Two tips that have improved my setup (shoes & daypack)!
This post is just to share two miscellaneous nuggets of knowledge that have really improved my setup on the past few onebag trips I've taken. I normally don't love encouraging people to buy new things, so the second tip is more of a strategy than a specific product!
1. Camper Pix shoes (Image 1)
I am making a whole damn post plugging these shoes because beyond being very awesome looking (in my opinion), they are unbelievably lightweight. Like, it feels like you're holding a pair of Tevas, but they are so high quality and comfortable, like all Camper shoes in my experience. I really don't know how they did it. I am not a sneaker person in my day-to-day so I've been trying to figure out what other pair of shoes to travel with — I almost always bring trail runners for running/hiking, but I don't want to wear those around the city, and I don't want to lug boots around. These are it! I've walked long distances in them around the city and they are really comfy; they can also be dressed up for conferences, dinners, etc. They're magic shoes.
2. Packing a small daypack FLAT (not rolling) (Images 2-4)
This is perhaps dumb and obvious, but I used to never pack a daypack because I felt like they took up too much space, and I had my sling and my nanobag tote. But on my last two trips, I took my small daypack (mine happens to be this wonderfully loud yellow American Tourister number) and instead of rolling it and stuffing it in, I packed it flat — once, right in front of the laptop sleeve (Image 3) and once, on top of everything before I zipped my bag up (Image 4). Suddenly it took up zero space at all. Having a daypack was incredibly useful on a trip where I was going to a conference and wanted to carry my laptop and a notebook to the conference but didn't want to bring my whole 40L backpack. This pack-flat principle probably works for tons of other things too, but I happened to figure it out for this. (Would love to hear what others do too!)