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When you are gathering your things to go run errands or spend a day sightseeing at museums or travel to another country, what kind of packer are you?
Do you toss a toothbrush in your pocket and call it good, as you head out the door for three weeks of backpacking in Guatemala?
Or do you carefully inventory the contents of your purse to be certain you have lip balm AND gum AND tissues AND a pen AND an emergency back-up pen AND bandaids AND ibuprofen for a headache that probably won’t happen AND Benadryl in case your child is stung by a bee (but your child won’t even be with you) AND a sweater in case it’s chilly (but it’s July 17th and 98 degrees) AND … this is all just for a quick trip to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk. And while you’re there, you’ll pick up baby wipes, even though you haven’t had a baby in your house in a decade, but hey, baby wipes are handy in some situations.
I call that “just in case” packing.
Guess which category I fall into?
I want to be a fast and light traveler, whether I’m headed to the store or I’m headed to Europe, but it never works out that way because I’m always aware of all the variables and then I start to anticipate all the possibilities and then I want to be prepared for them.
For example, I always have both bandaids and blister bandaids in my purse, just in case someone gets a boo boo or a blister. I can’t think of the last time someone needed first aid out of my purse, but I’m ready all the same.
And because we’ve had some experiences involving long flights and no food, I always cram a variety of granola bars, trail mix, chocolate, emergency back-up chocolate, and two whole chickens, and more into various nooks and crannies of my messenger bag, Pete’s backpack, and the girls’ bags. There will be no starvation on my watch.
And I’m always aware of the weather when I go out. For all day excursions, such as the field trip to DC, unless it’s going to be in the 90s, I’ll likely have a light jacket or a sweater or a pashmina (or some combination of all of the above), just in case I’m in an over-AC’d building or vehicle and I get chilly. I hate being hot and sweaty, but hoooooo boy do I hate being cold and unprepared. I’ve been on fabulous vacations that involved me needing to go buy a fleece pullover or a sweater simply because I didn’t pack enough layers.
All that said, the one thing I’ve managed to forget on not one, but TWO, trips to Washington DC this month alone is hand sanitizer. We here in Jenworld are a germ-phobic people and we hate touching things in public venues. Both of my girls learned to kick-flush toilets just as soon as they were tall enough to do so. And we all admire and appreciate fully-automatic bathrooms where there is no need to touch anything, except the door handle on the way out. And it’s always the door handle, much to our chagrin, but luckily we all know how to work around that one too.
(No need to remind us that germs can be our friends. We’ll see your story about healthy kids needing dirt and raise you three stories about bubonic plague.)
Pete and I have been talking about our trip (P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney) and trying to figure out how to pack. We are notorious overpackers and it always comes back to bite us in the ass at the worst possible time — hello two mile walk from the train station to our hotel room in Paris while dragging 700 pounds of luggage — so we’re trying to be better this time.
So even though I’m tempted to pack travel packets of Starbucks VIA coffee, I’m not going to because I’m confident that coffee can be found Down Under. And even though I do like to have plenty of snack options, I’m only packing enough for the flight over, because I feel certain I’ll be able to find a grocery store after we land. And even though there are so many other just in case situations we might encounter, I’m going to just chill out. Okay, I’m going to TRY to chill out. We’ll see how well I actually do next month when I’m packing.
What kind of packer are you?
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I overpack clothes and shoes, and try to pack extra sunscreen because one of my children has extra-sensitive skin and will only let me near him with spray sunscreen, so there are very few that I know we can use, but other than that i’m pretty confident that I can get what I need wherever we are.
I pack spare shoes to go to the grocery store, just in case.
Just in case, of course – how could a mother of 6 do anything else? I carry a tiny tube of toothpaste in my purse (in case of bee stings – works great!), plus I am never without safety pins. We big-chested gals live in mortal fear of a bra strap breaking.
