HOW WE PACK for 9 WEEKS IN HAWAII with CARRY-ON BAGS ONLY

As we prepare for a new journey, two+ months in HAWAII and our 50th US STATE, we are determined to make the trip with only carry-on bags! Here are some of our packing tips and gear recommendations for traveling light as a family of 4. There are also COVID tests, getting JJ used to mask-wearing, and prepping our RV for storage.

GEAR IN THIS EPISODE
✅ Suited nomad packing cubes: https://amzn.to/2SWDg9l
✅ Inflatable car seat: https://amzn.to/3bv69jm
✅ Maxx Air for auto vent: https://amzn.to/3hwndJI
✅ Maxx Air for normal vent: https://amzn.to/3eQ24by
✅ Taskin cubes: https://amzn.to/3ok58Qe
✅ Cotopaxi Bag: https://www.cotopaxi.com/products/allpa-35l-travel-pack-del-dia
✅Away Travel Luggage: https://www.awaytravel.com/suitcases/expandable-carry-on/black
✅ Tortuga Setout Bag: https://www.tortugabackpacks.com/products/setout-travel-backpack?variant=16185333219399

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i don’t know why it didn’t hit me until just now when i threw all this stuff on the couch for the shot i’m pretty sure we’re nuts all of this has to be packed up and ready to go with us for hawaii where marisa nathan hensley and jj we sold our house in 2015 and moved into an rv full time to live a life of less junk more journey life is a journey let go and get going and so yeah just going to hawaii is an insane about logistics flights excursions places to stay lots and lots of money for all these different places you’re picking out to do like it’s it’s it’s crazy not only are we doing that we’re going to hawaii we’re going with two small kids we’re going for nine weeks and we’re going with all of these new and unheard of testing and protocols in place for kovid that we’re navigating around too it’s it’s gonna be absolutely crazy so it’s getting real once you start packing i think in our mind we thought oh we can do one bag it’ll be fine it’s definitely a challenge right now deciding what is the most important and we’ve always traveled with our home with this our rv and so it travels just been so easy because we always have everything with us we need i think the one thing that’s helping me the most is remembering that there are stores in hawaii there are children in hawaii so if we forget anything they have resources there it is a little more expensive but i think our plan is to only take what we absolutely need and then buy local in hawaii for those things that we can’t take with us and so what do we mean by one bag travel so we’re technically allowed four of these but three is all we could figure out how to carry um so we have this is my main one bag that’s gonna be on my back we do have one roller bag we’re trying out uh it’s from away and this is it that’s for the kids so the two kids are gonna have their stuff in this one bag and then marissa’s bag now notice the neutrality here we’ve got we got the gray for nathan we got the black for the kids marissa said no no no i i may talk about hensley’s style and how we have totally different styles but i think i’ve realized like we’re more similar than i thought and i couldn’t go neutral oh it’s a it’s a lot it doesn’t even i know so so what i love about the cotopaxis stuff is it’s recycled material so you can buy bags that they have taken all these mixtures of fabrics and repurposed it’s pretty unique every bag is unique everyone is different so there’s no other bag like this that’s for sure my ocd is just like i know i know i know okay she’s got a coat of paxi i’ve got a tortuga bag um and then the kids have this away suitcase the key to all the one bag travel stuff to us this is the big difference between like a regular backpack and then like a one travel backpack is you’re looking for this clam shell opening right so you can access stuff here access stuff here all the bags have the same they do it in different ways but they all do that same concept so marissa’s opens like that and blinds you um the tortuga i will know which bag is mine oh there will be no doubt this this pretty much sums it up this is if nathan was a bag this would be nice this is i did a lot of research this would be me i did a lot of research this this is a very very practical bag is it exciting no but it’s very practical but this one’s just basically a cavernous hole when a clam shell opens and then you can just pack it however you want in this hole it has some other little pockets and stuff too we intentionally have three different bags we’ll be trying out all kinds of different stuff which may or may not make it easier on us but for you guys that’ll be great if you plan on traveling because you get to see a crazy cool pacsy bag you get to see a tortuga bag you get to see all this different stuff we don’t know what we’re doing with this we just don’t what’s a news we’ve never done a new journey it’s exciting it feels like when we launched rving it’s like that exciting nervous giddy feeling and i mean if you’re gonna make hawaii your 50th state like this is we can’t take our rv unfortunately so um this is how we’re gonna get it done it’s exciting and when you guys see this video it’s gonna be very up to date we’ll only assuming all this works out i