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Hello everybody. I hope that you are well. My name is Christian and welcome to my channel Backpacking Bananas. I am currently in our beautiful chalet in the Zillotell Valley in Austria running my annual ski trips. I can say annual now. This is the second year running that we're doing the ski trips and it was such a success last year that actually this year we are running two. And in this video I wanted to share with you what I have packed for the ski trip. I think I made a packing video for the trip last year. However, this year I decided to do the whole 2 weeks ski trip with hand luggage only. That is right. I flew with EasyJet and I decided to just add on one cabin bag. So, I had a
personal item underneath the seat and I had my 35 L rip curl cabin size suitcase which went in the overhead locker which I knew was going to be a bit of a challenge for me considering that last year I brought my massive snowboard bag. But because this year I thought I actually want to do both snowboarding and skiing. So I feel like it makes sense as opposed to paying the money to bring my snowboard. I'm just going to pay the money to rent both of those things when I'm in Austria. So that was kind of my thought process behind it. But anyway, because obviously I was much more limited in luggage this year. Let me show you what I was wearing through the airport. So I wanted to wear my
biggest layers. So I had my jeans on that I'm wearing currently, my pink cardigan. Under this, I also had my Uniqlo turtleneck, very soft jumper. And to top it all off, just in case I wasn't warm enough on the plane, I wore my ski jacket. I have a new ski jacket this year. This one is from snowweares.com, which I'm pretty pleased with. I liked the light color. I wanted a baggy fit this year, and that's exactly what this is, and it's really good. It's got the pocket for my lift pass. It's got pockets here and here. It has a hood built in here, which I can also just zip away. and I'm already absolutely boiling wearing it. Now, now before we delve into my cabin bag, I want to tell you
about something which I bring on every trip and that is Surf Shark, who are kindly the sponsors of today's video. So, if you don't know, Surf Shark are a VPN, which stands for virtual private network, which I have on every single one of my devices, and you should too in 2026 because if you don't know, a VPN has a whole host of benefits. Some of my favorites being that with Surf Shark, you can change the virtual location of your device to pretty much anywhere in the world. So, if I want to watch Netflix or I want to stream ITVX or BBCi Player when I'm in any other country, normally your device would block you being like, "You're not in the UK, sorry." But when I switch my Surf Shark
on, those things are available to me. Not only that, when you are connected to a public Wi-Fi network, especially when you're traveling, you're connecting to the free open airport Wi-Fi network or when you're in a cafe or your hotel. When you do that, your device is at risk of being hacked. I know. However, when you switch your Surf Shark on with the click of a button, it acts like a virtual shield on your device so that none of those evil hackers can get in. And you guys can get an extra 4 months for free of Surf Shark when you use my code backpacking. You can also head to surf shark.com/backpacking. And I will put the link for that in the description as well. So, let's open this
bad boy up, shall we? How have I managed to pack 2 weeks of skiing stuff into a 35 L suitcase? If you've seen any of my videos, you may know about me that I am always the biggest fan of a clamshell style opening of any of my suitcases and backpacks. And that is because of the organization. So, what I've done is basically all my clothing that I'm going to be wearing on the slopes, I've kept on the right hand side. All the clothing that is just going to be for everything else around the chalet, random other bits and bobs, that's going to be on the left. So, let's start with the right hand side. Starting off with my base layers. So, bear in mind I'm here for 2 weeks. However, we have a washerd dryer
in the shalet which I am absolutely taking advantage of. So, I've basically packed a maximum of four of everything. So, in terms of base layers, we have one, two, three base layer tops and one, two, three base layer bottoms. I would love to tell you that all of this is like high quality marino wool, but it's not. I'm slowly working on increasing the quality of my ski roll wardrobe, but I really didn't want to spend loads of money on new things this year, especially because I know that I have so much stuff that's good enough. So, those are my base layers. I like to wear medium to high impact sports bras on the slopes. So, I have one, two, three, four, five, five bras for the slopes.
