AO Mailbag: Is It Normal to Share a Checked Bag With Your Boyfriend?

Dylan Thuras: I’m Dylan Thuras.

Johanna Mayer: I’m Johanna Mayer.

Amanda McGowan: And I’m Amanda McGowan.

Dylan: And this is Atlas Obscura. Today is a Listener Mailbag episode where we answer all of your questions, your travel questions, your life questions, your esoteric questions. Amanda and Johanna are here trying to help me.

Johanna: Yes. And today we are spending the entire episode on a single question. Because somebody wrote in with a question that has left me deeply, deeply shaken to my core.

Dylan and Amanda: Okay.

Johanna: You’ll see.

Dylan: High stakes.

This is an edited transcript of the Atlas Obscura Podcast: a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

Johanna: Okay, here we go. Our one horrifying question. This came from a listener who wished to remain anonymous for reasons that will soon become clear.

Amanda: I’m scared.

Dylan: Oh, boy.

Johanna: Okay. So they write, “I’ve been with my boyfriend for about a year and things are going great. We’re super compatible. Love doing the same things. Recently, we decided to take our first substantial international trip together. We’re going to be away for 10 days. Then I made a horrifying discovery. He suggested that instead of taking two carry-on bags plus personal items, we each only bring a small backpack and share one checked bag for both our sets of clothing. What do I do?” And then in all caps, “PLEASE HELP.”

Amanda: Huh. Why?

Johanna: This is all the information I have, Amanda.

Dylan: Two small backpacks on the plane and then one big checked carry-on.

Johanna: With all of, I’m assuming all your clothes, all your toiletries, like everything else together.

Amanda: Well, that means one person’s going to get stuck lugging that big bag around. Is he ready to do that? It’s probably going to fall on him.

Johanna: Yeah, I don’t know.

Amanda: That’s going to be his responsibility for the trip.

Johanna: Maybe he’s trying to be kind?

Amanda: Maybe.

Dylan: Yeah.

Amanda: Communication. But this came up a lot in this question.

Dylan: And I think some people just despise trying to get their bag in the overhead luggage compartment. It's too stressful. They’re just like, would much rather drop it off and pick it up. I mean, I’m the opposite. I’m an insane person who tries to carry on every single thing all the time.

Johanna: Yeah, you’re like, anti-rolly bag, right, Dylan?

Amanda: You’re wearing the Bass Pro vest with all the pockets.

Dylan: Yes. I have four shirts on, so that I don’t have to pack them.

Johanna: Yeah, he’s wearing eight layers of clothes.

Dylan: I'm just in my hole. Yeah, I’m very hot. I’m sweating a lot. No, I mean, it’s sort of funny because actually this is how we—I travel with a carry on, I travel with a backpack. But when I’m traveling with my family—and so we have, there’s—then everyone else’s stuff is in one giant checked bag, because it doesn’t work for everyone. We may when we take—we’re taking a really big family trip this summer. And I think we’re going all carry on. I think we’re going to try and have four backpacks, because we just don’t want to lug a giant piece of luggage around.

Johanna: Four backpacks, not four rolly bags?

Dylan: No, no, I hate rolly bags, Johanna.

Johanna: God, sorry. How old are your kids?

Amanda: Can they carry their own stuff?

Dylan: They’re going to be eight and 10.

Johanna: You’re going to put huge—this is like a two-month long trip—you’re going to put two huge backpacks on that one—okay.

Amanda: A backpack the size of the child.

Johanna: Yeah. You must carry your own weight in your backpack.

Dylan: Yes, that’s correct.

Amanda: They’re going to be doing training.

Johanna: Making them tough.

Dylan: There’s going to be two large backpacks and two medium/small backpacks. And I think we can have all of our stuff in there. The rolly bag is—it just feels like you have one of those prisoner weights around your leg. You know, you’re like dragging that large ball behind.

Amanda: Oh, I feel the opposite. I feel the opposite. I love not having to carry the weight physically on my body. Like, I’d prefer to drag a carry on even if it’s bumping.

Johanna: I mean, I think that that might be where this listener’s boyfriend is coming from, where it’s like the small backpack—there is something deeply freeing about checking out about dropping off that checked bag and baggage and just waltzing onto the airplane with like a tiny little backpack. You feel unencumbered.

Dylan: I’m assuming that the deep horror about this, though, is like having all the stuff mixed together in one bag.

Johanna: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Amanda: Yes. Yeah.

Dylan: Not having the kind of separate, like—

Amanda: Yeah.

Johanna: I find this deeply invasive. My advice is that I think she should just break up with him for this.

Amanda: This is the red flag you’ve been looking for.

Dylan: Do an airport breakup?

Johanna: I mean, the real answer is they have to get those little cubes that separate your stuff. You know, those like packing cubes that go into—

Amanda: It’s going to be a thing, because someone’s going to have more stuff than the other person, so then there’s going to be resentment. Like, why can’t I buy all the stuff I want?

Johanna: You’re right.

Dylan: I have a crazy idea. All right. They get a big but soft bag. Imagine like a big duffel bag. Right. And inside of that go their two smaller personal bags.

Amanda: Bagception.

Dylan: Yeah, exactly. You check that, when you get to the other side, you know, you're only checking one thing, so you’re like saving that money.

Johanna: I guess that’s true, yeah.

Dylan: And then they get to the other side. You take the bags out, you roll up the big bag, you stuff it in one of the bags and off you go. Like, you’re set.

Johanna: This is a creative solution.

Dylan: That’s your—you both have one checked bag and small bags for the airport. But then when you get to your place, you’ve just, you’re back to your two separate bags.

