Packing. It’s Terrible, But Necessary.

This week, I thought it’d be fun to talk about packing! I just went on a short weekend trip and definitely overpacked. Does anyone else do that?

Silly question, I know. Everyone overpacks always. And then forgets something vital, like deodorant. I know I’m not alone here.

I’m actually much better at packing for long trips than I am at packing for short trips! I think it’s because I’ve gone on way more long trips. As I said in the video, climate is always the first thing to think about when packing for long trips. You don’t want to be like me on my first trip to Singapore when I packed for Nebraska weather and then landed in the tropics. It was… sweaty. Bleh.

Thanks to that experience, I learned a couple of major tips. I talk about many of these in the video, but I’m going to focus on two tips in particular here:

1. Finding lodging with laundry options is very awesome.
2. Bring emergency money to buy things in a pinch.

I tend to travel with clothes that don’t wrinkle easily, don’t collect scents (cotton is death), and that would be annoying to find if I needed to buy them. I hate shopping for jeans and bras on a regular day, much less when I’m traveling. But shirts? I can buy 12 of them on any street corner in just about any major tourist destination. Better to go light on those.

As for laundry, I know you may not want to wash your clothes when you’re meant to be having a great time. I don’t blame you for that at all! In the best case scenario, you would have packed flawlessly and wouldn’t need any laundry facilities to function. However, travel is like the weather in Ireland. Ridiculously unpredictable. Because of this, I always like to look for lodging with laundry options juuuuust in case.

Now the video may have come across like me saying to go suitcaseless and then buy all the things. That’s not the goal here! The goal is to pack as perfectly as possible and not overpack. Reminding myself that I can buy a souvenir shirt in a pinch is what I need to do to keep from packing 18 shirts for a 5 day trip. All of these tips are my own thoughts from my own experiences! Listen to them, don’t listen to them, it’s all good either way.

If you don’t listen to them, I’d love to hear your own tips and experiences! How do you pack when you’re going on a longer trip?