When I’m flying, my carry-on has enough supplies (including a change of underwear) to survive flight cancellations that leave me stranded at the airport for up to 24 hours (been there, done that)
When I go to Massachusetts I take enough clothes for 2 seasons. You never know if you’ll need jeans, turtleneck and a sweatshirt in July.
When I leave the house just for a day, I travel with a small wristlet with the essentials.
I am totally a “toothbrush will do it” packer.
After I had Emma, I learned to pack kid-necessities, although I was often missing something.
Rob is a “pack the whole house” kind of packer, and it drives me nuts and makes us late for everything.
One exception: when we went to Scotland, he decided we should pack very few clothes and just wash what we had every now and then. He had done this very successfully on a trip to Alaska a few years earlier. Unfortunately, they don’t have laundromats in Scotland. Thank god a B&B owner took mercy on us and washed some clothes for us.
I’m definitely a light packer! We’ve done a week in Europe with just a duffel and small suitcase for our family of 4. The harder trips are ones that require equipment (hiking shoes, hydration packs, etc.) but I’ve learned to make the kids wear the hiking boots on the plane and then the bags aren’t so heavy.
When I was in college, if it didn’t fit in the back pocket of my Levi’s, I didn’t bring it. And that always seems to work out OK. These days, I do keep more stuff permanently stashed in my purse, but they’re always there, so I never have to think about them: migraine meds; lip balm; tissues. Other than that, I definitely subscribe to the “I can buy it if I need it” philosophy.
My mother used to load the entire back of a pick-up truck with items from her kitchen that she just might need during a week-long beach vacation — to a beach town just chock-full of grocery stores. Her reasoning was that it was silly to spend money on things like flour and cooking oil when we had perfectly good flour and cooking oil at home. And she brought her own knives, because you can just never trust the knives at a vacation home.
This is not my way.
I am a just in case packer, with lists and lists that just get ridiculously longer as the time for departure nears. We are at the beach right now and I am beating myself up that I didn’t being a few items that somehow didn’t make it on the lists! Both my husband and I are over-packers too – need to work on that spontenaity thing in most aspects of my life!
A light packer here! When my kids were babies, my “diaper bag” was a gallon ziplock with a couple of diapers, some wipes, and a small changing pad. A binky and some matchbox cars in my purse, and we were ready for anything.
I used to travel for a living, and if it didn’t fit in my carry on, I didn’t bring it. I don’t check a bag unless I am legally prevented from carrying a necessary item (hiking poles come to mind) on the airplane. I went to Norway in the wintertime for a week with one carry on and a small purse. And it was a legal carry on, not some giant thing that I snuck past the gate agents.
I do always pack more undies than I think I’ll need. And I stash granola bars into every available nook and cranny. But really, if my kids miss a snack, they won’t suffer irreparable harm. I hate being bogged down by luggage. I haven’t yet traveled anywhere remote enough that I couldn’t locate a store selling something I neglected to pack.
Oh, I definitely over-pack! The weather doesn’t really matter — if it is too hot, I will need an additional change of clothes because of being too moist, or perhaps I will spill coffee or ketchup or whatever and need a different outfit…
So here is advice I probably wouldn’t take (I’m stubborn that way), but good advice just the same: don’t pack the sweater. You’ll want a wearable souvenir, right?
(P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney) makes me smile every time.
I’m a hoarder – well, almost – so guess which sort of packer I am ?
I pack light. VERY light. That way I can move FAST.
After a couple of uncomfortable trips when we didn’t have the right stuff, my husband and I became overpackers. We got better in recent years but we remain on the heavy side. Most of our travels are by car so it isn’t such a big deal. If we had to lug bags here and there we might change our tune.
Just me: light and care free. Make it work – you can always buy something you need as a fun souvenir.
With the kids: Oy. Vey. You should have seen the car for the trip to YNP. The kids could barely move. This is also partly their own fault. They are too small to be trusted to pack their own toys and do not know how to put said books/toys/coloring stuff/snacks back in appropriate containers upon completion.