Johanna: This is why they pay you the big bucks to host a podcast, Dylan. That is a creative solution. I love that. Listener, we have your answer.

Dylan: When Michelle, my wife, Michelle and I, we went to live in Hungary for a year, and we put everything in two gigantic army style duffel bags. But they were so big and heavy that we had to—we were lugging them through the airport, one arm holding each end. And it was just—but like we did it. We brought a year’s worth of our lives there and back in those bags.

Johanna: Wait, wait, wait. So you each—I’m thinking of the logistics of this. You and Michelle were walking like in front of each other, and you each had the front handle of—

Amanda: Oh, that’s funny.

Johanna: —two bags in your arms. And then the person walking behind had both back handles.

Dylan: Correct.

Johanna: Of both bags.

Dylan: Yeah.

Johanna: That is insane.

Dylan: Eighty pounds at least.

Johanna: Oh, my God.

Dylan: Insanely heavy.

Johanna: You just had this relay method through the airport.

Dylan: And also like I had a separate carry on that when I brought it to security, it also weighed like 90 pounds because it was filled with hard drives and computers. It was just like a bag of pure metal. And they were like, “You can’t carry—like this is insane. This can’t be your carry on.” And then they just let me do it anyway. But yeah, yeah. Anything’s possible is what I’m saying. You know?

Johanna: Yeah, I feel like people’s luggage choices, like this insane like double duffel bag relay situation that you’re in, and then this listener’s question about the shared checked bag is truly a window into our psychology.

Dylan: I think I'm willing to be much more shambolic, like much more hobo-like on flights and traveling generally than other people.

Johanna: Yeah, clearly.

Dylan: Anyway.

Amanda: You have those sticks with the handkerchief tied to it.

Dylan: A bindle?

Amanda: Yes. A travel bindle.

Dylan: A very large, 65-pound bindle is my preferred way to travel.

Amanda: They sell TSA approved bindles probably these days, ready to go through security. But you know what I was thinking? If the boyfriend’s concern is like checking a bag and having it out of the way, I mean, every single time I’ve taken a flight in the last like year, they always fill up overhead space and they offer you to check your carry on for free. And I do it pretty much every time because I love just not having to deal with it. So you can gamble that way and just be like, let’s just check—

Dylan: Walk to the gate with backpacks and be like, hey, can we check these bags here? Yeah, totally.

Johanna: Alright. Listener, we have multiple potential solutions for you to navigate the cracks in your relationship.

Amanda: From breakup to bindle.

Dylan: It’s okay to tell your boyfriend that you don’t want all your stuff mixed together in one bag, because I do think that will go badly.

Johanna: Absolutely.

Amanda: We’ve talked about doing it. We’ve gone on a couple of trips where we’re like, neither of us really has that much stuff, let’s just put it in one bag. And we always end up just keeping it split.

Johanna: I mean, it’s tough also because I am like a very neat packer, and Mike is like the messiest, sloppiest person when it comes to clothing.

Dylan: Yeah, I do this thing when I’m traveling alone, especially that I think is a little bit insane. But I just dump my whole bag out, like I get to the hotel and—

Johanna: This is what Mike does. It’s just in a pile on the floor.

Amanda: But do you leave it there?

Johanna: And I'm folding mine down into tissue-sized squares within the bag.

Amanda: With a vacuum pack.

Dylan: Everything I’ve got, I want to see it all in one go. I just like to put it on the couch. It’s all there.

Amanda: Are you ever worried about bed bugs or germs or anything? I guess this is revealing something about me that I’m asking that question.

Johanna: On the couch, also, not just like—in a communal space!

Dylan: No, no, no. Not in the, well, this is when I’m traveling alone.

Johanna: Oh, okay. Totally different.

Dylan: When I’m traveling with Michelle, I do tend—I usually keep stuff in my bag or I put it away. I mean, that’s not totally true. It’s still all coming out eventually as I dig through my bag.

Johanna: We need to get Michelle as a guest on here, sometime.

Amanda: To debunk everything.

Dylan: Yeah, she’s like, “this is all bullshit.”

Amanda: She’s like, “I carried both those army bags on my back.”

Dylan: Yeah. Do you guys bring a little trash bag or something with you for your dirty clothes?

Amanda: Sometimes.

Johanna: Yeah.

Amanda: But Julian is the neat one. He will unpack. He will hang stuff up in the closet. And I’m like, I would forget stuff if I like I’m not seeing it.

Johanna: Julian and I need to travel together. Dylan and Mike can take a trip together.

Dylan: Our clothes are all just in one bag and they’re all mixed together.

Johanna: You guys put all your clothes together in one big trash bag and just like—

Dylan: Yes. We’re having fun. You know what? Mike and I know how to have fun.

Amanda: That’s going to be a whirlwind of a trip.

Dylan: We’re not folding our clothes. We don’t know if we’ve worn them before, we don’t know whose is whose.

Johanna: Alright, that’s all I got for today.

Amanda: Wow.

Dylan: That was fun.

Amanda: A whole journey.

Johanna: Do you want to do the call out at the bottom for the questions, Dylan?

Dylan: Yes. Okay. So, next mailbag episode is in a month and we need your questions. You can ask advice about your upcoming travel plans, as we just heard. Maybe you’re curious about our opinions on something. Maybe you’ve heard us reference something in the show and you say, I would like to know more about that. Whatever it is, send us an email or record a voice memo and send it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com. You can also just call and leave us a message. That number is in the episode description. I cannot wait to get your questions. I loved answering one about someone’s relationship set up. Travel relationship questions.

Johanna: Yeah. It doesn’t even have to be travel related. Just send us your personal relationship questions. We’re at your service.

Dylan: Yeah. That’s right.

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