Ten days in Italy with a single carry-on is not a stunt. It is a better way to travel. You move through train stations without dragging a wheeled suitcase over cobblestones, you climb the stairs to a fourth-floor apartment in Rome without regret, and you never stand at a baggage carousel wondering whether your clothes went to Palermo. The trick is not packing less for the sake of it. It is packing on purpose: a small wardrobe that works together, a bag with a floor plan, and a realistic plan for washing clothes once or twice along the way.

Start With the Capsule, Not the Suitcase

Most people pack a bag and then hope the clothes match. Do it the other way around. Build a capsule first, on paper or on the bed, and the bag almost fills itself.

A workable ten-day capsule for Italy rests on three rules. First, one colour family: pick navy, black, olive or stone, then make sure almost everything works with it. Second, layers over bulk: three thin layers keep you warmer than one thick one and pack into a fraction of the space. Third, fabrics that dry overnight. Cotton is comfortable but slow. Merino, technical blends and lightweight viscose dry by morning, which is the whole foundation of the laundry plan below.

Italy throws a few specific things at you. Summer heat in the south, cool evenings in the hills, church dress codes that ask for covered shoulders and knees, and a lot of walking on stone. Pack for those four facts and you have packed for the trip.

What Actually Goes in the Bag

This is the capsule I would take for ten days in late spring or early autumn. Adjust quantities for summer heat or a winter visit, but keep the logic.

• Tops: four everyday tops — two short-sleeve, two long-sleeve in merino or a quick-dry blend. One of them should be presentable enough for a nice dinner.
• Bottoms: one pair of trousers or dark jeans you wear on travel days, one lighter pair (chinos, a skirt, wide-leg linen). Two is enough when you do laundry.
• Layers: a fine-knit sweater or cardigan, a packable rain shell, and a light scarf that doubles as sun protection and a shoulder cover for churches.
• One dress or one smart outfit, if you plan a special dinner or an evening at the opera.
• Underwear and socks: five of each. Yes, five. That is the number that makes a mid-trip wash painless.
• Sleepwear: a thin T-shirt and shorts that can double as a beach or hotel-room layer.
• Shoes: one pair of broken-in walking shoes on your feet, one lighter pair in the bag — sandals, loafers, or a flat that survives cobblestones.
• Swimwear if the season and itinerary call for it; it takes up almost nothing.

Everything else is a small item and belongs in a pouch: charger and adapter, a compact toiletry kit, a foldable tote for groceries and beach days, a refillable water bottle. Leave the "just in case" third pair of trousers at home. You will not wear it, and you will resent it by day six.

Choose the Bag Before You Choose the Clothes

A 35–40 litre carry-on backpack or a small four-wheel case is the sweet spot for ten days. Anything bigger and you will fill it, then find yourself arguing with a gate agent about the sizer. Check your airline's current cabin allowance before you buy anything, because it varies considerably between carriers and fare classes, and some cheap fares include only a small underseat bag.

Take a second, flat personal item as well: a tote or a small daypack that folds into nothing. It holds your documents, a jumper, snacks and a water bottle on travel days, and it becomes your day bag in Florence or Naples. That one item does more for a trip than any packing gadget.

The Layout: a Floor Plan for Your Carry-On

Packing is a spatial problem, and the solution is the same one good apartments use: zones.

The base layer

Put the things you will not touch for a week at the bottom. That means spare shoes (stuffed with socks to hold their shape), the rain shell rolled tight, and the swimwear. Anything rigid or awkward goes here, because the soft clothes above will mould around it.

The middle

Clothes go in packing cubes — one for tops, one for bottoms and underwear. Cubes are not a gimmick; they compress, they keep the bag organised in a small hotel room, and they let you find the one jumper you want without unpacking everything. Roll each item rather than folding it flat, and use the cube's compression zip if it has one.

The top and the gaps

The top layer is for what you need on arrival: a change of clothes if your flight lands late, your toiletry pouch, a charger. Fill the leftover gaps with small soft things — socks, a folded tote, a scarf. Then close the bag and lift it. If it feels heavy, you have overpacked, and the answer is almost always a second pair of shoes rather than a fifth top.

The Laundry Plan: Every Fourth Day

Ten days of clothes for a carry-on only works if you wash. The rhythm I use is simple: travel day one, wear days one to four, wash on the evening of day four, wear days five to eight, wash again on day eight. That gives you roughly a week of clothes and two short washing sessions.

In practice, washing is a ten-minute job. Sink-wash your tops and underwear in warm water with a little travel detergent or a squirt of hand soap, rinse, roll each item in a towel and press down to squeeze out the water, then hang them overnight. Merino and technical fabrics are usually dry by morning. If you would rather not wash by hand, look for a self-service laundromat — lavanderia self-service — in larger towns; many have machines with a short cycle and a dryer, and a mid-afternoon break for laundry is a decent excuse for a long lunch. Apartments with a washing machine are worth seeking out for exactly this reason.

One small habit that makes all of this easier: rinse your base layers in the shower each evening. Three minutes of effort means you never face a mountain of washing on the one evening you would rather be out.

The Small Stuff That Sinks a Bag

Liquids are the usual culprit at security. The familiar rule — containers of no more than 100ml in a clear one-litre bag — still applies at many European airports, though some have relaxed it where newer scanners are installed. Rules are changing and vary by airport, so check the requirements for your departure point shortly before you fly rather than relying on last year's experience.

The practical answer is to convert as much as you can to solids: shampoo bar, soap bar, solid deodorant, a small tin of laundry soap sheets. Decant the rest into travel bottles, and keep the whole pouch under the one-litre limit. Remember that a 200ml bottle with only a little left in it still counts as a 200ml bottle.

Two other items earn their place. A universal adapter with two USB ports replaces a tangle of plugs. A small pouch for receipts, tickets and a spare card keeps your pockets from becoming a recycling bin.

The Night-Before Check

Before you zip the bag, do a five-minute audit. Lay out everything you plan to wear on the flight, then try to lift your packed bag with one hand — if it feels like a burden after two minutes, you will feel it after two hours. Wear your heaviest shoes and your bulkiest layer on the plane. Put your documents, a pen, a refillable bottle and one change of clothes where you can reach them without opening the main compartment.

Then stop. The point of carrying one bag is not austerity; it is freedom. You will buy a shirt in Bologna or a scarf in Venice, and you will have room for it. That is the whole idea.

Photo: Sergei Bezborodov / Pexels