After my base layers, I wear a mid layer, which is just a thin fleece. So, I have one two thin fleces. This one has a zipper. We have my ski gloves in here. I could not tell you where these are from. They're just from the ski box that we've got at my parents house. And then these are my ski/ snowboarding pants. As you can imagine, they are completely waterproof. These ones are a really nice baggy fit, which have just been so much better for me on the slopes, especially with snowboarding when you're sitting up and down. Baggier fit ones are so much more comfortable. And I'm really pleased with these. I also got these ones from
snowweares.com. We have my ski goggles in here. I got these last year and I absolutely love them. They are the Oakley Prism goggles. I have a nice rose tint on them. Nobody can tell me I need to stop looking at life through rose tinted lenses because that's exactly what I have. Now, I have two buffs, but truth be told, I'm only really wearing one of them. And this is the one that I'm opting for. It's this soft cottony material on the outside, but half of the inside is really warm fleece. So, I have the warm fleece around my neck and then this thinner cottony bit comes over my head and I can also lift it up over my nose and mouth. And I found that this has worked really well for me on the
slopes here. This buff I got last year and I don't know if any of you remember a video of me trying this thing on. It's like a fleecy material, but it has this air hole. And even the brand that this is from is called Airhole. People weren't believing me because this is what it looks like when it's on. Like, you can't make that up. Supposedly, this is what it's supposed to look like. Hi. So, anyway, I don't wear that very often, but I thought I'd bring it again just for shits and gigs cuz it's funny. I also like to wear this headband on the slopes. It's like a super thin fleece material. It's really comfortable and I wear this over my buff kind of like this and it just helps protect my hair from my helmet. And then normally when I stop at the restaurants
or the appre ski and I take my helmet off, I'll bring my buff down and then I will pull this headband just up over my ears and get the hair out of my face. Now moving on to the other side. Okay, so I do still wear some of this on the slopes. In here we have my ski socks. Again, these are not really anything special. They are ski socks, but they're from Trespass. Really inexpensive. I have three pairs of these. There's been one day of the trip so far where one of the guests, Tone, lent me his compression ski socks. They're from a brand called Fal. And oh my goodness, they were gamechanging. They were just
absolutely stunning to wear on the calf and made [snorts] my calves just feel so much better and more compressed and more kept in. Obviously, that's the whole point of them. They are €40 for a pair of socks, but I might try and invest in some of those next year. Then the rest of this side are clothes that I'm wearing off the slopes basically. Now, I brought loads of clothes for this last year. And I realized actually in the chalet after I came back from my time on the slopes, I wore the same outfit every single day. I just wanted something super comfy. So, with that in mind, I brought just one outfit this year, and that was my tracksuit bottoms. These ones are from Urban Outfitters. The brand is
Let's France. I have this cute long sleeve top from Marks and Spencers, which I got as a gift ago, and it says appraisk on it. So, that's very apt for this trip. And if that one's dirty, I have another long sleeve cotton top. This one's from CottonOn in Australia, which I wear around the shalet. I love wearing slippers around the chalet as well. We don't walk around in shoes. So, I got these ones last year from Snow and Ro. And to be fair, they look manky as hell now, but they're so comfortable. And then on the Wednesday night of each trip, we go on a big clubbing night out in my Hoffen. So, last year I just wore jeans for this and this year I thought I'm going to make a bit more of an
effort. And so, I just have some black tights, this woolen, it's very thick kind of tartan style minikrt. It feels very wintry. And then just a black crop top to wear with that as well. It gets very hot in the club actually. So that is everything that fits in the cabin suitcase. I of course also get to bring a personal item which goes underneath the seat in front of me. So I decided to go for my big Roxy backpack for that. Now not all of my clothes and items fit in the suitcase. So this backpack is mainly for my electronics. I'm bringing my laptop, my iPad, all of my chargers and those kind of bits and bobs which I won't go into. But what I also managed
to fit inside this backpack is my Dockham Bay microfiber towel. This is for the sauna. We have a gorgeous big finished sauna in this chalet. And although the chalet provides bath towels for us, it's obviously nice to have a separate towel for the sauna. So I bring this one. And I just love that these are huge, but they just pack up so small. I have my toiletries bag, of course. And guess what? My Patagonia packing cubes opens out like a clamshell. I told you I love the clamshell style opening. I am so grateful that flying out of London now you can almost guarantee that they've got the Smith machines going through security which doesn't limit you to getting all of your liquids into that
tiny plastic bag. So that's been really nice. But I still tried not to go overboard with the liquids. I didn't want my bag to be too heavy or anything like this. But, you know, still had some of the essentials like deodorant. I bought just little tubes of shampoo and conditioner this year because I knew I wasn't going to be washing my hair too much just a handful of times. I actually collect these little bottles. I have like a big box of toiletries minis at home. From any time I've ever stayed in a hotel or been on a flight or stayed anywhere where they give you toiletries for free, I collect them. And then whenever I go on a trip like this or a shorter trip, I bring them. And I just
