How to travel with backpack for 7 days?

What are the benefits of travelling with just a backpack you might ask yourself? For me, in the beginning, it was hard to imagine how you can pack for 7 days in a 20L backpack and survive. I tested it on my travel journey from Cracow to Paris, France then Cracow to Lisbon, Portugal and back to Cracow.

I started my journey from Cracow and then going to Paris for 5 days and then having just 18h to repack time in Cracow to fly for 7 days to sunny Lisbon.
A good organisation for those trips was needed. I started by thinking of what I will wear to minimise the number of unnecessary clothes I would usually take for a trip. Then toiletry things and some snack and one reusable bottle of water. Then a backpack was already full.

While travelling for 7 days just with 20L backpack I could see a positive side of it:

1. you can move wherever you want without any problem
2. you have everything with yourself, anytime you need something you will have it
3. you think about what you will wear every day and that way you pack just the things are needed
4. you don’t have a problem with going into restaurants/bars/coffee places you will always find a place to put your backpack (even under the chair)

Looking from another point of view I also found one thing that was not the best. The weight of the backpack can be annoying to carry it all the time. I felt my back hurting a lot after walking for a half-day. My back just started to give me signals that I should rest and don’t have a weight on my shoulders all the time.

To sum up, it does have much more benefits than minuses, if I were you I would give it a try and enjoy your trip!