to pack and is space efficient, but it's also super easy to find what you're looking for without digging around too much and causing a mess in the process.
this is extremely timely. I have 3 hours to pack for a month trip. Right now.
Honestly, 1.5 hours would be better lol. Gotta get to the airport by 6.
Good luck. Hope you have everything clean and ready. As long as you don’t get hit my decision paralysis, you’ve got this.
I do bundle wrapping, which involves tightly wrapping garments around each other in a bundle, and it is much faster than folding or rolling. I'd like to see the science on my extremely dense bundles of clothes.
I used to do this also when I traveled a lot & getting everything into one bag was worth the effort. Lay out my jacket then pants in alternating directions then shirts then shorts then underwear. Place toiletries in a bag in the center to start off the bundle and wrap everything tightly around one layer at a time. Much faster than folding (for me at least), very compact, no creasing and doesn't cause much wrinkling.
Downside was needing a fairly large flat clean surface to lay everything out on. Needing to unwrap everything to get to anything. And not being able to see at a glance what you have packed. Worked best when traveling between long-ish stops where you'd be unpacking and hanging things up each time. For short consecutive trips or "living out of your bag" it's rubbish. Still a fun technique to have when you really need to cram things in tight!
Ziplock bags for me.
Squeeze as many rolled or folded clothes into a ziplock bag. Zip it up abt 9/10 of the way. Sit on the ziplock it squeezing as much air out and zip it up to the end.
Helps to keep my clothes dry too
No time for math or science when you’re playing Tetris my friend
That tracks. The biggest thing I took from my Marie kondo reading years ago was finding the optimal folded package for each item of clothing. These were a cross of folding and rolling into neat and fairly tight shapes. Since my clothes are approximately the same size, my Tshirt shapes all fit together neatly. Same for my husband and my kids. They neatly fit in drawers and are visible from above. Packing these shapes into a suitcase is perfect too.
I learned rolling from my Army days, not just packing a duffle bag, but also because we were absolutely required to roll things in our locker drawers. It works really well, but does result in some wrinkling. Nowadays, I use a hybrid approach: rolled stuff goes on the bottom to take best advantage of the spaces between the roller handle, another layer honeycombed on top of that, and stuff that I'd just as soon minimize wrinkling is neatly folded flat to rest on top. I usually save enough space that I don't have to worry too much about the return trip; between the extra space I didn't take up on the way out and the built in expandability of my bag, don't need to be so careful folding the dirty laundry to take home. Another tip: I bring my oldest, worn out undies and throw them away during the trip after one last hurrah, which leaves some extra space for small souvenirs, etc. on the trip home.
Honestly if I acquire too much new stuff on a trip then I just mail some of my laundry home a couple days before leaving using the cheapest method available; the least valuable part of my luggage goes in the mail and I keep the rest with me. Yeah the shipping might feel a little expensive for your old shirts and underwear, until you consider that mailing it home is a) cheaper than replacing those clothes with new ones, b) still cheaper than buying/checking an extra bag, c) slightly less likely to get lost in transit than checked baggage, and d) on the off chance you do lose it then at least it's the least valuable part of your luggage.) Other than that I just make sure that I initially pack with the expander zippers closed so that I can go home with them open if I don't have as much time to pack neatly on the way home.
I was taught to alternate the unfolded items in the suitcase, then fold them as a single item. fits a ton, but a pain if you want to remove an item w/out unpacking everything
I had the same experience with this method. A week's worth of clothes can pack into a small space, but everything has to be unpacked to get just one thing.
I used to do this also when I traveled a lot & getting everything into one bag was worth the effort. Lay out my jacket then pants in alternating directions then shirts then shorts then socks/underwear. Place toiletries in a bag in the center to start off the bundle and wrap everything tightly around one layer at a time. Much faster than folding (for me at least), very compact, no creasing and doesn't cause much wrinkling. Could get a weeks worth of clothes into the center compartment of a decent backpack that way.
