TORONTO - There are a few golden rules when it comes to travel. The first is philosophical — always remember, it’s the journey, not the destination that’s important. The second is more practical — never fall asleep at noontime in the hot tropical sun at a nude beach. However, the most important travel advice I ever received is: Always read the fine print. Yet, somehow, I missed the memo, leading me and my travelling companion Jake to desperately dump half our wardrobes into a large trash can at Dublin Airport.

After scouring travel sites, we’d booked a flight home from Dublin to Toronto on Wow Air. A recent venture, the airline is based out of Reykjavik, Iceland, and travels to more than 30 destinations across Europe and North America. Comparably, their prices are often cheaper than the major airlines. And as far as we could tell, the airline occupied that all important niche of inexpensive yet safe.

Trouble, however, arrived an hour out from our flight when we finally scanned the fine print of our boarding passes. To our dismay, the maximum weight for carry-on luggage was 4.98 kilograms and our bags had big bellies. The penalty for tipping the scale over the line was having your luggage transferred to the cargo hold, while you were slapped with an extra $60 charge. Our recent travels had exerted a heavy strain on our already lean bank accounts. This was a fee we wouldn’t pay.

Pressured by time, our solution was to throw out as much expendable luggage as possible. We huddled around the trash can, unzipped our bags and began tossing. We disposed with efficient detachment — will I wear this again? Is that stain permanent? Does this shirt smell?

Every few items I’d bicep-curl my bag, hoping muscle memory would alert me when I’d reached that desired weight. But no matter how many items we threw out the bags still felt too heavy. Unwilling to part with our last few treasured items, we determined to try a different approach.

Occupying stalls in the washroom, we removed from our bags what clothing we had left and began to apply layer after layer, like we were getting ready for an apocalyptic winter: two pairs of shorts, two pairs of pants, two T-shirts, long-sleeve sweater, wind breaker, and a few pairs of socks and underwear stuffed into pockets for ballast.

Time had ticked away, leaving only five minutes until boarding. Doing our best to make our newly acquired obesity look natural, we lumbered towards our gate. I was a little surprised, as we joined the boarding line, that there were no other bulky passengers attempting to skirt the packing rule. The one thing I did notice, however, was that everyone else’s luggage had little purple tags attached to the handles confirming them as approved carry-on luggage. Jittery nerves vibrated my stomach and released tributaries of sweat that started streaming beneath my added layers.

“You think our bags are light enough?” Jake asked, a note of desperation in his voice. A male flight attendant checked boarding passes at the gate, well tailored in a white dress shirt with purple tie. He greeted passengers with a steely, flat-lined expression, no nonsense.

When it was our turn, I asked, hesitantly, “Where do we weigh our bags?”

He gave both our bags a quick eye-flick before waving us through.

“You’re alright,” he said.

I nearly collapsed into his arms — as much from heat exhaustion as relief.

We boarded the flight and took our seats. The aircraft lifted off on time and the rugged coast of Ireland receded below us.

As I mopped up sweat with one of my spare socks, two thoughts simultaneously crossed my mind: I wished I’d read the fine print sooner and it’s going to cost a lot more than $60 to replace all those clothes.