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I just finished my first leg of the two week, three stop trip to Chicago, Arizona, and Las Vegas. Here’s my Jack Reacher-style zero bag travel checkpoint update.

Before I left my house for SFO, I changed a few things at the last minute. First, I swapped the Bluffworks Ascender Chinos for their Departure Jeans. The jeans are roomier, so when I am wearing my underwear and running shorts at the same time as my jeans, it’s not as constrictive. There’s also an additional side pocket on the right side leg where I am putting my wallet and MagSafe nano power bank.

I took a pair of Bombas socks instead of my red cat socks. The Bombas socks are more comfortable, durable, and dry faster. Next time, I would bring longer dry-fit athletic socks instead because they dry even faster. I am still wearing small, ankle socks underneath the Bombas on travel days.

I placed my tech gear into a small cotton canvas pouch. This pouch still fits in the outside pocket of the Uniqlo jacket, but it can also be clipped to my belt clip with a small Nite-Eyes s-carabiner.

Finally, I brought my RODE Micro wireless microphones. I was giving a talk at the Deep Dish Swift 2026 conference and wanted to use my own mic for a product demo. The mics and the demo went very well, and I will have a post documenting that later. The RODE Micro case is the size of two AirPods Pro cases, so it’s a little bulky. I placed them in the tech pouch or in the watch pocket of the jeans.

Typical of many conferences, there was a swag bag of goodies, which you can see in the video below:

I drank the water. Put the stickers and cards in the notebook, which I placed in the same pocket as my iPad. Pins and my badge went into the canvas pouch. I am wearing the conference t-shirt over the turtleneck here in PHX. I will shed the turtleneck before we get in the rental car, because it’s hot in the southwest. The RevenueCat hat that I got from their booth will come in handy in both Arizona and Las Vegas.

Finally, I have some snacks which I placed in the jacket pocket that would normally have carried my canvas pouch. In the photo below, the pouch is hanging from one of my belt clips.

So far things are going well. I am not missing anything from my home on the trip. It’s so freeing to travel without any luggage, not even a sling bag. You can move so fast through the city and airport when your hands are free and you aren’t dragging anything around.

My next update will come after we visit the a Grand Canyon and Antelope Canyon later this week.