Downside was needing a fairly large flat clean surface to lay everything out on. Needing to unwrap everything to get to anything. And not being able to see at a glance what you have packed. Worked best when traveling between long-ish stops where you'd be unpacking into your room (closet or dresser) each time. For short consecutive trips or "living out of your bag" it's rubbish. Still, a fun technique to have when you really need to cram things in tight!
Tl;dw: squishing is bad. Folding is good, rolling is just as good but can be better. Rolling tight is bad. Rolling with some slack is ideal.
I've solved the packing to go home problem. Include packing cubes when travelling, but don't use them until the trip home.
Packing cubes turn your luggage into the TARDIS
Rolling is the way to go! I travel *a lot* and rolling is usually my go-to, especially when returning home from a trip.
(1) Stack your shirts in one stack and pants in another, alternating directions so that the thick end, like shirt collars and pant waists, go on the opposite end of each layer.
(2) Roll the stacks.
This gets around the "circles in a box" problem and makes unpacking an absolute breeze. When you unpack, you just need to unfurl a couple of rolls then fold things roughly in half and stick them in a drawer.
5:58 Hexagons are the bestagons
packing cuuuuuuubes have changed the way I pack and it makes things soooo much easier.
From what I've read, bees don't actually build hexagons, they build circles that the settle into bestagons.
Hank Green calling them "Legos" is the closest thing to heartbreak as I can imagine 🙈😂😂
I can’t believe he didn’t mention the method I use. I lay everything as open as possible, only folding the bits that don’t fit, then alternating so no corner gets too bulky. Why I love this method? Because clothes arrive with minimum wrinkles and also, I can fit a lot!
I don't remember where i learned this, i use the fold method then put them in a ziploc gallon bag, kneel on it to squeeze the air out and compress the clothes while closing the bag, saves a ton if room, keeps dirty clothes from stinking up clean clothes, and they are waterproof
It sounds like we should leave our clothes as open and flat and unfolded as possible.
rolling has the advantage of being way easier than carefully folding everything.
the cheat code is to stack two shirts on top of each other and roll them together. half as many cylinders to fit in your bag.
It's not just the weird corners, or the handle gaps that rolling helps with. In theory you could fold your clothes to the exact size/shape of a square suitcase to be able to get 100% packing efficiency of your high efficiency clothing units. In practice that's a lot harder than rolling them AND the odds of your clothes being the correct size to have the same dimensions for both optimal packing efficiency in the suitcase AND high efficiency withing each clothing brick aren't great. (If you're really careful, it's also better in terms of getting creases out at your destination - the single fold in your dress pants might show, but if you avoid creases while rolling you don't have any sharp folds to worry about. This is at least as large a factor in why I always roll clothes.)
One of my scoutmasters suggested rolling clothes up when packing to me back in the 90s. We were typically squeezing clothes into gallon size ziplock bags to increase protection from water.
Your paper analogy was perfect! Thank you
I like to pack my stuff as each days of vacation ends. You can take the time at the end of each day to sort out which needs to go where and check how much space you have left for new purchases.
i roll my clothes. edit: yes! i knew it was the best! i'm THE packing ninja
With the exception of my first trip (2005), the only times I've had problems packing things at the end of a trip is when I've acquired a lot more things to bring home and am trying to fit the *new* stuff in with the things I had to start with.
On my first trip I had problems *because* I was folding clothes. I've never had a problem getting clothes to fit in my suitcase since I started rolling them instead.
5:54 vacuum bag can squished them better. Always travel with 1 or 2 of them
I find the opposite to be true on road trips. I always find more space, the longer the trip. Like of like settling. 😊 0:15
Experience has shown me that rolling my clothes into packing cubes with compressible zippers is by far the most efficient way to pack a suitcase.
Still in the intro… I’ve always had it the other way around - packing is much easier when it’s time to go home, even when I was a child, on the first sleep away school trip^^
@@100Lesemaus100
No decisions to make when packing to go home.
