I have a confession to make. And I’m thinking most of you reading this share my affliction—if we want to call it that. I over pack. A lot. It’s a real problem. The situation is this: I consider almost every scenario that might occur on my trip, and I feel I must be prepared in terms of outfits. (Jewelry packing is a whole other issue.) Let me use a micro trip as an example. When I pack for a weekend at the lake, first to go in the bag are jammies, personal items and swimsuits. Plural on the water wear because putting on a wet swimsuit is not my idea of comfort. Who’s with me?
Next, I pack clothes for: warm weather, stifling temps (The cabin’s air conditioning systems are not ideal.), rain, wind (The north wind off the lake can drop temperatures quickly.), bonfire nights (One must guard against mosquitoes.), trips to town to shop (I kinda want to look cute.), cocktails at the neighbors (The family on one side of us is from Dallas and always snazz it up Texas style for social time!), outdoor tasks (There are always jobs to do.) and cozy clothes to curl up with a book or my favorite community lifestyle magazine (wink). That’s just for three days. The situation is exponentially worse when I’m up there for two weeks. And we haven’t even covered what happens when I go on a real trip.
When I read Kristie Smith’s article about intentional packing, I knew I had found cure for what ails my packing troubles. I tried the capsule approach, to some degree, on a trip to New York City. While I still included way too much in my suitcase, I kept my outfits’ color stories to black, white and beige, and I found it so much easier to swap items in and out to create far more outfits than even I had anticipated. Tips from Deephaven’s Paige Epsky of Same Paige Styling encourage me to take my packing to the next level—actually, down a notch.
What travel packing secrets do you have to share?
Happy Trails,
–Renée Stewart-Hester
