Lots of Luggage

There's gotta be a kitchen sink in there, somewhere!

Lone Starr: Checking in? What the hell is all that?
Barf: [voice muffled with a suitcase strap] It's her Royal Highness's matched luggage!

— Spaceballs

A character has a very loose grasp on the idea of "necessities", bringing along towering mountains of suitcases filled with a year's supply of clothes and other frippery they probably don't even need at home. Two waffle irons, for example, so that there is a choice of waffle-dimple patterns. This, for a weekend trip. Special points awarded if the trip is a camping trip, where the idea is to get back to nature.

Often leads to Human Pack Mule and Fancy Camping. Compare City Mouse. May also be a flaw of the Alpha Bitch. Can overlap with Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense if the character is wealthy.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One commercial from Hilton's "It matters where you stay" campaign of the early 2020s starred none other than the world's most famous Hilton herself, Paris, checking in with so much luggage she needed a second room to store it all.

Anime & Manga

• This wasn't intentional on his part, but in Dragon Ball Gohan is often forced by Chichi (being the Doting Parent she is) to carry some massive luggage, usually bigger than he is, as is seen in The Tree of Might and on the first groups' trip to Namek.
• Erza from Fairy Tail never goes anywhere without a whole wagon load full of bulging suitcases. Her magic power is essentially comprised of a Hyperspace Wardrobe,^note which houses a variety of weapon-and-armor sets that she can freely switch into at will, as well as other more mundane outfits which would initially lead one to wonder what she needs all that luggage for. It's later revealed she carries food in them.
• Gosick: Victorique packs a lot of suitcases when she goes traveling.
• One Piece: Before Luffy leaves after the Time Skip, Hancock prepared him a huge and absolutely loaded backpack, filled with 500 pairs of clothes, 1000 lunchboxes, 5 years' worth of handkerchiefs, tissues, and towels, and 3 years' worth of drinkable water, snacks, and silverware, as well as hairbrushes, soaps, creams, and bug bite ointments. She gets promptly scolded by elder Nyon, who tells her to make it lighter.

Comic Books

• Wealthy, spoiled Veronica Lodge of Archie Comics has been known to bring a great deal of her extensive wardrobe along with her when traveling, regardless of the destination.
• Mortadelo y Filemón:
  • At the beginning of "Valor y al toro", when the two protagonists are about to get on a cruise for their mission, Filemón tells Mortadelo to pack only whatever is indispensable for the mission. Filemón gets angry when Mortadelo shows up later with a big bag and reminds him of how he only had to pack whatever was indispensable. Mortadelo replies that he's only carrying his keys there, and points to more than a dozen of bags, saying that is his luggage. Eventually, Filemón allows him to carry only a bundle.
  • In "Los guardaespaldas", the woman Mortadelo and Filemón have been tasked with protecting plans to travel around the world... and the two agents have to help her carry her absurdly massive luggage. Mortadelo snarkily comments, "Hey madam! Maybe you forgot the piano?", then we get a Gilligan Cut to them carrying the exact same luggage plus a piano, while the woman thanks Mortadelo for reminding her.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), Rarity (See the Western Animation folder) does it again when she goes spend a week at a spa. She brings so much luggage that there almost isn't enough room for her in the cart.
• In The Smurfs comic book story "The Hunger of the Smurfs" (and its Animated Adaptation episode "Haunted Smurfs"), before the Smurfs set off to find food and shelter for the winter after their storehouse has been burned to ashes, Papa Smurf tells his little Smurfs to "take only the bare essentials" with them on their journey. Apparently they interpreted the "essentials" to mean everything that they couldn't live without, as Papa Smurf sees that they're ready to take the whole village with them!
• In X-Force, Sam and Roberto are sent on a mission that takes them away from their home base. Rich boy Roberto takes 'just enough to get by', which is a stuffed duffel bag and a large suitcase.

