My must-have when traveling with carry-on luggage

One of my favorite travel tips when I’m traveling with carry-on luggage? Always take a second, lightweight tote bag with you that’s slightly larger than the “personal item” you carry on. You just may need it to comply with the airlines’ “One carry-on, one personal item” rule. I typically travel with a rolling carry-on suitcase and a second personal item, like a briefcase or backpack. However, I’ve often found myself in a situation where I’m bringing more items home with me than I originally left home with. So, my trick is this — pack a lightweight bag that’s larger than your “personal item.” If I need a little more packing room, I’ll put my briefcase inside the lightweight bag, then put everything else inside the same bag. I’m still carrying one carry-on and one personal item, so I’m in compliance. Every suitcase in the Cataldo house has a bag about this size folded up inside one of the pockets, just in case:

This tactic recently came in handy when I traveled to Los Angeles for my taping of “The Doctors.” I had packed a bunch of DVDs to take along for the trip, and I also had a small luggage cart that I used to transport the large bag of DVDs through the airport. Once I checked that bag, I strapped the luggage cart to my suitcase, thinking it would be easier to stash it and my rolling bag in the overhead bin. When I went through security like this… … the security agent pointed to the luggage cart and said “No, you can’t do that — that’s three items.” I opened my suitcase, pulled out the nylon tote bag I had with me, and put both the cart and the briefcase inside. As you can see, the bag was pretty much stretched to its limit, but I did get both inside. (Again, I was doing this in full view of the security agent!) After both items were inside, she looked and said “That’s good,” and then let me through. As crazy as it seems, this little trick has saved me on many, many trips. There are so many lightweight bags that fold up to about the size of a deck of cards. I paid $3.508 for this nylon bag on clearance at Target earlier this year:

Or, as I showed above, JC Penney has carried lightweight cotton shopping bags for $3.00, and they’re larger than they appear in the photos too. Hope this tip helps you on your next travel adventure…