Luggage Handling Tips For Your Visit To London
When you leave home to head to somewhere like London, the amount of luggage you bring with you is going to have a very significant impact on your movements around the city.
I have 1 large bag with pull-up handle and wheels on the bottom, a backpack and (eventually) a smaller wheel bag, and let me tell you, lugging those darn things around the London Underground system was an absolute NIGHTMARE!
What you may not realise is that when they call it the “Underground”, they MEAN underground!
Hence, nearly all the stations I visited required you to go down some fairly serious flights of steps (or, if you were lucky, you got an escalator) and when you’re lugging 3 bags and trying to go fast so you don’t miss your train, you very quickly find that it’s a LOT tougher than it looks.
In hindsight, I would have ditched the big wheelie bag and only had a small one + backpack - it would have made my life so much easier.
Now, if you’re arriving in London, catching a cab to your hotel and the only time you need to take your luggage with you is the day you leave to fly home, you can probably ignore my advice to some extent.
However, if you’re going to be moving around a bit like I was (I had to change B&B’s once, and catch a bus to the coast to head off on a European bus tour, and then come back), then carrying all that heavy luggage was a nightmare.
Plus, while on the European bus tour, there was a new hotel nearly every night, which meant more lugging of baggage, which wasn’t much fun.
Folks, my advice is to travel light! If necessary, buy some clothes & most essentials (soap, shampoo, deodorant, etc) from a local supermarket once you get to London. You can always leave the toiletaries behind to save space when you head back home, and perhaps even throw away some of the really cheap clothing items, depending on when you want them or not.
Trust me, it’s not worth the hassle lugging all that crap around, especially trying to get in and out of the Tube stations - they have some of the steepest stairs and escalators I have ever encountered!
Tags: comfort, convenience, luggage