Comic Strips

• Used in Calvin and Hobbes' 05/22/86 strip when Calvin is on a camping trip with his Boy Scout troop.
  Hobbes: Grab the hot dogs and come on! The troop's cooking dinner over the fire.
  Calvin: [rummaging in the tent] Oh, that's just great. Here we've been lugging this dumb microwave around for nothing.
• Cathy: Irving Hillman, the fiancé of Cathy Andrews, is stunned by the amount of baggage Cathy intends to take on their shared vacation. Cathy observes, "Men pack. Women move."
• In one Sunday FoxTrot strip, Roger laughs at the amount of gear Jason and Peter are bringing on the trip, saying that if they brought much more there wouldn't be room for them in the car. Obvious to the reader is the fact that that's exactly what they're trying to achieve (Fox family camping trips never end well), and in fact most of their luggage is filled with styrofoam.
  Peter: Out of curiosity, how much more?
  Jason: I'm running low on duffel bags.
  • In one early strip, as part of a story arc where the family went to Hawaii, Paige packs not one but five bags for the holiday - one with beach cosmetics, one with beachwear, one with beach reading materials, one with beach eyewear and one with beach miscellaneous accessories.
• Greg Evans title character Luann has a Rich Bitch friend Tiffany. In the 15 December 2011 strip, Tiffany brings so much luggage for a one-week trip that Luann's boyfriend remarks, "We need a semi."◊

Fan Works

• It comes up in Digimon Tamers fanfiction Digital Prey when Ruki complains about the ridiculous amount of luggage her daughter Rumiko brought with her on the family's trip.
• Kara of Rokyn: When Kara has to head back to Earth to help search her missing cousin, she takes over 100 pounds of clothes with her.
  She had two fairly bulky suitcases in her hands and didn't want to set them down yet, even if Hal had negated their weight to make them liftable. One of them held over 100 pounds of clothes.
• Inverted in The Parselmouth of Gryffindor. When the Dementors (the entire Dementor race) move away from Azkaban permanently, all they take is one old rickety suitcase.

Films — Animation

• In A Goofy Movie, Pete's idea of camping is parking his state-of-the-art RV in the middle of the woods. When parked, the RV expands into a home away from home, with a kitchen, living room with a big-screen TV, a bowling alley on the roof, and a bunch of other modern devices. Pete also barely spends any time out in the actual outdoors, but still considers it camping.
• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree, we see that the human version of Rarity is just as bad as the pony version. She goes to a summer camp — where they're supposed to be "roughing out" — with a mountain of luggage, including enough dresses and fashion supplies to organize a whole fashion show.
• Toy Story 2: Mrs. Potato Head stuffs a lot of things into her husband's internal compartment when he's getting ready to join the others in their rescue mission. The Hilarious Outtakes in the credits have her adding even more.

Films — Live-Action

• In Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Lorraine fitting this trope is a running gag. Sarah her sister comments on a huge suitcase "This one just for the make-up?"
• In the 1924 Soviet comedy film The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom, an American capitalist arrives in Moscow with so much luggage that it tips over the buggy that he tries to use for transport. He ends up having to use an automobile instead.
• In Coming to America, Akeem and Semmi arrive in New York with a bunch of luggage carried by nine workers to load up a taxicab to Queens. It all gets stolen soon as they enter an apartment out of their sights. They notice that everyone in the neighborhood wearing their clothes including one selling their stolen gold toothbrushes under his coat.
• The above may be a nod to a similar gag that happens in Enter the Dragon when Roper brings several rickshaws worth of luggage with him on his way to the tournament.
• The Great Race: Maggie DuBois takes along a large amount of luggage when she takes part in the title car race. When her car breaks down and the Great Leslie rescues her, she insists that he take her luggage along.
• For the Butlers' trip to Pontins in Holiday on the Buses, Olive packs far too many cases to fit on Arthur's motorbike, and even what she can bring strains the clutch and requires everyone to have to push:
  Arthur: Are you mad? We can't take all that lot.
  Olive: Well, I only packed the essentials.
• In Jungle Cruise, Upper-Class Twit MacGregor brings an obscene amount of luggage to Frank's boat for a trip up the Amazon River. Frank promptly starts tossing most of it overboard, to MacGregor's consternation, some of which ends up being stolen in a Funny Background Event. The only thing Frank doesn't discard is MacGregor's liquor. Initially, Frank accuses Lily of having brought too much luggage... only for her to hold up a single daybag and point out the real culprit.
• Mortal Kombat: The Movie: Movie star Johnny Cage brings several large bags to dock for the trip to the tournament. After asking Liu Kang to carry them for him, Liu dumps them into the bay.
  Johnny: Huh. Thank God I didn't ask him to park the car.
  • It gets even better. Upon first landing at the island, Johnny falls right into the water due to being weighed down by so much luggage, and then, as the crew are climbing a huge number of steps, he falls and drops some of it, prompting Liu to ask "Do you need help with those?"
• Paddington (2014): Played for laughs in the prologue, showing The Explorer on expedition in Darkest Peru, with only the necessities, such as a "small timepiece" (actually a grandfather clock) and a travel piano.
• Spaceballs: After the Winnebago crash-lands on the desert planet, Lone Starr tells Princess Vespa to take only what she needs to survive. She determines that this includes her industrial-strength hairdryer◊, carried in a very large suitcase. Eventually, Lone Starr gets sick of Vespa's attitude and outright refuses to carry it anymore.
• We're first introduced to Old Rose in Titanic when she brings lots of luggage onto the research ship Akademik Keldysh, then when she goes into her flashback, we see Young Rose bringing lots of luggage onto the Titanic.