think that's one of my favorite organizational things that I do. I have my hair oil, dailies, contact lenses, like a tanning serum, night cream. This is the one I'm using every night at the moment. SPF, of course, because it can get very sunny and very strong on the slopes. We have my toothbrush in here. And I have toothpaste as well. I have a pack of these elastic hair ties from Kmart, which I've been using to do my braids every day. This is just my everyday moisturizer. And then a very, very, very minimal makeup collection. So, we just have my mascara, concealer, a Dior lipstick, and I actually use this as a bit of a blush as well. Put it on my cheeks and just kind of pat it in. I
also have a very, very cheap lipstick. This one's from Kmart, but it's bright red, and sometimes you just want to do a bright red lip, especially when I'm out on the slopes. What we also have in here is my underwear packing cube. So, I have actually been probably way more minimal than I needed to, but it's worked out so far. I just bought four pairs of underwear because I thought, well, if I'm doing my washing twice a week, four pairs should be enough. And it has just been enough. I have a few very low impact soft bras, which I've just been wearing around the chalet. And then also three or four pairs of just lovely chunky white soft socks. Ooh, they're so nice to wear with the slippers. I did
not bring a single pair of shoes on this trip. I just had the ones which I wore on the plane which were my Uggs which were perhaps not the best choice of shoes to wear because from arrival into Insbrook it was snowy on the floor. It wasn't last year and so it was a really lovely surprise but I was like these are not waterproof. So yeah, not my wisest decision but you know they've been cute. And then of course when I'm on the slopes from the get- go, I'm wearing my ski boots or my snowboard boots, which stayed downstairs inside of the boot room, but yeah, I didn't have to bring them with me because I just rented them from the rental shop when we got here. I did have to bring my own pods for the
washing machine, which was very necessary because they don't supply them here in the chalet. And the final thing that I brought along with me, perhaps regretfully at this point, is my helmet. So I had this strapped to the outside of my backpack, thinking that was going to be okay. Hey, I'm pretty sure I did that last year and I've done that in the past. And so I wasn't even thinking about it when I walked up to the EasyJet boarding gate and they said, "Oh, can you fit your bags in the measuring bins, please?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah, sure." And I just unclipped my helmet. And then I put the bags in the measuring bins. And she was like, "Well, you got to be able to fit your helmet in there,
too." And I was like, "Huh, of course it doesn't." And I said, "Oh, well, not to worry, then. Um, can I just put it on my head?" And she went, "No." And then there was a man there who looked at me and he was like, "Well, you can put it on your head, but we can still charge you for it." I was like, "Huh? For a helmet? Surely I'm I'm safer on the plane with a helmet. Surely if we crash, I'm going to be the safest one here." Not bothering anyone else with this, am I? Anyway, it was 5:00 a.m. and I wasn't thinking straight, so I didn't argue with them. I was just like, "Oh, okay." And they just handed me the pay machine to pay. And I looked and it was £48 to bring this on the flight with me. And on the flight, I just started thinking
about what had just happened. Bear in mind, this was 5:00 a.m. I wasn't thinking straight. And I was fuming. I was like, "Hang on a second. How have they just charged me £48 to bring this helmet on?" And they wouldn't let me wear it. I'm not even sure that this helmet is worth that much. It would have been cheaper for me just to rent a helmet. So, I was really pissed off about that. And actually, I'm not too sure what I'm going to do for the flight home, whether I just stick it on my head. I don't even ask them. Maybe it's a case of having to be like, I'm wearing it on my head. You cannot stop me. Can you wear a helmet on an easy jet flight?
Yes, you can generally take a helmet on an easyJet flight as part of your cabin baggage. If challenged at the gate, some travelers have successfully worn their helmet to bypass luggage restrictions. So it can you can do it to bypass, but I was clearly just dealing with some absolute jobs worth at the gate at 500 a.m. who do they get commission when they charge you? Also, the flight was only half full. There was so much room. This could have gone in the overhead locker. This could have sat on someone else's seat. So yeah, looks like I will just be walking onto the flight with it on my head to get back to London. But anyway, that is it for this video. Thank
you so much for watching. That is everything that I managed to pack in my hand luggage only ski trip to Austria. I won't be making a YouTube vlog of the ski trips this year, but I will be making lots of short form content of everything that we get up to. I'll be posting on IG reels, on Tik Tok, on YouTube short. They're so much fun and we're already thinking that we're going to be running them again next year. So, do stay tuned and actually I will put the link to my website below where you can sign up your interest and when we do start announcing 2027 dates for the ski trip. You'll be on the email list and receive any updates on it as it comes in. But that is it. I hope you guys
enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one. Bye-bye.