Having bags or other things within the case is the best idea for me, & how I always packed. There was a bag for bathroom kit, a bag for clean clothes, a bag for underwear, & so on, with a spare bag for dirty clothes. As the clean clothes bags came closer to empty, they'd get combined to leave another spare bag as the dirty clothes bag filled. For the packing, bigger items are rolled, smaller ones stuffed into the corners. I could live for a week in a bad hostel on the contents of one suitcase & one backpack with ease, even to the point of my own sleeping bag & pillow. Also, as I was often going on nights out, I'd have a party outfit in its own bag, which would return to it once worn & dirty.
My brother, after 20+ years in the Army, believed in rolling his clothes. Showed me the best way to do it for almost anything from a duffle bag, pilot bag, and so on.
Been rollin my cloths that do not hang up fer 25 years. Even in the dresser. Works the best in my opinion. Glad to get some validation on it.
5:35
It is a mistake.
The very best scenario gives 90,7%
Just use the hexagonal pattern.
It works for rigid circles
I've done the roll packing for years... And then you add socks and underwear in some of the crevasses. It works so much better than straight folding, and usually the clothing is no more wrinkled than folding as well! Actually, it's sometimes less wrinkled because you don't have the defined edges that folding makes! Yep. It's the best. Not for daily storage, but certainly for packing a suitcase.
I'm terrible at neatly folding, so rolling has been my go-to...if you're really good at it like my mom, you can have things like suits stay pretty wrinkle free too!
Bees don't build hexagonal honeycomb directly. They make hemispherical cubbies stacked interlaced (including behind them) and then the warmth of the hive keeps the wax liquid enough to compress into hexagons. The same way if you put several bubbles around one bubble the cross section on the flat surface will be a hexagon.
"The army roll" is the best way to roll your clothes.
Even more important: Much less cothes. More handwash them.
The Army taught me the rolling method. I've only ever personally used it to fill in spots around the folded clothes.
Rolling is almost always better than folding cause unless you are packing super tight, folded clothes slip and crumple up in transit where rolled clothes tend to stay in/bounce back into place better when your bag gets tossed around (making them better to put around valuables), and even if they slip a bit, don't get more wrinkly.
As for the original problem - stop overpacking. There's almost never a good reason to pack to the point that you don't know if you'll be able to pack well coming home, and that means you have no room to bring home anything cool you find. If it's a casual trip, pack some older t-shirts you don't care about throwing out if you need to. If you are packing crazy tight for flights you're likely to come close to weight limits too, and that really isn't worth the hassle or cost. (and if you packed a carry on to the point it won't fit in the overhead properly, yes, YATA)
I usually pack rolls then if there's room and I'm taking an extra jacket, wind breaker, or something else soft, I lay that over the top of everything and strap it in as an extra layer of padding/puncture protection for anything like toiletries or computer accessories in the middle. When I head home if I have dirty and clean clothes, I roll the dirty clothes and wrap them inside a garbage bag on one half of the bag, then pack everything else around it. I have literally never run into the scenario at the start of the video (though a couple times I've left a lot of room planning to just lazy pack for short car trips, then just expand the suitcase and toss everything in on the way home :D ).
Adhering to any given rule about packing precludes the flexibility that is really required to make the optimal use of the space. Remember that suitcases are not necessarily perfect rectangles; the handles retract into the suitcase so there are odd spaces that need to be filled, and you need a little creativity to fill them efficiently.
There are also spaces in your shoes, in the corners, perhaps down the sides. And if you fold your clothes on the way home the way you had folded them before leaving, there is no reason they shouldn’t fit back in the suitcase. That’s physics too.
Packing is not about fitting the maximum amount of stuff in your suitcase. Packing is about packing in a way that helps you keep neat and organized throughout your trip. Packing cubes!
Every time one of you videos shows up I feel good that you are still here giving us cool facts about stuff ❤
I learned from scouting to roll my clothes to pack them. I also learned to make sure that everything is packed by the night before I have to leave except for my last change of clothes.
I'm a fan of rolling. They fit great into a backpack or duffel, my preferred bags, and if you do it right, wrinkling isn't a problem.
My experience is the other way around…the same stuff always seems to magically take up less space on the return trip. Sometimes it even takes up less space including stuff added to it during the trip.
I already knew this best practices for packing, but having it scientifically explained is so satisfying.