will tell you along the way all the logistics of how this might not work out even getting to hawaii but once you guys see this video we’ll hopefully have been in hawaii for maybe two or three days and you guys are part of team journey on patreon we’ll have live updates as this stuff goes along so you can see this train wreck as it happens um because there is a very high likelihood something oh well everything hinges on pretty much a q-tip in our nose and whether our two-year-old cooperates so those are a lot of a lot of what is yeah so logistic number one um out of 20 that we have to figure out for this all children two and up need to wear masks jj just turned two a month ago he has never worn a mask but then all of a sudden we’ve got to go from him never wearing a mask or knowing how to wear a mask to wearing a mask for eight hours on a flight and so that’s a little nerve-racking we technically have two flights we’re leaving from nashville to denver which i think is two or three hours and then the long one is from denver to honolulu which is eight hours i’m worried about both of them probably the eight hour more so so it’s hard enough with kids and you’ve got this logistic on top of it we’re hopeful that there is a little bit of grace with that because he is so small um but we have been working really really hard to try to to try to get him comfortable wearing his mask so the plan with him was not just to show up at the airport and say here’s here’s the mask wear it we uh we planned for two to three weeks before we left to start training him to wear the mask but we found out quickly getting your two-year-old to wear a mask is sort of like potty training like if they just don’t want to wear it here’s some of the clips the progression of us doing this over the last two weeks i’ll give you the cookie if you put on the mess [Music] once we’ve decorated the mask about 30 worth of different masks try to make the mask into a game where when i put the mask on i’m a ninja it’s going pretty well i mean he won’t even touch the mask like if i’m he’ll just throw it that’s all he’ll do huh all right can i put it on you here you’ll wear it we’ve also instituted the ipad rule which means kids cannot that’s what this is back here the kids cannot play ipad unless they have their mask on you’re doing really good hensley i’m proud of you she’s not crazy about it but we’re practicing it’s not working with jj he just screams play monster truck there you go play it just leave it on good job oh almost good job that’s good that’s a win that’s a way oh that’s a win oh yeah we’re gonna try this good job there you go how’s that going play your game play monster trucks there you go there you go we’re gonna call that a win and so yeah we’re finally to the point where he does wear it but i don’t feel super good because you just don’t know how they’re gonna react at the airport on the airplane he has not worn it for a super long time so we’re hoping there’s mercy there is no rationalizing with with a two-year-old literally he just turned two i think there’s a difference even with two and a half and maybe even three but his rationale is not quite there and so it has been um it’s been a journey in itself so yeah we’re gonna start with the packing we’re doing like a uh practice packing session yeah so everything i need for over two months needs to fit in this one bag i thought living in an rv and having very limited closet space and storage was challenging but this is going to be a new challenge i think i can pull it off i have to pull it off okay so when it comes to packing small you guys that maybe you want to go to hawaii one day or you want to go overseas one day or you’re just you’re leaving your rv for a break or you’re going on vacations from home or whatever to cut down on luggage the two things we’ve heard about a lot we talked about one already getting something’s clam shell if you want to get a backpack it opens up like a suitcase the second thing though that you’ll see over and over and over is packing cubes and really not just any packing cubes i’ve got these tascam ones i got the double zipper packing cubes because what the double zipper does you pack everything in this one isn’t super tight yet but you pack everything in and then you can sort of compress it even more with the double zipper so it’s almost like a not really but it’s kind of like a packing cube within a packing cube [Music] it’s a stroller put him in here put a pacifier in and just don’t mind our 40-pound two-year-old he’s barely two but he looks like four you can take any car seat it attaches in there this is how we’re gonna be going wow cruising around the airport so marissa if you can imagine she’s gonna have her bright red crazy backpack back on and she’ll be pushing jj and then i’ll be walking behind her with my bag on i know and a roller bag well we went back and forth about do we bring a stroller do we bring a car seat we are renting vehicles so we’ll need a car seat but you you can rent them from the rental but then we thought it would put it on itself we thought he’d be more comfortable in the airplane if he had his seat to sit and look out the window and sleep in so once we decided