How to Pack for Your Adventure

Adventure is a State of Mind

Anticipation

Most of us assume that the greatest enjoyment in travel is the actual trip itself, but believe it or not, research shows that a significant percentage of the enjoyment is in the anticipation of the trip as well as in the later memories. While we might have fantasies of someone whisking us off on a surprise trip to an exotic location, research suggests that we actually will experience more enjoyment of the trip we if we know about it months in advance. The ability to dream and fantasize about what we might eventually do on our trip adds joy. It also helps us to plan and pack for our adventure.

Packing can be stressful, usually because of worries about forgetting something crucial, but there’s also the cognitive load of making decisions as to what to bring. To reduce the worries, I remind myself that as long as I have my passport and credit/debit card, I probably can figure out a way to replace almost anything I will need on the trip. If you travel frequently, you can reduce the cognitive load of decision making by keeping a list of the items you most frequently need when traveling. Having such a list on your computer or phone means that you can make small edits depending on the particular characteristics of each trip.

To Carry On or Not to Carry On

Less is best. This is the most valuable piece of advice I can give you regarding packing. No matter where you are going and what you are planning on doing once you get there, pack less than you initially pull out of your closet. However much you imagine you will need, take the very minimum or even less than that amount.

If you’ve only ever taken a trip by car, you probably have been able to pack all the clothes you absolutely plan to wear…along with the clothes you might want to wear if you change your mind and the clothes you will need to wear if the weather isn’t what you’re expecting. That doesn’t even count the shoes and accessories you took to match each outfit. Been there! Done that!

A roadtrip in a car or RV obviously gives you the spatial freedom to pack generously, but if you are flying and spending at least part of your trip on foot and using public transportation, you don’t want to have to carry the same amount. I’ve learned the hard way that when you are dragging (or carrying since some cities have actually prohibited pulling wheeled suitcases) luggage down a cobblestone street or up a narrow staircase in a 200-year-old home, you will be extremely grateful that you only brought the minimum of what you need.

Just Do Things a Little Differently

Before you panic, let me reassure you that I’m not suggesting that you have to travel like a 20-something with two t-shirts and a pair of jean….although that might be a type of adventure in and of itself! I am instead just recommending that you dress a little differently than you do at home. At home, many of us with easy access to a washing machine are in the habit of wearing an outfit just once before throwing it in the dirty clothes basket. The reality, however, is that most shirts, pants, and skirts can be worn more than once before they actually need to be washed.

Rather than packing ten outfits for a ten day trip, you probably can get by with what you might wear at home in five (or fewer) days. If you’re worried about what others will think, remember that you are taking your adventure(ish) trip away from the places you normally visit, so you likely don’t know anyone there anyway. And if you’re worried about what your traveling companions will think of you, if you follow my recommendations, you’re traveling with people who know how you normally dress and will not judge you because you’ve worn the same shirt three times without washing it. Actually, encourage them to read this blog, and hopefully you all will be doing the same thing!

Fill your life with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.

Anonymous

Pick a Color

If your reluctance to try out this recommendation is that you’ll get bored wearing the same outfit in all of your vacation photos, consider picking a coordinating color — usually a neutral color like black, tan, navy, or gray although it can be any color you love — for all of the clothes and accessories you pack. Then you’ll be able to mix and match so that you’re never wearing exactly the same combination of items from day to day. Personally black and gray are my go to colors for travel because I not only can coordinate the contents of my entire suitcase with those colors, but they also are less likely to show stains if I spill something. (Which frequently happens!)

How Much is Enough?

As a general rule, pack three or four outfits if you are traveling for a week, and pack five to seven outfits if you are going to be gone for any amount of time longer than that. What if you’re traveling for a month? Or three months? If you are going to be traveling for that long, you will probably be staying in some locations for long enough to wash clothes. After all, you’d be doing your laundry by then if you were at home, right? So there’s no point in carrying more clothing with you just because you’re staying longer.

Depending on the country and culture, it could be that you will have a washing machine where you are renting or you will be able to find a public laundromat. In some places, it may actually be easier and more economical to pay for someone to do you laundry.

What About Those Unmentionables?

What about underwear? You don’t need a pair for every day of your trip. No, I don’t turn them inside out and wear them for multiple days. (Ewww, gross!) If you plan ahead, underwear is fairly easy to wash out in a bathroom sink. A small clothesline doesn’t take up much room in a suitcase and is useful for hanging up hand-washables in the shower or over the tub. (It’s inconsiderate to let your drying clothes drip all over the tile, wood floors, or, heaven forbid!, carpet!) Also, while you can use any type of soap or shampoo to wash clothes, I often travel with a small bottle of mild laundry detergent. More recently, I’ve started traveling with laundry detergent sheets. There are also some companies that make travel packs of laundry detergent that are specifically designed for this purpose. (If you’re interested in the specific company names, this is the sort of information I provide in my weekly newsletter. Sign up and join the growing Brave Wise Traveler community!)

