About One Small Bag
Hi, I’m Christine, author of One Small Bag. A UK-based traveller who first caught the bug Interrailing around Europe in the 80s – which means I’ve been doing this long before Instagram made it fashionable.
For most of my working life, a bag was how I lived, not just how I holidayed. Thirty years implementing corporate finance and logistics systems took me everywhere, and somewhere along the way the bag got smaller, the packing got smarter, and the realisation dawned that letting go of stuff – both literal and otherwise – is genuinely liberating. The one-bag philosophy isn’t something I read about. It’s something I arrived at the hard way, over decades of actual travel.
How I Travel
You won’t usually find me on a sun-lounger. I’m more budget than bijou, and happiest exploring Europe’s overlooked corners – the quirky, offbeat places full of character that might just be the “next big thing.”
Then there’s my husband Martin – better known for his pub-blogging and beer guides. While I carry spreadsheets and a tiny bag, he carries a Good Beer Guide and pink pen for the ‘ticks’, We often travel together, sometimes separately, and over the years we dragged our two sons (now grown up) on many an unconventional family holiday – proving you don’t need package deals to have a great trip.
Blog Map
I’ve visited over 70 countries across 6 continents, but these are the places, visited very recently, which I’ve chosen to write about.
Why Trust One Small Bag?
I write about the world exactly as I find it. The travel philosophies and packing guides on this site weren’t manufactured in an office or generated by AI; they were built through decades of real-world trials, errors, and missed trains.
To protect the integrity of this blog and keep my relationship with you completely transparent, I adhere to a strict editorial policy:
- First-Hand Experience Only: Every destination, transit route, and piece of gear featured here has been personally visited, ridden, or tested by me.
- 100% Independent: I pay my own way. I do not accept sponsored press trips, free junk, or back-handers in exchange for positive coverage. If a service is brilliant, I will praise it. If it is rubbish, I will say so.
- No Bought Links or Paid Spam: I am an independent creator, not a billboard. I delete the daily deluge of unsolicited guest-post offers from corporate link farms. You will never find sneaky, untrustworthy advertising hidden in my articles.
When you read One Small Bag, you are getting the honest truth from a fellow traveller who values your time, your hard-earned money, and the joy of the open road.
Two questions I get asked most
If you’d like to follow along as the blog grows – new destinations, packing experiments, and the occasional honest opinion. You can join the newsletter. No noise, just travel.