We recently traveled to Italy, and after purposefully packing light ("just a carryon"), of our 8 gate-checked carry-on bags, we received 2 on day 7 and the rest on day 8.

It was revealing to see how much our agonizing "should I take this or not" decisions just did not matter, because we didn't have them anyway. Receiving our bags after the week was somewhat overwhelming - look at all this stuff!

In the future, we will bring less (but maybe not quite "travel with a passport and a credit card"), but we will make sure that our bags-that-stay-with-us contain at least needed medications and next-day necessities.

And if given a choice, we'd all much rather we make it to the destination without our bags than the other way around!