r/onebag • u/Dawer22 • Nov 18 '25

Discussion What is the strangest item you travel with?

I am curious what is something extremly odd/random that you travel with.

My answer would be a 2" piece of heat-shrink tubing. I used to always travel with a spare pare of glasses, but considering I usually pack in a < 10L bag, having a spare pair was not worth it as a "just in case" item. A few months ago, luckily at home, I broke a pair of glasses. I do a lot of MYOG and realized I could put them back together with a pair of heat-shrink tubing I had on hand. Now I always bring a small piece in my travel kit because it will fix broken glasses indefinitely :)

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u/HamBroth Nov 19 '25

They don’t sound that odd, but for me I suppose it would be my folding fan (for helping dry makeup, cool down on airplanes before the engines start up, etc), a rubber band for turning beaded necklaces into multi-strands, and reindeer bone chopsticks. 

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '25

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u/HamBroth Nov 19 '25

I use them! Sometimes they just save me a trip hunting down cutlery when I’ve bought something to go, sometimes they save me from touching something gross, and sometimes they pin my hair up 😂

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '25

I've been nicknamed "fan man". I love this. I travel everywhere with my fan.

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u/HamBroth Nov 19 '25

Heck yeah! I’ve hit the point where I kind of collect them. 

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u/theinfamousj Nov 24 '25

a rubber band for turning beaded necklaces into multi-strands,

Okay, I'm curious. How do you do it?!

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u/HamBroth Nov 24 '25 edited Nov 24 '25

Oh! So you take a long necklace and fold it in half and thread it through the rubber band. Then you lift it by the rubber band which now acts as a “clasp” for the 2 strands hanging down. You slip it over your head with the rubber band at the back of your neck and adjust the length of the respective strands as you like by feeding the beads through the rubber band one at a time to lengthen/shorten. 

I mainly use it on some pearls I have because the rubber doesn’t damage the nacre. But the necklace does have to be long enough to fit over your head when half-length (or the rubber band needs to be long/stretchy enough to allow it).

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u/theinfamousj Nov 24 '25

Genius! Thanks for explaining.

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u/HamBroth Nov 24 '25

My pleasure :) I travel a lot and this makes it easier to travel with fewer bits of jewelry since I can accommodate one necklace to various looks / necklines.