By Meridith McKinnon Just to post about something completely unrelated to writing …. although travel is integral to my writing! Close friends will tell you I am a bit of a packing nerd. I love the process of packing – I take great pleasure in having luggage down to a minimum and being able to put a decent amount in my small bag. Gone are the days we’d travel with the huge suitcase! Thank god for that! So packing is my thing and here’s the thing – always pack twice. Pack for one week and what you wear for one week will suffice for a month ... or longer. Yes, my never fail recipe is always have one go at packing then do it again and you’ll almost halve it. By packing I mean lay it all out on the bed/floor or whatever and if possible leave it a day or two then return and do it again. After all my years travelling I still do this and I still always have a least one small thing that will travel with me all the way to my destination and all the way home and I’ll have never worn or used it. But that’s ok, because it hasn’t taken up much room and you never know – I might have needed it! For you intrepid travellers keen to improve the size of your travel luggage, here is my packing list! And our choice of luggage sometimes varies depending on where we are going. For this trip we have a 46L soft Caribee wheeled bag each. These bags have done a lot of miles! Great size for domestic travel too, so if you are doing internal flights they will be fine as cabin luggage. We generally check in for convenience, but if the weight is fine I have travelled with this as a cabin bag. We both travel with a 15L day pack. My day pack contents will change a bit as we travel depending if I need my charger/adapter with me or it goes in my luggage. I always have my portable charger with me though and podcasts downloaded! Meridith 6 tops (3 tanks, 3 T’s) 3 pants 2 dresses/pool tops 2 Bathers Flipflops Water shoes/sandals Undies x7 Bras x2 Sarong Leggings (plane) Couple of necklaces/non precious Goggles Sunglasses/glasses Cap Passport toiletries Day Pack for my writing gear, charger, adapter, headphones. We have travelled using this list from one week to one month, or more! Apart from altering the layering and warmth of clothing and shoes I have used the same list in cooler climates. And still used a 46 L bag. My pants are easy to wash and dry - my white linen pants are longer to dry but I like them. I don't wear shorts so for people who do then substitute or mix shorts and pants. Oh and I do wear tank tops but always have my sarong in my day pack for temples or times I just want to cover up. My final tip is packing cells! This has revolutionised packing and for people like me it’s packing made in heaven. (I can hear you think I'm going too far ... but I do love packing!) Apart from always rolling your clothes – this saves so much space and keeps clothes from crushing, the packing cells are like a one stop system to organise your underwear, tops, pants and dirty clothes! I also use zip lock bags for toiletries and a cell for these. So there you have it! For short trips under a month or maybe a tad longer, this is pretty simple! Four ingredients to make packing a breeze and not lug around some huge bag with stuff you will never go within cooee of needing - and enjoy your travelling so much more!! Packing is only one part of the organisation of travelling and for longer trips the list extends to things to do before leaving. And that’s another whole discussion! Meanwhile, I’m off and hugely excited! Watch my facebook page and Instagram for my posts and for those of you signing up for my newsletter I’ll have more details of where my trip took me and what future travel I will be taking for my research. You can drop your email by clicking here and have the newsletter straight to you! Thanks for indulging me in my ‘packing’ post!! Comments are closed.
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