The heaviest luggage is the one you don’t check in

We’ve all done it. Standing over an open suitcase, shoes spilling out the sides, six outfits for a 2-week trip, “just in case” shirts we know deep down we won’t wear.  

But no one really talks about the other kind of luggage. The one that doesn’t fit in a suitcase. The kind that sits heavy even when your bag’s under 10kg.

Sometimes the heaviest thing you carry isn’t your bag: it’s leaving.

Sardinia, Italy

Leaving a café where you sat every morning for three days straight, ordering the same coffee, pretending it wasn’t becoming a routine. Leaving someone you met by chance and talked to like you’d known them forever. Someone who felt temporary, until suddenly they didn’t.

You didn’t plan it. You didn’t expect it. And yet, there it is - heavier than any souvenir you bought at the airport while waiting to board, pretending you’re not about to leave something behind.

The stuff you can’t zip up

It’s the hostel conversations at 2am, in a dirty kitchen or on a windy rooftop. It’s shared playlists made at the beach, the ones that still make you smile months later when a song comes on shuffle.

It’s borrowing someone’s charger and ending up talking for an hour. It’s walking back together because you’re staying in the same direction anyway. It’s splitting cheap wine from a plastic cup and saying, “just one more.”

It’s exchanging Instagram instead of last names. Promising “let’s meet again” without knowing if you ever actually will. It’s people who were never meant to stay for long, but somehow leave a piece of themselves with you.

And that is very special. Something you’ll carry with you.

Night train, Vietnam

But not all luggage is a problem to solve. Some of it is proof you showed up. That you talked to strangers instead of keeping your headphones on. That you stayed up later than you planned and said yes to one more drink, one more story, one more night out. 

That you connected. That you came back slightly different than when you left.

So maybe the goal isn’t to travel lighter. Maybe it’s knowing that some things will come back with you, whether you planned for them or not.

And honestly? I’d rather struggle with a suitcase that won’t close than come home with one that’s empty.

Paphos, Cyprus