Packing Light

On Friday Trev and I leave for 2 weeks for Slovenia and Croatia.  We are very committed to our packing light philosophy  Packing light allows you to carry your bag around without being tired.  It allows you to walk down cobblestone roads without bumping your bag along behind you.  It allows you to stay at the third floor of a tiny family owned hotel with no elevator with no problems.  It allows you to run and get your tight train connection with ease.  It allows you to sit on the crowded bus with your bag on your lap for a 2 hour bus ride.  There are so many benefits!  It is very freeing!

On our first trip in 2005, we traveled to 12 countries, over 9 weeks with only one carry-on size bag each.  This trip we will do the same except we have refined or packing even further so that our bags are 1/3 empty!  Lufthansa has one of the strictest carry on policies with only 17.6 lbs allowed for carry on.  I thought we might have a problem this time meeting that weight but after our sample pack we were well within our limit!

Instead of bringing things that we 'might' need, every single thing we pack we know we do need.  And while we are there if there's something we else we decide we need, we'll just buy it there.  We aren't going to be anywhere remote.  Instead of packing for the worst case scenario, we pack for the best case scenario and buy ourselves out of any jams we find ourselves in!  There is no point in packing along scuba gear for 2 weeks for an hour of snorkeling in Korcula.  We'll buy a $25 kit and leave it behind before we carry it with us!

So here is a small tour of what we packed!

This is my carry on size backpack

Another shot of it

Here it is emptied out with everything that was in it

There's a small stuff sack with socks and underwear and one extra bra

A hat

The stuff sack with socks and underwear is stored in my hat so it doesn't get crushed

This is a little rain jacket cover for my backpack.  It comes out of the sack and bungees on to the back pack if it's pouring rain.  I sort of consider this a luxury and we have carried it on trips where we've never used it, but we've also had trips where we were VERY glad we had it!

My makeup bag

I basically just bring the basics.  I normally have a big blush brush and a big powder brush but I downsized to the little mini versions for the trip

All of my clothes are packed into packing cubes.  This big one has a pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts, a lightweight jacket and a good rain jacket

This little nylon bag I made for our first trip.  It stores a pair of shoes so that you can toss them in if they are a bit wet and it doesn't get everything in your bag wet.  This bag has my Birkenstock sandals.

These are all of my important docs.  My hotel reservation confirmations, my travel insurance info, tickets purchased in advance online, etc.  I print 2 to a page and then cut the pages in half so that they are half size.  Paper is heavy!

Packing cube 2 of clothes.  A bit of a random mix.  A t-shirt and shorts for PJs,  A black dress.  A bathing suit.  And a camp towel (a nice big quick-dry towel that folds up into nothing).

Those clothes above packed into their cube

Last packing cube

3 shirts and a tunic/dress thingy.  Not pictured, the capris that go under that dress.

That's it for clothes.  So to summarize, I have packed a pair of jeans, 2 pairs of shorts, a pair of capris, 3 t-shirts and 2 dresses plus 5 pairs of socks and underwear and one bra, a pair of birkenstock sandals, a light jacket and a rain jacket.

On the plane I will wear a pair of long leggings with a t-shirt, and a black sweater that I can wear with almost anything pictured, and running shoes (with my orthotics cause I'm cool like that!).

We interrupt this packing post to show off this cute hairstyle I did on Anna today!

Trev has a very similarly packed bag to me.  4 t-shirts, a golf shirt, shorts, pants, underwear and socks and 2 sweaters total.

In addition to our 2 main bags, I have a little travel purse that I am bringing, and Trev has a backpack. The rest of this stuff we are shoving in between those 2 bags for the flights to try to keep our main bags under the weight limit.  So a lot of these things don't seem like they are packed in the 'right' places.  As soon as we get to our first hotel we will rearrange everything into their proper places and carry them like that for the trip.  But given that all the liquids have to be in one ziplock for example, we can't pack them in the toiletry bag, etc.  Daypack stuff will get moved to daypacks, and stuff that we will just use at our hotel will be removed from our day packs.

Toiletry bag

The non-liquid stuff we have in the toiletry bag.  Travel size deodorant to save space/weight.  A pick instead of a brush to save space.

The 2 most important items!  Our guide book (Rick Steves of Course), with sticky tabs marking the relevant sections, and my note book with all my information for the trip.  I won't tell you how many hours of work went into preparing that notebook on the right.  Everything was printed half size again and I cut a clear covered duotang to a smaller size to hold it all.

There's my little travel purse.  And for now I've shoved in there the camera, some of the liquids (my makeup liquids to join these ones:  gel, Volteran (for my foot) and hairspray.  There's some immodium (I had a horrible flight in the past and will never do that again...Imodium and tylenol are the only medicine we bring).  A travel sized makeup remover wipes.  A hairband and a scruchy (that I use when I'm sleeping).  And some earplugs.

A few other miscellaneous things things.  Mesh bags for dirty laundry before we get a chance to wash it, 2 scarves to make the outfits above look like a lot more/wrap around me when it's a bit cool in the evenings, etc, one necklace, and  our moneybelt (we actually have 2),  which we will wear the entire time we were there that will hold our credit cards, ID, passports, cash, etc.

More random stuff.  A light scarf that rolls into nothing that we use as a picnic blanket, prescription for my foot, vitamins, kleenex, Tide pen, chapstick, shaving cream, shampoo (small amount), pen, Slovenia and Croatia sections of an Eastern Europe phrase book which I ripped apart, took everything non-relevant out, and stapled back together to save space.  A pocket notebook, 2 pens and our journal (we write in it every day and it's by far the best souvenir!)

2 plates, plastic cutlery, a dollar store flexible cutting board (which we cut in half and only take half with us) and a bag of ziplocks.  We love to go to the grocery store and get supplies for a picnic and this is all we need for that (with our picnic scarf above!)

Our electronics pouch:  2 cell phone chargers, 1 fitbit charger (gotta keep counting our steps!), a mini tripod so we can take self timer selfies, 2 outlet converters, the camera battery charger and one spare battery and a portable charger in case we need to charge our phones on the go.

This little pouch holds our laundry supplies:  A flat universal sink plug, a braided clothesline (just pinch the clothes in between the stretchy braid) and some camp soap.  We'll do some laundry every 4 or 5 days or so in the hotel sink.

And we have one cable lock that we can use if we need to leave our bags somewhere so we can lock them up.

Not pictured:  Photoopies of our important documents (passports, credit cards, etc.), the daypack (just a small backpack), some Q-tips and bobby pins and elastics, our cell phones with headphones (to block out noise on the plan and listen to our audio books).  We may throw an umbrella in, we'll see how the forecast looks.  The only thing we are not bringing that we know we will need is sunscreen.  Because of the liquid restrictions, we will just buy it there.

And that's it.  What do you think?  Did we forget anything?