Trish Berry, December 2024
The above is a photo of our pull-along hobo suitcase that we take with us when we board the ship. If you see us walking around on the ship with it, stop us and say hello.
As you guys know, we turn in our luggage at the terminal so it can be stowed on the ship. It is separated from us. When our staterooms are opened at 1:00 (or thereabouts), we have access to our rooms. The luggage might be there, or it might take hours for the luggage to be delivered to the room. We personally get on the ship at around 11:00 a.m. That’s quite an amount of time between boarding and having access to our clothes and meds.
We use that wheeled hobo carry-on suitcase, a small one. It measures 20x16x7, plenty small enough to go through security without problems.
Once we walk on the ship, that hobo suitcase stays with us at all times. It contains our meds, makeup and anything else of value, or anything we would need before having access to our large suitcases. It goes up and down on elevators with us and up and down stairs with us. It goes to the Windjammer (buffet) with us. It rolls around the ship with us. It’s light, easily moved, and trails along beside us like a dog on a leash.
There are things that we need in that small suitcase that stay with us until we get to our room. I pack three pairs of glasses – reading, seeing for distance, and sunglasses. Well, they are large. I don’t want them tumbling about inside the larger suitcases so into my hobo bag they go.
We use a keyed Master Lock for this suitcase that was purchased at Home Depot. We are the only ones with keys to this lock.
For our luggage that we check, we use Presto Locks. We purchased them at Walmart. The small combination locks can easily be popped open by Customs for a security check. I have received my large suitcase in the room and could tell that someone had gone through it. I do pack a curling iron. (Curling irons are allowed on cruise ships but hair dryers are not. Hair dryers are in each stateroom when you arrive.) Since I’ve started leaving the curling iron with the cord wrapped around it at the top of the suitcase, my large suitcase has not been opened for a security check.
We have found that the safes in the staterooms are not large enough to hold all our meds and other sensitive items we want protected. Any time we leave the room, sensitive items are locked in this hobo suitcase that has the Master Lock on it.
I see many people with backpacks. This serves the same purpose. There are just some personal things that we want to keep with us at all times while we explore the ship and wait for the rooms to be opened.
I collect stickers/decals to put on our pull-along hobo suitcase on our travels rather than refrigerator magnets. Maybe it’s a hobo look but we like it.
Going back centuries, wooden suitcases were used. In the 1920s, 1930s, even 1940s, people used wooden suitcases and wooden trunks for their international travel across the Atlantic to Europe. Many were covered with stickers/decals. I saw a wooden briefcase covered with so many decals that I could never count them at a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It was said to have belonged to the man who created Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
The people traveling back in those old days were people of wealth. We are not people of wealth, only cruise people on a budget, so I don’t have a wooden suitcase. Can you imagine how much that would weigh?
When we were in Key West, we saw an old pickup truck parked back from the road. The engine long dead, grass growing up around the flat tires. It was covered with stickers to the extent that you could not see the color of the truck It was distinctive, unique, just like all of Key West is. That truck was dedicated to Jimmy Buffett.
You think of Jimmy Buffett when you are in Key West. He was unique, distinctive, just as Key West is. I think Jimmy would have liked our hobo sticker-covered suitcase.
Whatever you use to pack for your travels, whatever you use to make your trip more pleasurable, do your own thing.
Be a Jimmy Buffett all the way through your life. A free spirit with a constant smile, bringing joy to those around you.
Thanks for reading, and safe travels.
Trish
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