we wanted to bring his car seat then we had to think well how do we get the car seat through the airport and then how do we get around places well if we’re in a hurry i mean we’re going to make better time putting him in this and just zipping around really well it’s good wow look at that maneuver yeah no no not all that sure more stroller okay okay off and on all day pretty much doing this update on the bags and where we’re at my bag yeah i’m done got my toiletries quite a bit of room so i don’t know it’s probably like i don’t know 60 full or something like that maybe 70. how’s uh how’s it going let’s see how your bag’s going over here not going as well so she’s still got um some stuff she needs to get in there and it’s not even going to zip i think so i mean i don’t feel like i have that much what else you still got to get in there this is all i have left i think [Music] okay so logistic wise we’ve got the packing we’ve got jj we’ve got all the typical reservation stuff and then on top of that we’ve got the covet stuff so we’re between marissa myself and hensley because jj doesn’t have to be tested we’re going to be tested about 18 times during this round you have to not only have a covet test but you have to use one of their trusted partners so thankfully there is one of their trusted partners that does the specific test that we need at our local walgreens so i think it’s free right so i hope so this one’s free we’ve got it can be 17 more to go but it can be up to 129 dollars a person so let’s let’s hope that we’re hoping wow 129 bucks per pot for 18 tests not that hopefully the airport won maybe but anyways the airport one should be free yeah i think i’m gonna fit right nostril five circles okay all right one two three four five within 24 hours okay all right thank you all right we made it through the drive-thru with a dooley that was almost as scary as the test for us you can do this 72 hours out but we felt like that was a bigger risk it’s like do you want to risk the results not getting back in time or do you want to risk your plane no issues on the plane like we said there could be issues with that too so we thought let’s wait one more day so we’re not actually 72 hours that we’re probably like 48 hours out because we felt pretty good about walgreens getting back to us in time so yeah hopefully uh hopefully today sounds like we’ll have the results and know whether whether or not this is going to happen it’s just a this is a nerve-wracking oh my goodness you guys are like you must really want to go to hawaii 50th state here we come so big part of this equation is us also storing our rv you know we could have put into an official storage or something like that but we actually feel better leaving it with family because we know they’re always around we feel more secure with it like that and as far as something not happening to it plan and i talked to several people about what to do i even looked into buying an rv cover i looked at moving it somewhere again with storage putting it under cover somewhere but especially since it’s gonna be summer while we’re gone the main thing that we wanted to make sure we had was airflow for the rv so the plan is to install three of these uh max air ventilation solution vent covers and then leave the fans on while we’re gone to keep that circulation going [Applause] now technically i’ve got two different kinds of vent covers we have two different styles of vents we have the ones that are like the auto rain sensor max fan so we have two of those one here and one here but then we also have a more standard fan that you see on rvs uh that is this one that we have a vent cover for that so it’s actually two different vent covers because the auto one actually has notches right here underneath this that i’m about to reveal and you can just put the cover on it snatch it in and you’re done versus this one requires a little bit of marking and drilling and the whole deal to get it on it so a little bit more time as far as installation this should sit right on top of it and then something’s going to go right in this spot right here so i’m just sliding that little pin in what i said to lock it up is that it okay that’s easy i like easy oh yeah [Music] all right all three vent covers are in i’m guessing 15 to 20 minutes on this and then five to ten minutes on these two what’s up hensley all right where are we on the packing so i went back through i took out round two so i took out more does it close without you sitting on it well it did close yesterday without me sitting on it i got to that point and marissa’s the kind of person if you guys were like this she leaves the tag until the very last it makes her because it’s it’s final once you take that tag commitment and i want to make sure this is well we don’t have time to get another bag yeah no we don’t have another option do i have commitment issues i’m not i’m with you for all these years so it does close now that’s what you’re saying yes look at this like a glove kids i’ve got all the hands of these in this bag i don’t know this is her inflatable booster what we’re gonna do there if we’re gonna stick that in their bag all of his is in that one bag yes wow