Literature

• In Able Team #13: Scorched Earth, Able Team is shot down while flying over a Mexican drug operation. They crashland without loss, but their pilot isn't happy when they insist on salvaging their luggage instead of getting away from the plane before the spilled fuel goes up. Then he asks how Able Team intend to lug all those cases through the mountains with the people who shot them down looking for them, and their only weapon is his sidearm. Able Team then proceeds to show exactly what they're carrying in the cases.
• The Call of the Wild. Buck and his fellow sled dogs are sold (while still weak and exhausted) to a family with no experience in such matters who proceed to overload their sled and force the dogs to pull it. The load overturns halfway down the street, and the locals come out and force them to offload half of it—for all the good that does later on.
• In a maternal variant, when Magrat leaves the castle in Carpe Jugulum, she insists that Reverend Oats haul along every toy, blanket, nappy bag, basin, potty, or bath item which her baby daughter might possibly need. Most are things which an infant that age won't be old enough to require for months, and they're only away for a day or two. She's a first-time mum and a bit fretful.
• Clue: In book 10, chapter 1 ("Murder in the Cockpit"), Miss Scarlet attempts to bring a massive pile of luggage on the plane to France so she can change outfits as many times as she feels she needs. Mr. Boddy has to tell her that since it's a small private jet, there's not enough room for it all, limiting her to a single bulging carry-on bag.
• Subverted in Beat to Quarters, the first (written) Horatio Hornblower novel. When Lady Barbara Wellesley comes aboard Hornblower's ship, the frigate HMS Lydia, she has several large suitcases and chests with her. He starts to lecture her on the impossibility of getting it all into her cabin, but she surprises and mightily irritates him with the statement that everything she will need while onboard is in a single sea-chest, and the rest can be stowed anywhere.
• InCryptid: In the novella "Singing the Comic-Con Blues", Verity packs two huge suitcases for a trip to Emerald City Comic Con, but Antimony forces her to consolidate it into one bag, since the car is taking four people. The one bag she brings is surprisingly heavy, but it's left ambiguous how much of its contents are clothes and how much is weaponry.
• In The Princess Bride the author states that the original book that he is summarizing the boring parts of contains a fifty-six page section on a diplomatic mission, out of which thirty-four pages are spent on characters packing their clothing, and another seventeen are spent on those same characters unpacking their wardrobes at their destination.
• The Comedic Hero of Scoop, the 1938 satire by Evelyn Waugh, is a country wildlife writer who's accidentally sent overseas as a war correspondent. He's sent to the requisite adventurer outfitters who, realizing his naivete, sell him a vast mountain of clothing and equipment which he lugs to Africa with him.
• In the Australian YA Novel Tomorrow When the War Began, the character Fi, who starts out as something of a Dumb Blond, (although she subverts it later and she's really more of a Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold type) is ridiculed by the other characters for bringing insane amounts of luggage on a camping trip.

Live-Action TV

• When Donna finally becomes a companion in Doctor Who, she has a pile of suitcases, including a hatbox. The Doctor is particularly bewildered by the hatbox. (Arguably, this is more sensible than what most companions do, which is set off in an erratic time machine with a semi-qualified pilot in just the clothes on their backs. Although it does have an extensive wardrobe anyway.)
• Gilligan's Island: Thurston Howell the Third, his wife Lovey and Ginger all took along much more luggage (mostly clothing) than they should have needed for a "three-hour cruise". On one of the occasions where they had a chance to escape the island, they insisted on taking all of their luggage with them.
• In Keeping Up Appearances, Hyacinth takes mountains of "matching executive luggage, with the genuine leather embellishments and initials" on board the cruise liner the Q E 2.
• Tom from Parks and Recreation brings a ridiculous number of state-of-the-art electronics to the department camping trip. Hooking them all up to the van drains the battery, leaving them all stranded.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Future Echoes", the Cat is instructed to get together a few essentials before going into suspended animation. He arrives with a rack of suits and, when challenged by Lister, admits there are ten more racks he intends to take.
• The Roses arrive to Schitt's Creek with copious suitcases, which contain their fancy clothes that were not seized by the government. Throughout the series, their extensive wardrobes become a part of the story.
• One of the Yeralash shorts has a boy going on a trip with a friend of his. The friend said to only take the most necessary things. See the result here starting at 2:50.

