Shana is leaving for Ethiopia tomorrow-- I am so excited for her. (Go wish her well, OK?)

I was emailing with her yesterday talking about my Rubbermaid packing solution and thought I'd mention it again here. Each time I went to Ethiopia, due to the generosity of friends and family I was able to bring a bunch of donations for the orphanages. Since I traveled with one of my older kids, we were allowed a total of four checked pieces of luggage (2 for each of us.)

I didn't think we needed to tote four BIG suitcases, especially on the way home, so I bought a couple of Rubbermaid totes to serve as auxiliary suitcases for the donations on the way over. I was able to leave the Rubbermaids there in Ethiopia, and didn't have to bring as much luggage on the way home when I had a baby to juggle too.

After checking with various airlines and researching allowable sizes, I ended up going with 18 gallon Rubbermaid totes. Using a sharp knife I bored holes thru the top and bottom of each handle. Then I threaded heavy duty zip-ties thru the holes that I had punched. You can get big zip-ties many places, including Home Depot or the hardware dept at Walmart. Densely packed, my bins were in the range of 50-55 lbs.

In 2005 when I last traveled, checked luggage was allowed to weigh less than 70 lbs a piece if any leg of your flight was an international flight. Many families are concerned that they have to meet the domestic weight limit, which is 50 pounds, but as of today both the British Airways website and the Ethiopian Airlines website state that the limit remains at anything less than 70 pounds. It was less clear to me what the Lufthansa regs were-- it appeared to be 50 pounds, even on an international flight.

If you are in doubt, check with your airline. I was concerned enough about going over-limit that I brought my luggage all down to the packaging store a day or two before leaving and had everything weighed. The Rubbermaids were a nice, affordable extra-suitcase solution for us. Oh, and if airport security needs to open them up to look, they can easily replace the zip-ties for you, since that is what they use to resecure suitcases when they've had to cut locks off and open them.


Note: Don't forget to add a link to your own blog on the post just below this one, ok?