Unpacking on short trips is a mistake

On my 3-day road trip to Bulgaria, I tested a no-unpacking system and here’s exactly how it worked

Author

Johannes GearUpYourLife
April 19, 2026

Hey, Johannes from GearUpYourLife here..

and after I finally arrived here in Burgas, Bulgaria on Monday and got into my own apartment (which I’ll talk more about on Sunday), I had quite a trip behind me.

This time I went straight from Rotterdam to Burgas — almost 36 hours of driving.
I originally planned to split it into 3 days, which would have worked perfectly… without the little incident in Serbia. 😅

But while packing, I was thinking again how annoying it is on short trips when you arrive late, leave early, and every time you have to unpack everything… just to spend 30–45 minutes packing it all again in the morning and carrying everything up to the hotel or Airbnb.

So this time I built the simplest system possible:

👉 unpack as little as possible
👉 have everything easy to reach
👉 arrive fast and leave fast

And today I want to show you how I did it, because even under those conditions it worked surprisingly well — and I think a lot of you know exactly what I’m talking about.

🧳 The Base

For this, I went with the big 12L sling bag from NayoSmart — the Urban UL3 Messenger.

And honestly, this thing fits a lot.

It’s water-resistant like always, but what really stands out are the different compartments — over 11 in total — and even a water bottle holder. You can even fit a full MacBook inside, which is crazy for a sling.

And I would say this is the one time where NayoSmart chose functionality over looks.

Normally their bags are very aesthetic, but this one feels more like:
👉 built for maximum functionality

Which I actually prefer for traveling.

And this was my base, because I could just throw it over my shoulder, walk into the hotel, open the zippers, and grab exactly what I needed… without unpacking everything.

👕 Clothing

I kept this really simple:

I used two small packing cubes (Thule Compression)

And then in the second cube:

And my Outdoor Research rain jacket was always on top, which in April is always a good choice.

🔌 Tech

Here I really held back and only took the essentials:

And honestly, when I was really tired, I just took these out and that was it.

I also had my MOFT phone stand in there, so if there was no TV I could watch Netflix more comfortably on my phone, but I didn’t even need it this time.

🧼 Toiletry

Also very simple:

☕ Extras

This is where I actually thought the longest… at least 5 minutes 😄

I went with:

For many people, 100% unnecessary and I get that.

But I actually really enjoy this set up comfort wise especially when i have such a short time in hotels.

And I also took:

👉 Orbitkey foldable tote bag instead of the Nanobag

Just to test it more, and because a tote actually makes a lot of sense in this setup — especially if you stop at a supermarket, you instantly have something to carry everything into the hotel.

🔦 Small extra

In my pocket / car I also had the Wuben G5 with me.

And I actually only used it once in Serbia, on a dark street early in the morning and later in the evening.

🎯 The Result + If you want to see the full setup:

And that was already my full setup for these 3 nights.

👉 without really unpacking
👉 without wasting time
👉 and always knowing exactly where everything is

I could just arrive, grab what I needed, and leave again.

And that made the whole trip so much smoother.

I also made a full video about it, with more insights and where I go into every gadget in more detail + 1–2 extra items:

Unfortunately I couldn’t film as much during the trip because of the hospital situation because I originally planned to take you with me every evening.

But I still think the video and especially the idea behind it turned out really strong.

Safe travels,
Johannes

PS:
If you want to know more about the sling bag, I also made a full review about it: