I packed the same way for about fifteen years. Same suitcase, same internal logic, same "just in case" items I never used but kept hauling around airports because I'd hauled them through the airport before.

Then I turned 50. Then menopause showed up. Then I started actually paying attention to what I used versus what I carried, and the gap between those two lists got embarrassing.

This is a list of things I removed from my carry-on permanently. Not "considered removing." Not "kept in a different bag." Removed. They are not coming back.

If you're traveling carry-on only — especially if you're in the same midlife rebuild I am, where the body wants different things and the patience for "just in case" has run out — some of these might land for you too.

A note before we start: this is not a list of things you should leave behind. It's a list of things I left behind, with the reasons attached, so you can decide whether any of them apply. The whole point of a personal travel system is that it's personal. Take what's useful, ignore the rest.

1. The Hairdryer

The hairdryer was the first to go, and I'm slightly embarrassed it took me as long as it did.

Here's the original logic: hotel hairdryers are weak, slow, and inconsistent. Therefore, bring your own. I packed a travel hairdryer for over a decade.

Here's what was actually happening:

The hotel hairdryer was, in fact, fine 80% of the time. The 20% of the time it wasn't fine, I survived. My hair did not file a complaint.

Travel hairdryers are heavy. Mine weighed almost a pound, took up a notable chunk of the toiletry kit, and required either a voltage converter for Europe (don't get me started on the time I melted one in Italy) or specific dual-voltage marketing claims I had to verify every time.

My hair got shorter in my late 40s. The dryer became less necessary anyway.

The reckoning came on a trip to Portugal where I'd packed the dryer, used it twice, and noticed that the air-dry-plus-good-products approach actually looked better than the rushed blowout I gave myself in a hotel bathroom mirror.

The dryer is gone. It is not coming back. RIP.

If you're really attached to your dryer, fine. But ask yourself honestly: do you use it every day at home? If yes, fair. If you blow-dry once a week at home and "just in case" pack the dryer for every trip, you're carrying a pound of regret.

2. The "Just in Case" Outfit

You know the one. The slightly nicer dress, or the blazer, or the dressy pants you packed because "what if there's a fancy dinner?" or "what if I meet someone important?" or "what if the trip turns formal somehow?"

Here is what I have learned across approximately five years of travel: the trip does not turn formal somehow.

If you're going to a destination wedding, that's not a "just in case" — that's a planned formal event, pack for it. If you're not going to a planned formal event, you are not going to a formal event. Stop pretending you might.

I packed this outfit for years. Every trip. I wore it approximately twice in five years, both times because I made the dinner happen just to justify having packed the outfit. The dinners were fine. The outfit was not necessary. A nice merino top and the structured travel pants would have done the same work.

Out it goes. The bag is lighter. The vacation is unaffected.

3. Physical Books

This one hurts because I love a real book. I love the weight of one. I love the smell. I love handing it to someone when I'm done and saying "you'll like this." I am, in my soul, a paper-book person.

I am also a carry-on-only traveler whose hardback hopes did not survive the menopause-era reality check.

Books are heavy. Multiple books — which is what I'd pack, because what if I finished one? — are unreasonably heavy. The two-pound hardcover I optimistically threw in for a Croatia trip in 2022 was the single heaviest item in my bag and I read 40 pages of it.

The Kindle won. I am not happy about it. It is the right choice.

What I allow myself: one paperback, maximum, when I genuinely want a paper experience for a specific book. (Sometimes you need to underline things. Some books are tactile experiences. I allow this.) Anything more than one, it's the Kindle.

If you're a person who actually reads three books on a trip and a Kindle would be a step backward for your reading life — fair. If you pack three books and finish one — you know what I'm saying.

4. Multiple Makeup Options

In my 30s and 40s I packed a substantial makeup kit for every trip. The full daytime palette, the evening palette, two lipsticks, three lip glosses, a backup mascara, a setting spray, the works.

In my 50s I pack: a tinted moisturizer, one tinted lip balm, one mascara, and a concealer.

Two things changed.

One, my skin changed. The full coverage approach I used in my 40s started looking heavier than I wanted on the face I have now. Lighter, fewer products, more skin-showing-through is what works on this version of me. I'm not mad about it, but it's real.

Two, I figured out that the only makeup I actually use on trips is what I'd use on a random Tuesday morning at home. The "evening palette" was a fantasy. I was not transforming into someone else for dinner; I was eating dinner. Tinted lip balm was fine.

