Packing dilemmas solved: the pros and cons of carry-on and checked bags

Whether you're a proud overpacker or a smug minimalist, both camps have some clear benefits. And our duelling experts are here to point them out.

Amy Cooper: "I carry spares because life's too short for laundry on the road."

I come with baggage. Usually around 23 kilograms of it. This is my dirty little secret: although I've zipped around the globe for decades, I'm also an unreformed check-in chick. I do not "pack like a pro".

There are two tribes in modern travel: those who check a bag, and those who check to see who's noticed them sashaying past the carousel with everything in an abbreviated zero-gravity backpack made from an astronaut's jockstrap.

Meet the carry-on crusader: minimum luggage, maximum moral superiority. See them breeze by the baggage drop with the serenity of one who has hacked life itself, resplendent in wrinkle-resistant neutrals that repel both moisture and joy. Cringe as they eye your 80-litre hardshell the way a vegan greets surf n' turf.

According to aviation industry research, 52 per cent of global travellers now prefer carry-on only, and their messiahs haunt social media, preaching curation, optimisation, capsule wardrobes and the five-four-three-two-one rule (no, I don't know either). They're sleek. They're smug. And I've sometimes felt a flicker of envy ... until it's actually time to fly. Thanks to the carry-on crowd, it can take longer to board a flight than the duration of the flight itself. At every overhead locker, it's reverse childbirth; an agony of shoving, straining and grunting, with the hapless cabin crew like midwives trying to force bloated bag-babies into where they just cannot fit. You see, most carry-on crusaders are just trying to sneak into the cabin everything they'd rather not pay to check in, and let the hosties do the heavy lifting.

A serious traveller, like a girl guide, is always prepared: rainwear when the forecast fails, reef shoes that fit, spare bathers while the soggy ones dry, trekking boots that go the distance - and a touch of fabulous for Cinderella moments, because I'm not about to show up at Mayfair's Cuckoo Club dressed as Bob Irwin. Despite what the lightweights tell you, no shoe "transitions seamlessly" from hiking to dinner unless it's been flung through the restaurant window, and merino isn't as odour resistant as you think. Mal, I can smell that your T-shirt's on its third city.

I carry spares because life's too short for laundry on the road. I want to embrace travel's surprises, romance and detours, and have a little something for them all in my sartorial artillery. Not to mention my own ever-changing moods, which even I can't predict. As Walt Whitman said: "I am large, I contain multitudes." Same with my suitcase.

Admittedly it's gone astray occasionally, but I console myself at the empty carousel knowing I'll have everything I need again in a couple of days.

Meantime, I can sample the spartan joys of #carryononly - before I give up and go shopping.

Mal Chenu: "You have one head and two feet. How can you possibly need eight hats and twelve pairs of shoes?"

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a plane ticket must be in want of a bigger suitcase. Yeah, yeah, I know, #mentoo. But seriously? You have one head and two feet. How can you possibly need eight hats and twelve pairs of shoes?

Now, before you go cancelling me, or dobbing me in to Media Watch, anyone of any gender who has been on any holiday knows you need fewer clothes and more money.

So why pack like you're moving out after a divorce? Do you really need that fifth white T-shirt? That fourth bathing suit? That third jacket? That second pair of joggers? That tiara?

Amy may have to plan for last-minute invitations to Royal galas, or masquerade balls at RuPaul's place, and pack accordingly, but most of us don't.

Rather than "be prepared" or "better safe than sorry", I prefer to engage "smug mode" on arrival and breeze out of the airport like a minimalist ninja, past the throng of luggage lingerers waiting for their giant suitcases to drop.