I love to travel, but I hate to pack. I don’t hate trying to organize the items that I’m taking into my suitcase, that part is actually fun, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, given that I’m a professional organizer. What I hate is trying to decide what to take. As a result I historically hauled around way too much on my vacations.
When presented with an opportunity recently to spend a week in Paris, I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to change my ways and downsize from my large blue suitcase to my smaller blue carry-on case. My initial goal was to limit myself to “fewer” pairs of shoes (the last time I was overseas, I took eight pairs) and a “reasonable” amount of clothing, whatever that means.
In addition to setting these somewhat vague limits, I thankfully took the initiative to consult with a number of individuals, including three colleagues and my mom, on how they manage to travel light. Those consultations truly opened my eyes and I greatly appreciated the advice these individuals gave me.
What made the biggest difference for me though, was a shift in my perspective. You see, my travel perspective has always been to “plan for all eventualities”, which factors in thoughts, such as:
• maybe we will go out to a fancy dinners after sightseeing all day
• maybe I will wake up early and exercise every morning
• maybe a cold / warm front will come through, or maybe it will rain a lot
In planning for all of these eventualities though, I was overwhelming myself and my suitcase. The new travel perspective I adopted and which ended up serving me well was “ready enough for eventualities.”
Ready enough for eventualities resulted in me getting real with myself and concluding:
• we could still have plenty of wonderful French meals without getting dressed up
• I wouldn’t need to exercise in the mornings because we would be walking a lot during the day
• dressing in layers and taking one rain jacket would allow us to stay warm enough and dry enough 95% of the time
This new perspective of “ready enough for eventualities” resulted in my husband and I each packing for a week in Paris in carry-on suitcases and still coming home with clean clothes.
Tomorrow – Tips for reducing how much you need to take and still be “ready enough for eventualities”.