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About this tool
Plan a cabin-bag-only trip: the smallest capsule wardrobe that covers your days, plus a 3-1-1 liquids audit and a weight and volume check.
The Carry-On Only Trip Planner works out whether a trip fits in one cabin bag by solving the three constraints separately. The wardrobe is a combinatorics problem — t tops and b bottoms make t x b outfits, so the tool searches every split to find the fewest garments that still cover your days, which for a week is four tops and two bottoms giving eight outfits. Liquids are audited against the 3-1-1 rule (every container 100 ml or less, all inside one 1 litre transparent bag). Weight and packed volume are then checked against the cabin allowance you select.
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Set 'Trip length (days)', 'Laundry every N days (0 = none)', 'Extra pairs of shoes packed' and a 'Cabin bag allowance' — Indian short-haul low cost at 55 x 35 x 25 cm and 7 kg, European low cost at 55 x 40 x 20 cm and 10 kg, full-service at 56 x 36 x 23 cm and 8 kg, or US domestic with no stated weight limit.
Tick 'Wear the jacket, shoes and one outfit on the plane', then choose from 'Liquids you plan to carry' — Shampoo 100 ml, Toothpaste 75 ml, Roll-on deodorant 50 ml and the rest, each showing its solid swap.
Read Packed weight against the allowance, the Capsule wardrobe as tops x bottoms = outfits, Packed volume in litres of usable space and the liquids total out of 1000 ml, then press 'Copy plan'.
Searches every tops-and-bottoms split to minimise the number of garments carried.
Flags any bottle over 100 ml, which fails even when it is half empty.
Cabin bags fail on size before they fail on mass, so both limits are checked.
Six garments: four tops and two bottoms, which mix into eight outfits and cover seven days with one to spare. Adding a third pair of bottoms buys twelve outfits but costs more space than another two tops, which is why the counts are not symmetrical.
Every liquid, gel, cream or aerosol container must hold 100 ml or less, all of them must fit inside one transparent resealable bag of at most 1 litre, and each passenger gets one bag. The limit is on the container's stated size, not how full it is, so a half-empty 150 ml bottle is still refused.
No. Bar soap, solid shampoo and conditioner bars, toothpaste tablets, stick deodorant and stick sunscreen are not liquids and travel outside the 1 litre bag entirely. Swapping the four biggest bottles usually frees up 300-400 ml of the allowance.
It depends on the airline: 7 kg is the common short-haul and Indian domestic figure, many European low-cost carriers allow around 10 kg for a bag placed in the overhead locker, and most US domestic carriers state a size limit but no weight limit. Size is usually the tighter constraint — always confirm both against your specific fare.