all jj’s in this bag oh my goodness that’s awesome they’re pajamas and under garments in there bathing suits are in here so you make quick minimalistic decisions when it comes to the kids it looks like no versus uh i need uh how many swimsuits you started with but getting down to three was well this this took me some time it feels like i packed it and then i went back and took things out and then repacked it so how do you feel about because i know people are going to be like why are you doing one bag travel why don’t you just check it in and i think for hawaii the way we’re traveling to hawaii where we’re staying a month then a week then a month and we’re not moving like crazy i i think we totally could have it probably makes more sense to do that actually but we’re actually prac we talk about like with art yeah anyways for me it does because we talk about with rv living if you want to live in an rv you get opportunities to practice living small well for us this is us practicing packing light because we do hope to do other world type travel at some point and there are going to be places we go where it will be a big difference to be able to do one bag travel versus hauling around massive check-in bags everywhere we go we’re building those muscles up that’s that’s the idea i’m curious i’m just curious what we actually need i think it’s going to be a good exercise and i know just moving into the rv how freeing that was living in a house then going to an rv and how that just simplicity just took a weight off our shoulders so even getting down even more simply into you know fitting everything you need in one of these like i think it’s just going to be a cool challenge to see how much we actually need this one of the other packing cubes we’re testing out suited nomad we do not like this as much of the task in because this does not open all the way like the task it does two other bags we haven’t shown a whole lot of i’ve got my camera bag here um i’m gonna have all of our camera gear drone gear batteries all that’s going to be in this bag this is our only one that’s more of like a traditional style suitcase i guess but it’s still small enough to be a um a carry-on but once it’s closed up the plan is that of course the handle can come up because we are out of hands yeah we have no hands left and then this can it’s got to pass through behind the straps right there yeah so this has got a pass-through on it and that’ll go there and then i’m gonna be carrying that while i have that on my back marissa will have that on her back and then we have another bag the hands that we have on her back so that is the plan you notice we’re matching we are matchy-matching yeah we’re looking rough man it’s been a long couple days okay so you’ll remember at the beginning of the video the big hurdles uh one is jj with the mask i don’t know that we’ve overcome that i’m still freaked out about that number two it’s getting there it’s getting there we’ll see number two is the packing i don’t think we’ve conquered that i’m sure there’s something we’ll forget or something but we’re at least learning from that i feel like we have done better with that but number three because if this doesn’t happen nothing happens like we the test we took earlier today the covet test we have to test negative on that for covid or we’re basically not going to hawaii for two weeks ish or whatever um and then we’ll lose tons of money because all that stuff’s already paid like i don’t want to think about it we didn’t think we had covered but i mean crazier things have happened and we have had it in the past so that’s always in the back of your mind too is like you know are you nervous you wanna do yours first you wanna see if you have cobin yeah i think i heard jj coming you gotta put the birth in and verify the birthdate and all that stuff jj all right hensley what’s your say what does it say cobin 19 what’s the word there we may not be going with her but she’s going so there’s what you’ll see if you take the test it comes out negative come here buddy tickle me test results i’m just gonna be honest me and you hensley no we would jj you just have to stay back take care of mommy me and you go to hawaii what does it say for mommy’s results so jj does not have to test good job buddy did a good job have fun yeah good job and currently even if you’ve had your vaccine you still have to test i thought that i had cocaine no no nick was good in this case you did not have code you know it was not good if you’re managing your finances she got scared we probably should have explained that yeah all right so we are at least getting on the plane to go to hawaii we’re going to see are you going to wear your mask buddy he’s going to do it we’re going to get to hawaii i am nervous as i’ll get out for what’s in store for the next video with the flights it’s gonna be like 13 hours of flying and layovers and 50th state nathan it’s 50th 50th we can do this for us we’ll have to start all over with jj hey the good news you’ll technically already have alaska and hawaii covered so just in utero can’t think so i think so so that’s our journey for today until next time we’ll catch you guys later i’ll catch you guys later