carry on bags

It’s a travel scenario we’re all familiar with: You make it through the airport, board your plane, settle into your seat, and…suddenly realize you left something at home. It may something replaceable like a phone charger or toothbrush, but it’s still incredibly annoying to be stuck in the air without those essentials.

While you can easily make a packing list (and check it twice), there are still some basic items that travelers usually forget to throw in their carry-on bags. But what are the things people almost always forget to pack? To get some answers, we reached out to a few flight attendants with 26 years of combined experience. After so much time in the sky, they have heard every complaint and dealt with every request, and they were gracious enough to share their knowledge with us.

Read on for their carry-on packing tips, and be sure to revisit this list before your next flight.

Water bottles

“Water bottles are the most useful item that passengers forget or don’t think to bring,” says Sarah McWilliams-Guerra, who was a Delta Air Lines flight attendant for seven years before launching her own travel website, Airplane Mode. “By bringing an empty water bottle through security, passengers can fill up their bottle in the airport and not rely on anyone else if they’re thirsty or need water.”

McWilliams-Guerra says that while flight attendants can usually accommodate requests for water, many budget airlines don’t include free drinks. To avoid paying a hefty fee or having to wait to quench your thirst, bring your own travel-friendly water bottle—you can even find collapsible bottles that hardly take up any space in your bag.

Blankets & pillows

Ask any flight attendant and they’ll tell you: It’s impossible to please everyone on the plane. “One passenger will be hot and the other cold,” says Steven Daniel, who has worked on SkyWest Airlines for the past two years. “It’s important to bring your own blankets and pillows for your comfort.”

You obviously don’t want to fill up your carry-on with bulky bedding, so make sure to look for compact, travel-sized blankets and pillows. Many popular travel blankets fold down to a fraction of their full…