Depending on the type of socks you have, you may be able to wear them more than once. (This is especially true for socks made with merino wool which tends to be odor resistant.) Or you may prefer to wash your socks at some point during your trip. (Merino wool also dries quickly.) Either way, just like underwear, you don’t need to pack a pair for every single day of your trip.

Scrub-a-Dub-Dub

In addition to underwear and socks, larger pieces of clothing, such as shirts, can also be washed out in the sink. If you don’t want to wait a week for it to dry but are reluctant to wring out your clothing and leave multitudes of wrinkles, rolling your clothes tightly in a towel will help remove much of the water without creating too many wrinkles.

Better yet, some types of fabric are especially well-suited to hand washing as they are wrinkle resistant and quick drying. A lot of the brands selling such clothing can be pricey but tend to be very durable so they can last you through many, many trips. My husband, Greg, has a couple of shirts that have gone with us on almost every trip we’ve taken for at least the past 15 years. Can you believe that?! These magical shirts are wrinkle resistant (great for packing as well as hand-washing) and quick drying.

If you’re washing clothes during your trip, take a moment to plan when you will do the washing. While there can always be emergencies (did I mention earlier that I wear a lot of black because it doesn’t show spills easily?), it is usually safer to plan to wash clothes at the beginning of a multiple-day stay in one location. That way if things are not able to dry overnight, you have some extra time without having to throw wet laundry into your suitcase. (One of the many reasons why it’s a good idea to carry an extra plastic bag or two in your suitcase.)

Disposable Clothing

Another way to reduce your luggage, at least on the trip home, is to pack disposable or “throw away clothes.” This is something that I routinely do with socks and underwear and occasionally with other clothing. When I have a pair of underwear (or other clothing) that is one wearing away from being thrown away or tossed into the rag pile, I put it in a bag in my closet that is designated for my disposable travel clothes. When I’m on a trip, those clothes go with me and are the underwear that I use first. After wearing, it gets thrown in the trash, lightening my load and freeing up room in my suitcase as I go.

For those of you who feel this is too weird and you’re worried about what the hotel cleaning staff or the owner of your home stay will think, you can always find a public trash bin to toss it in as you head out on your daily adventures.

Keep Your Feet Healthy!

A word on shoes — while good shoes are extremely important for being able to travel comfortably, they also tend to be heavy and take up a lot of room in a suitcase. (Especially if you have big feet like my husband.) To lighten your load, consider taking as few shoes as possible — I’ve heard more than one story of travelers regretting that they schlepped a pair of dress shoes around Europe without ever wearing them — although, I do think it’s important to have at least two pairs.

Sometimes it’s very obvious why you need two pairs — if you are planning to hike on rough trails for some of your trip and hang out on a beach for another part of your trip, it is extremely likely that you will need comfortable walking shoes and sandals. Different shoes can also affect your feet differently. During my first trip to Europe, I learned the hard way that wearing similar shoes every day for two weeks can become painful. Even though I had two pairs of shoes, they were both high-tops and laced — black leather granny boots and a pair of white high top sneakers. (Honest, both were stylish at the time!) My ankles never got a break, and by the end of the trip, my Achilles tendons were sore and noticeably swollen.

Since that trip, I’ve always made sure that I have two pairs of comfortable shoes with me on my adventures. I’ve also made sure they fit differently, such as one pair of ankle boots and one pair of sandals.

To Roll or Fold? That is the Question

Now that you’ve reduced how much you’re trying to fit into your suitcase, the all important question arises — to roll or to fold?

There are definitely two camps when it comes to this issue, and I, like many others, have gone back and forth and tried different combinations. If you’ve traveled quite a bit, especially if you’ve flown which tends to limit your allowable luggage space, you may already have worked out a system that you’re comfortable with. In my opinion, there are pros and cons to each approach, so I think you have to experiment until you figure out which works better for you. You may even end up preferring a combination of the two, which is usually what I do.

I think of my packing as an ongoing experiment, and I keep trying to refine my methods. Recently, I’ve started using packing cubes. They provide some compression, which helps to compact their contents a little. They also seem to do a better job of containing the clothing I’ve rolled, and I like being able to quickly grab a shirt or a pair of socks because I know they’re all together in the same packing cube.

A Final Packing Thought

Remember when you are packing to leave some room for bringing back souvenirs if this is something you enjoy doing. Packing some disposable clothing, as discussed above, is one way to clear out room in your suitcase. In some cases, carrying an extra or larger carryon bag for your return trip can provide you with extra space for souvenirs. On international flights, you can often have a carryon as well as a “personal item.” (Make sure to check your airline’s rules.) I usually pack a small cloth bag in my suitcase that I can use in this manner for the trip home if I need it, in addition to using it when shopping during the trip. It folds up to the size of a travel pack of tissues, but it can unfold to hold quite a bit.

Do you have your packing system all figured out? If you have strategies that you love, please feel free to share them in the comments section below so the entire Brave Wise community can benefit. If you haven’t figured out a system that works for you yet, what can you try to do differently on your next trip?