The whole kit fits in a bag the size of my palm. Nobody has ever looked at me at a Mediterranean cafe and thought "she clearly underpacked her makeup."

5. The Heavy Purse

For years I traveled with a structured leather purse — the kind that weighs about three pounds empty, holds its shape, and looks "put together" in a way I associated with adult travel.

Three pounds empty.

I was carrying three pounds of leather around airports, beach towns, and walking-heavy cities, every day, because some part of me believed an unstructured bag would make me look like a tourist.

It turns out: I am a tourist. Everyone knows. The bag was not fooling anyone, and the bag was making my shoulder hurt.

Now: a small crossbody for daily wear (lightweight, hands-free, holds the essentials), a packable tote for beach days and grocery runs (folds into nothing, weighs nothing, expands when needed), and my laptop bag (which doubles as a personal item on flights).

Three bags totaling less than one of my old purses. All useful. None aesthetically suffering for the trade.

If you love your structured purse, keep it. But test it on a hot afternoon of walking and check in with your shoulder.

6. Cotton (Mostly)

Cotton is what I packed for years because cotton is what we're trained to pack. Cotton breathes! Cotton is natural! Cotton is comfortable!

Cotton is also: heavy when wet, slow to dry, holds sweat permanently, and gets disgusting in heat. In menopause, "gets disgusting in heat" is no longer a hypothetical. It is the daily reality.

The shift to merino, modal, and synthetic blends for travel was one of the actual upgrades of my 50s. Cotton stayed for: underwear (some things you don't compromise on), pajamas at home, and the occasional tee that I'm specifically wearing in cool weather.

For travel, cotton is now the exception, not the default. Everything else is fabric that does temperature work, doesn't hold smell, and dries overnight in a sink.

This was a hard one because I'd internalized "natural fibers good, synthetic bad" as some kind of moral framework. It turns out that framework was made for people whose bodies weren't recalibrating their thermostat. My body has new requirements. Modern technical fabrics meet them.

7. The "Important Occasion" Item

This is the cousin of #2 (the just-in-case outfit) but it's specifically the item — usually statement jewelry, sometimes a piece of designer something — that you pack for the one important moment that might occur on a trip.

I had a particular necklace I traveled with for years. Significant piece, nice box, careful packing every time. I would explain to myself: "What if I have dinner with someone important? What if there's a photograph?"

There was no photograph. There was no dinner with someone important. There was, at most, a nice meal at a taverna where I was wearing a linen top and the necklace would have looked absurd.

The necklace stays home now. So does the "good" watch. So does the small leather pouch of "real" jewelry I used to bring "just in case."

The discovery: nobody cares. Nobody is photographing me on vacation expecting to find statement jewelry. The people I'm traveling with have seen me in worse states than necklace-less. The strangers at the cafe are not running an inventory.

Whatever your version of this item is — and you have one, even if you don't think you do — try one trip without it. Notice that nothing falls apart. The item stops earning the bag space.

The Real List Underneath the List

If you look at what these seven things have in common, the pattern isn't really about weight or bag space. It's about what I was performing.

The hairdryer was performing "I take my appearance seriously." The just-in-case outfit was performing "I am prepared for any social tier." The books were performing "I am still a Reader, capital R." The makeup was performing "I show up for myself." The heavy purse was performing "I am a put-together adult." The cotton was performing "I make natural choices." The statement jewelry was performing "I am someone, dressed appropriately."

In my 50s, I am not as interested in performing those things on vacation. I'm more interested in walking long distances comfortably, sleeping through hot nights, and being light enough to actually move through the world I'm visiting.

That's the carry-on edit, ultimately. Less performance, more function. Less "what if someone sees me," more "what serves me on this specific trip."

It turns out, when you stop packing for the imaginary audience, the bag gets significantly lighter. And the imaginary audience was the problem all along.

If you've made similar edits, I'd love to know what you cut and why. I'm always looking for the next thing I'm carrying out of habit that I'd actually be relieved to leave behind.

If you want more like this — the honest middle of menopause and midlife and figuring out a smaller, lighter life — I send a longer update by email once or twice a month. You can grab the carry-on checklist and join the list here.

The next post is coming. It's about a piece of fitness equipment I spent 90 days openly hating and am now, somehow, still using. You can probably guess.