note: all photos were taken as I unpacked
I think I pretty much have it down. I went to Europe for 5½ weeks with a carry-on wheeled suitcase, a small day pack, and a tiny purse. I would not have had to check my baggage, but opted to do it since there were stop-overs in three airports, both ways, and I didn’t want to be lugging it around when the airlines could be taking care of it.
A note to the skeptical: you can travel light, and in fact you must. You need to be able to walk with all your baggage between hotels, train stations, car rentals, airports. You need to be able to carry your own luggage upstairs for as many as six storeys. If you can’t, you might find yourself unpacking on the ground floor and carrying your stuff upstairs in sections, six storeys per trip. Elevators are scarce, unless, of course, you pay a few limbs for your hotel rooms. You also need to be able to get your bags on and off trains, in one go, in a narrow space with several high steps, a crowd at your back, and three minutes till the train leaves. You need to be able to negotiate the ups and downs of city subways. Next time, I’d like to go lighter still, if I can figure out a way.
The bags, fully loaded (the cup is placed for scale):
Main Bag
Less than half of my main bag is taken up by clothes. I’ve come ro realize that the variety I feel I need at home is unnecessary while travelling, since no one sees me more than once, generally. My credo is “one to wear, one to wash”—therefore, two pants, two teeshirts, etc. A week’s worth of underwear so as not to be hand-washing too often. Beyong the basics, it’s hard to plan. We arrived in Berlin in a heatwave (36° C.), and all I wanted to wear was little cotton dresses, so I bought a couple of little cotton dresses. I bought a couple more in the south of France. I couldn’t have predicted that, and it easily could have been sweaters that I needed. As it was, I used everything I packed (at least several times) except a pair of yoga pants I took for cool evenings at “home”.
Winter clothes take up more room, of course, but an option would be to wear the bulkier items, rather than pack them.
What takes up the rest of the space in my baggage confounds even me: books, cosmetics, electronics. It all seems ridiculous, and much of it didn’t even exist when I was first travelling.
The main trick to packing well: compartments. I have packing cubes, three of which are designed to fit snugly in my carry-on if I were to use them all for clothes, which I don’t. I roll my clothes into two rolls and fit them into the largest packing cube (and wrinkles are minimal!). One of the two smaller cubes I use for underwear, sleepwear, scarves, and the other I use for miscellaneous necessities like a laundry line, blow dryer, mini umbrella, etc. Outside the packing cubes I have a well-designed, multi-pocketed toiletries bag (mine is from Rick Steves), books (travel guides and pleasure-reading), and two pairs of sandals. (Yes, two. One pair has “rocker” soles, in which I can walk for hours without lower back pain, and another in which I cannot, but which look better with a dress.)
The main bag, opened:
The clothes cube, plus sandals:
The clothes, unrolled:
Small cube, unloaded (the other small cube is just underwear, sleep wear, and a mesh laundry bag):
Secondary bag (which acts as a day pack once away):
My little day pack holds more books, the laptop, a really tiny down-filled travel pillow (which I use for between my knees at night, the only way I can sleep comfortably), a hoodie, and an emergency cosmetic kit in case my luggage gets held up—which happened a few years ago, resulting in my having to buy hair products I didn’t really want, a toothbrush I didn’t really want, etc., to tide me over. The little pack also holds cameras and other electronics I either can’t fit in the big bag or don’t want to entrust to baggage handlers. Security has a field day with my small bag—at one airport I forgot to empty out all the electronics. Oh boy.
The secondary bag, exploded (the laptop isn't shown, but it fits):
Again, compartments. I have a nylon bag for all my electronics cords, and within that, ziplocks labelled for each type: camera cords, battery-charging cords, computer cords, GPS and cord, and of course a couple of adapter plugs. I didn’t, for once, end up with a tangled mess to sort several times a day. (Note: you probably won’t need a voltage converter, as most (all?) electronics are made to work with a range of voltage. Check your devices’ labels.)
Cords!:
Purse
This is the first time I've actually carried a little shoulder bag, and it worked out well, more convenient (and slightly more elegant?) than always having a backpack. I still carry my essential documents and larger sums of money in a money belt.
The contents of purse and money belt, as carried in Paris:
Cosmetics
My skin turns into an angry adolescent if I don’t take particular care of it, so I do take a few products—no soap-and-water for this face. I once bought an “airline kit” of small jars and bottles, and I use those exclusively for my lotions and potions. To figure out how much to take of, say, hair conditioner, I literally squirted a day-sized blob into a bottle, 38 times for 38 days. The system worked; I neither ran out nor had more than a few days’ worth left over of anything. I’ll no longer need to count, as I now know the bottle size to take for a trip of a month or so, and the bottles are so small, it wouldn’t be worth going smaller still for shorter trips.
The toiletries bag, exploded:
I use solid shampoo, available at Lush, which is wonderful—high lather and glorious scent—a single disk of which lasts at least a month for two of us. For the rest, I divided my little bottles into 3 small ziplocks (have I said anything about compartments?), one for day, one for night, one for make-up (which I hardly used). The ziplocks held only a few items each, and just made it easier to manage the little bottles.
I have always found it a nuisance, when moving from place to place, to set out shower supplies and put them away on a daily basis, so I developed a system that works like a charm. I have a small wire-mesh basket (I’ve tried plastic, but water sits in the bottom. This one I got at London drugs—I think it’s meant for organizing kitchen drawers.) containing the following: solid shampoo (on a tiny soap-saver, because the shampoo dissolves quickly if it stands in water), conditioner, comb, soap, razor, face-wash (two kinds, for my fussy skin). I wrap the whole works in a quick-dry towel (made for wrapping wet hair, I think) and pack it as-is. Upon arrival, I unwrap it, stick the whole basket in the shower, and I’m ready to go. Packing up is just as easy. The towel is good for emergencies, too, in places where towels are not exactly abundant.
A close-up of the contents of the cosmetic bag and the mesh basket:
Going lighter still
I think the iPad (or similar device) might be the new answer to packing light. Theoretically, it will replace books, guidebooks, maps, laptop, and phone. (I don’t take a phone travelling, but some people do.) Unfortunately, it became available just a couple of weeks before I left on this trip, and when I checked it out, some books I wanted (Lonely Planet, Rick Steves) were not available for the device. Next time, I hope.
I’m sure I have bored many a reader (all three of you!) with this entry, but it’s here for my own reference, really. Packing isn’t hard, but the planning of what and how to pack is. This will serve to remind me, and, with luck, may be helpful to others.
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