[KimOH]

My advice is to take the smallest, lightest carry-on you can fit your stuff into. You will probably end up with it under your seat (versus in an overhead) and you might end up carrying it a long way.

The style (backpack, duffel, etc.) is personal preference. My husband prefers a backpack, but I like a duffel bag. The backpack is too deep and whatever I want always seems to be at the bottom!

Some older airports seem don't seem to be very wheeled-luggage friendly and you might end up carrying it a lot (some of those wheeled carry-ons are heavy even when they're empty!) For instance, at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, we had to deplane down a bunch of stairs, cross the tarmac, get on a bus. Get off the bus, go up more stairs, look at the "big board", go down more stairs, get on another bus, transfer to a different terminal, climb up more stairs -- you get the picture! We traveled that leg of the journey with a senior-citizens tour group who *all* had big wheeled luggage and we had to help them up/down the stairs with their bags.

On our way home we had a longer layover, so we probably would have had time to look for the elevators, but on our way to Moscow, our flight was late getting into CDG so we had to rush for our plane. I'm glad we had luggage we could manage.

Edited to add: I took a very small purse (basically a wallet with a strap) which was nice for shopping etc. It fit inside my carry-on, so I only had to manage one bag during travel.

Good luck and happy travels,
Kim