“Skiplagging” — or booking a flight with a layover to skip the last leg of travel — is a common hack for travelers who don’t want to pay for a direct flight or who to save money on airfare to a connecting destination. Airlines contend the practice results in lost revenue for seats on planes.
For anyone who has skiplagged before, how do you deal with checked bags? Do you just not check any bags?
You simply cannot have checked bags. If you’re traveling for less than a week and don’t need large liquids, this is usually pretty easy to do. You can have a wheely carry-on and a backpack as your personal item, which gives you a ton of storage. I don’t need checked bags for the vast majority of travel I do and prefer to avoid it by all means possible, as it just slows me down and has the potential for the airline to lose my bag.
Yep, I travel very light anyway and I don’t trust the baggage handlers and TSA not to lose or outright take my shit. I can fit toiletries, a few days’ clothes, my laptop, and any chargers in my backpack. If you treat air travel as a particularly inconvenient bus line, it goes a bit smoother in my experience.
Yes, even if your aren’t skip lagging it’s really easy to travel without checking a bag. 40L backpacks fit five days of clothes and toiletries while still meeting most airline carry on requirements.