Music

• In "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Albuquerque", the protagonist emerges from a plane crash dragging his worldly possessions behind him: his big leather suitcase, his garment bag, his tenor saxophone, his twelve-pound bowling ball and his lucky lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel. It takes him three days to crawl to his destination.

Video Games

• In Luigi's Mansion 3, princess Peach has brought several massive suitcases◊ to the hotel that is the setting for the game. The three Toads that came along are visibly struggling under the load, and one of them even remarks that "There isn't anything her highness forgot to pack!"
• The Incognito Princess in Sunless Skies is introduced sitting atop a mountain of luggage. If you bring her aboard, it's mentioned in a travel event that some of it became unsecured and concussed one of your crewmen.

Western Animation

• In the Alvin and the Chipmunks episode "Island Fever", Alvin struggles to move a luggage cart overflowing with pink suitcases, footlockers, trunks, and other pieces of luggage belonging to Brittany onto the cruise ship the Sevilles and Millers are entertaining on.
  Brittany: Alvin, please be careful, I have some of my favorite things in there!
  Alvin: Like what?
  Eleanor: Like everything she didn't put in there...

We then see Simon, Theodore, and Dave struggle to move another, even larger luggage cart, bearing even more trunks and cases belonging to Brittany. Brittany herself even lampshades this later when the lodging accommodations are less than commodious for the kids, and she remarks, "It's a good thing I packed light!"

