Editorial Team
Our content team
8 min read
At the check-in desk, the woman at the counter next to us looked at us like we'd left half our luggage in the taxi. One suitcase for the whole family, two adults and two kids behind it, nothing else but backpacks. Ten days on Mallorca. Her face said it all. You cannot be serious.
We were. And honestly? It was the most relaxed family holiday we've ever had.
Two years earlier it looked completely different. Three suitcases, two kids' backpacks, a beach bag, a stroller. We sweated at the airport, we argued, and in the end we didn't use half of it anyway. After that I swore to myself: next time we do this differently.
Why one suitcase for the whole family works: the math behind it
The idea sounds mad at first. It probably isn't, once you actually do the arithmetic.
Most airlines allow a checked bag up to 23 kilograms per booked adult in Economy. With Lufthansa, for example, that's exactly the limit on the standard fares. Only the Economy Light fare comes with no checked bag at all. So with two adults, we could have brought up to 46 kilos in theory.
Instead we checked one big suitcase. 23 kilos. And getting the rest of the family through security without balancing three trolleys was worth its weight in gold.
We're not the only crazy ones, either. The German Strandfamilie blog has traveled as a family of four on the same principle for years. Their rule is simple: pack clothes for one week, then wash. No matter how long the trip is. When I read that, I thought, if one family pulls this off for years, we can probably manage ten days.
The packing plan: colour-coded, or it's chaos
Here's the part that actually made the difference for us. Packing cubes. One per person, in four different colours. If a family is going to pack one suitcase for a whole holiday, this is honestly the make-or-break part.
Blue was me. Green my husband. Yellow our daughter (7). Red our son (5). Everyone got exactly one cube, and everything had to fit inside it. No debate. That sounds strict, but for the kids it turned into a game. Does your favourite t-shirt still fit in the red cube or not?
The rule of thumb was the classic capsule-wardrobe math you see everywhere in the family-travel scene: three per category. Three tops, two pairs of shorts, one layer for the cooler evenings. One being worn, one in the wash, one clean. For a beach holiday you barely need bulky stuff anyway, or so I told myself.
What didn't make the cut:
the second and third "just in case" outfits
heavy shoes (everyone wore one pair, one pair of flip-flops in the bag)
big bottles of sunscreen. We bought it at the supermarket there, cheaper, and we didn't have to drag it through the liquids check
roughly half the toy box. Two picture books, one card game, done
A recent packing cubes test shows why good compression cubes aren't a gimmick, by the way: the best ones save up to a quarter of your packing volume, some reportedly more. That's roughly the gap between "the suitcase won't close" and "just barely fits." Ours was genuinely tight. The zip complained, but it held.
The one trick I'd do earlier next time
The evening before, we laid everything out. Every cube open on the bed. And then came the hard question for each item. Are you actually going to wear this? Or are you only packing it because you always pack it?
About a third went back in the wardrobe on that pass. And we didn't miss a single thing. What we ended up with was basically a family packing list built specifically for a Mallorca-style trip, just radically trimmed down from where we started.
The reality check: the washing machine on day 5
Okay, now the honest part. At some point the clean clothes run out. For us that was around day 5.
No drama, at least it wasn't for us. Our rental had a washing machine, which is pretty common on Mallorca. If yours doesn't, there are plenty of options. According to the Mallorca-Forum, a 9-kilo load at a launderette in Palma costs only about 4 euros. Washing for the whole family while you drink a coffee. That's not a sacrifice, that's half an hour.
One wash cycle for four people, and we were fully stocked again for the second half. Exactly how the families who live this permanently do it. Johanna Frischherz puts it this way on elamo.me: her family of five has basically perfected traveling with minimal luggage, and one washing-machine load covers all five of them. With four of us and a whole suitcase, we were practically traveling in luxury.
What worked, what didn't
Honestly, most of it went better than expected.
We were fast at the airport. We only had to check one bag and grab one off the belt. No waiting for three pieces, no praying that one wouldn't get lost. And unpacking at the apartment took ten minutes flat.
I'd underestimated the washing part. You really do have to deal with it mid-trip, or things get tight. No machine at your place and no appetite for a launderette? That gets awkward fast, honestly, and it's part of why traveling light with kids means packing the right things, not fewer things.
Then there's the second-swim-shorts saga. My husband was determined to bring an extra pair. I said no. He smuggled them in anyway. Wore them exactly zero times. Small victory for me, but who's counting.
The moment I almost caved was the weather. What if it rains and everyone's freezing? For that we had one thin rain jacket each. Did it rain? One afternoon. For two hours. We survived.
Our family packing formula
If you want to try this yourself, here's roughly what worked for us, one suitcase for the whole family, distilled down. No manifesto, no lifestyle overhaul. Just an experiment.
In my experience, one big, light suitcase works best, ideally hardshell so you're not giving away weight before you've packed anything. Four packing cubes in four colours, one per person. Per person: three tops, two pairs of shorts, one layer for the evening, seven sets of underwear. One pair of shoes worn, one light pair in the bag. Buy sunscreen and shower stuff on arrival. And the most important part: wash once in the middle of the trip.
You don't have to do all of it at once. Start with the packing cubes, that's probably the biggest lever. The rest follows on its own. If you want to push this further, our story on two weeks with only carry-on luggage shows how far the minimalism can go, even with zero checked baggage.
We had less with us and got more out of it, and yes, one suitcase really can work for the whole family. That woman at the next counter? I'd look at her differently now. I felt a bit sorry for her, honestly, with her three suitcases.
