Packing Diet

There are a million sites out there recommending what to pack—and what not to pack—when planning a long trip. Do a quick google search on minimalist packing and there are more than 1.5 million pages found. (Doesn’t sound very minimal to me!) And of course, there’s the old adage, credited to Susan Heller, that states: When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. (Apparently, it’s also a blog!) That’s great, if you have extra money. I’ve laid out mine, and it’s not as much as I’d like to take over with me—and I certainly have no way of doubling it in less than a week (short of going to Vegas and more likely halving it).

Additionally, I’m not going on a round-the-world trip. I’m moving country. I will have an apartment (hopefully!), I will have a kitchen, I will have a bedroom that I’ll want to set up in a comfortable (albeit modest) fashion. Obviously I’m not planning on bringing pots and pans (though my heavy-duty stainless steel garlic crusher is going with me—it’s made the move from LA to NY to Paris and back again, and is always one of the first items on my packing list!), but how do you pack for a year in a new country when you don’t have the cash on hand to just “buy it there” for everything you’ll need? Yes I will be bringing my computer, yes I will be bringing a few favorite/important books (The Sun Also Rises [Hemingway], Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters [Salinger], and a few of my own published French to English translations [you never know when you may meet a potential client!]). It’s not like I’ll be hopping on a flight every four days. What comes with you and what stays at home (or more likely, gets relegated to the local thrift store)?

The answer to this question will vary depending on how attached you are to personal possessions, your storage options back “home” (I’ve got open-hearted parents with an attic, who will keep old personal documents and tangible childhood memories for me), and other factors, but I still can’t say what the precise answer is for me. All I know is that I don’t want so much stuff anymore!

Every move I’ve made has entailed two checked suitcases (one of which has been fondly nicknamed “the gorilla”—and inevitably ends up overweight), one full backpacker’s backpack with internal frame as a carry-on, and one large overnight bag as my “personal item”. I can carry all these things myself up and down busy metro stairs—a personal rule I set for myself when I first left Los Angeles at age 17—but do I really need all that stuff?

So this year I’m going on a packing diet, slimming down, and nixing the gorilla. Round one of packing was completed last week when I moved out of my apartment, but even just taking the one suitcase and backpack over to the folks’ house made me realize they were a bit overstuffed, so round two commences tonight—more slimming! The goal is to be able to live out of the backpack when I arrive in Madrid, since I will be hostelling it up until I find an apartment and I don’t want to have to deal with digging through two pieces of luggage to find that elusive belt or second shoe. Ideally this way I will also be able to leave the suitcase in luggage storage at the airport or at a friend’s house so as to minimize risk at the hostel itself—it’s easier to lock up one piece of luggage than two.

I’ll let you know how it goes later this evening! There’s a strong incentive to succeed—a second checked bag will run me $70, but an overweight bag will cost $200!

What silly, sentimental, possibly too-heavy-to-really-justify-packing things do you take with you on trips or moves? Why?