• An episode of Angela Anaconda has the Alpha Bitch Nanette assigned to hike with the same team as Angela and her friends. Nanette demands that the others help her carry what she packed, and at one point pulls out a hairdryer and asking where she can find an outlet.
• On Archer, Mallory is seemingly incapable of going on even just an overnight trip without bringing her entire set of red suitcases, the movement of which represents backbreaking labor for others. Also, don't you dare scuff them!
• On Arthur, Muffy always overpacks, especially for summer camp.
• Bianca from Beverly Hills Teens once brings half a dozen suitcases with "absolute necessities of life" along. Doesn't sound like much? Well, perhaps it should be mentioned she brought them for a day in a beauty salon...
• The Crumpets:
  • In "Greener Pastures", when Caprice is about to escape from her family, she was about to depart with a purse. She immediately returns to her room and brings out a suitcase and a big bag in addition to the purse. Then she instantly returns to the room one last time and hauls out a boatload of luggage and chests, most of them stacked on two wagons which are strung and pulled along with a suitcase like a train.
  • In "Granny's Twin Sister", the eponymous character visits the Crumpets with big pile of luggage.
  • In "Gambled Gables", Uncle Hurry and Aunt Harried tasks Caprice to bring a huge number of their suitcases to the latter's house, which the couple just took over.
• One of the Cyberchase For Real segments had Bianca going camping with her friend. The friend mocks her for taking three bags. Bianca says it's nothing, only for the friend to open one bag and remove a sequined party dress.
• In Dexter's Laboratory, the titular character decides to cope with being away from his electronics for a family fishing trip by bringing along an inflatable laboratory. Though being inflatable, none of the buttons actually work.
• Less "impractical" but still over-packed is this Garfield and Friends example. Jon takes Garfield and Odie out camping, and Garfield hates it every time. So one time he brings an inflatable house, labelled "Never leave home without a home". Jon makes an Aside Glance and asks, "This is roughing it?"
• An episode of Horse Land had Chloe and Zoe attempt to bring a lot of useless gadgets with them on a camping trip. MP3 player, curling iron, hairdryer, smartphones, etc.
• Kaeloo: In Episode 77, when the cast decide to pack their most valuable belongings, Kaeloo tells everyone to bring a strict minimum. Even then, Pretty brings several suitcases.
• The Legend of Korra: Asami takes a large amount of luggage when she moves to Air Temple Island. Mako states it could have been worse. She packed for a stay of indefinite duration, but still overdid things.
• Littlest Pet Shop (2012): Blythe packs a mountain of luggage for an all-summer fashion camp, although some of this is supplies she'll need for drawing and designing.
• Looney Tunes: Hitchhiking Daffy Duck cons Porky Pig into giving him a lift in "Thumb Fun." Daffy manages to get all his large suitcases into the small trunk of Porky's car...just don't try to open the trunk again.
• When first seen at the train platform, Madame Tutli-Putli has enough baggage for an army battalion.
• Mickey Mouse (2013): In "Roughin' It", Mickey tries to camp in the woods the old fashioned way, while Donald and Goofy opt to live it up in the former's tech-filled RV, often at Mickey's expense.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • A Running Gag with Rarity, the resident beauty queen.
    • She first does this all the way back in "Sweet and Elite" when she burdens the poor busboy with a truly ridiculous amount of luggage and he is seen collapsing under the weight of all her bags twice.
    • Rarity has her poor little sister drag her luggage to the campsite in an oversized cart in "Sleepless in Ponyville". Her necessities include an entire inflatable house, completely furnished with a queen-sized bed and a matching vase.
    • Parodied in "P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View)". In Pinkie Pie's flashback, Rarity brings so much luggage to the ship that she needs a dozen ponies to carry them all. Likely exaggerated somewhat, but knowing Rarity it's probably close to the truth. Ironically, in her own flashback, she carries just a little bag, except it contains a food tray way too big for it.
  • Rarity's "poor little sister" proves to be a heavy packer in "Sisterhooves Social", bringing two mountains of luggage ("Just a few necessities...") to live with Rarity for just a week. In her fully furnished house.
  • Pinkie Pie uses Hammerspace extensively, leaving people wondering where she keeps all that stuff.
  • Big Macintosh overloads the Apple family jalopy when they go on their road trip in "Pinkie Apple Pie".
  • As seen in "Uncommon Bond", Sunburst can put Rarity to shame with the amount of luggage he's carrying with him. Of course, those are probably mostly full of books.
  • In My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip when the cutie balloon fails to take off due to excessive weight, everypony immediately looks to Rarity. But this time the culprit is Twilight Sparkle, who brought "a few papers to grade". As Spike puts it, "And by 'a few', she means slightly less than I am able to lift." Applejack promptly dumps the humongous bag overboard.
• In an episode of Pocoyo, Pocoyo and Pato are going to camp and, despite the objections of the narrator, overcharge the Vamoosh with all their things(topping it with a bathtub and a fridge full of food) to the point that it can't fly because of the weight. Neither wants to relent on leaving any of their things, until they see Elly, who was camping with them, leaving the only thing she brought, her tiny teddy bear, to help make the plane lighter.
• In The Proud Family, Oscar takes his family out camping using a fairly state-of-the-art RV, and his mother Suga Mama remarks that with an RV so big, it's barely roughing it. It escalates when their rich neighbors the Boulevardezes are camping adjacent to them. Their campsite is a massive collapsible mansion.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: In "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian", Babs pack an enormous amount of luggage for her and Buster's trip to Hawaii, which Buster has the unfortunate luck of carrying.
  Buster: Gee, Babs. I hope you brought enough stuff.
  Babs: So I'm roughing it.
• Toy Story Toons: In "Hawaiian Vacation", Ken brings about 20 suitcases of clothing with him on the trip.
• An episode of Transformers: Animated had Prowl taking Sari and Bumblebee camping. Bumblebee ends up packing a lot of electronic devices. An incredulous Prowl asks how he managed to store them all. Bumblebee declines to answer, but his embarrassment suggests some of it wasn't meant as cargo space.

Real Life

• Dave Barry once described this type of individual as someone "whose idea of 'roughing it' means 'turning the air conditioner to medium'".
• A young Bill Deedes is believed to have inspired the above-mentioned character in Scoop, turning up to cover the Italian invasion of Abyssinia with almost 600 pounds of luggage.
• In The American Revolution, the British General John "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne led his army on an ill-fated campaign through Saratoga in New York. Part of the reason why it failed was because of excessive luggage. He brought wagons full of frivolities like boxes of champagne while they were trying to make it through the woods. The chain of wagons was almost a mile long and is often nicknamed "Gentleman Johnny's Party Train" by modern audiences. With so much luggage, his army was too slow and was intercepted and defeated.

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