Packing List Generator

Why quantities, and why they are not just "one per day"

A template list tells you to pack socks. It cannot tell you how many, because it does not know how long you are going or whether there is a washing machine. Those two facts decide most of the volume in your bag, so this tool asks for them first and everything else follows.

The arithmetic is deliberately dull. Days of wear is nights plus one. With no laundry, you carry that many of the things that touch your skin. With one wash halfway, you carry a little over half. With regular washing, four of anything is plenty however long the trip — a month in Southeast Asia takes the same underwear as five days, which is the entire reason experienced travellers pack light and everyone else packs for the calendar.

• Outerwear does not scale. One coat is one coat whether you are away four nights or forty. Only the layer next to your skin multiplies, which is why the list counts t-shirts, socks and underwear and stops counting after that.
• Trousers are a third of the days, capped. Nobody needs more than three pairs and cabin-only travel makes it two. They are the heaviest thing per wear in most bags.
• The cap is the point. If laundry is available the list refuses to grow with the trip. That is not the tool being lazy; it is the correct answer.

The four things that actually go wrong at the airport

Not the forgotten toothbrush — you can buy a toothbrush. The expensive mistakes are narrow and repeatable.

• Liquids. One litre-ish bag, nothing over 100 ml, taken out at the scanner. The rule is about the size of the container, not how much is in it.
• Lithium batteries. Power banks and spare camera batteries travel in the cabin, never in the hold, on every airline. If your checked bag is pulled at the belt, this is usually why.
• Medication. In the cabin bag, in the original labelled packaging, with a copy of the prescription. Prescription liquids over 100 ml are allowed, but you have to declare them, and some perfectly ordinary medicines are controlled substances somewhere — codeine and pseudoephedrine are the usual offenders. Check the destination's customs page if you take anything regular.
• Documents. Six months of validity left on the passport is the common requirement, and it is counted from your return date, not your departure. Photograph the passport, the insurance policy and both bank cards, and keep the photos somewhere you can reach without your phone.

Adapter and converter are not the same thing

An adapter changes the shape of the plug. A converter changes the voltage. Most of the world runs at 220–240 V; the US, Canada and Japan run at 100–120 V. Phone and laptop chargers are almost all rated 100–240 V and need nothing but an adapter — look for that range printed on the brick. Hairdryers, straighteners, shavers and travel kettles frequently are not, and plugging a 230 V appliance into a 120 V socket gets you something feeble, while doing it the other way round gets you smoke.

Where this list stops

It is a starting point that knows the shape of your trip, not a substitute for thinking about it. It does not know that your hotel provides towels, that you are visiting someone who has a hairdryer, or that the one thing you actually need is a cable for a device nobody else owns. Tick through it, then add the three things that are specific to you — those are the ones you will forget.

The rest of the set

Once the list is settled, the bag is the next question. The luggage size checker puts your case against the cabin and hold limits of seventy-odd airlines, the suitcase volume calculator turns its dimensions into the litres you can actually fill, and if the trip involves a tent rather than a hotel, the camping and hiking gear checklist does this same job with every weight attached.