Packing for your first long trip is something which is exciting but also daunting at the same time. Will you have enough clothes for this occasion or that occasion? What if I get asked to do this and need that item? The questions will go round and round in your head every time you pick up an item of clothing. I share with you some useful tips which will help you to condense down your packing in half. Hopefully you will find one of these useful. We are going to start this set of blogs with Clothing.
Let’s begin. Before we get onto underwear I like to answer the shoe question first. Which shoes are you going to take? Let’s say you were going to Asia, for example. When I did this for 8 months I took with me flip flops, sandals, trainers (active trainers) and my black old skool Vans (for going out). What do you think? 4 pairs of shoes, that’s pretty good going I think. You can sit there for hours questioning your Vans over your Converse, your Nikes over your Adidas. Remember though; shoes are one of the heaviest items to carry and can also take up a lot of room. Flip flops and sandals are easy to slip down the side of a rucksack. You can get light trainers, which weigh barely anything at all, to use for active days when you are on your feet for most hours. If you are worried about looking fashionable, I’m sure you will be able to find some white or black trainers which will be good for being light, active and go with multiple outfits. For the plane journeys you can wear your heaviest, in my case, Vans. Shoes lead onto the next group category.
Necessities of course are your pants and socks (bras if you are a woman). But you won’t want to take with you your whole underwear draw, so first question, how long do I want to leave your clothing without having to go to a launderette? Usually I would say a normal holiday worth is a pretty good starting point, so let’s say two weeks. That’s 14 pairs of pants, 14 pairs of socks. But are you going to need 14 pairs of socks? Are you going to a country where you are actually going to be living in your flip flops most of the time? Have a think about this. If you are going to be hiking for most of the time, they are an absolute must. But 14 pairs of socks may be bulky and also unnecessary. If you run out of socks you can always buy more socks, ok?
For women, how often do you change your bra at home? I usually use 1 of my comfiest bras and then I have 1 extra that is a bit more special, which you may want to take if you are going out for an evening. A show-off bra I like to call it. I also will take 1 sports bra with me for active days again. If you plan on a long hiking trip you may want to take 5, it’s all relevant to the destination.
Ok so we now have some of the basics. Along side these basics if you are going to a beach area you will need swimwear, you may end up living in this for a couple of days, which will prolong your laundry time. For this; 2 sets at the minimum (you don’t want to be putting on cold, wet swimwear). Again for 2 weeks you may want to take a mix of (for woman) 2 bikinis, 1 swimsuit, as an example (if you are doing a water-based activity, such as snorkeling for the day, you may be better off with a swimsuit which is why I suggest it). Most importantly stay in place so you aren’t giving anyone an unexpected surprise show underwater.
Right so we have shoes, underwear, swimwear. The next stage is going to be your clothing, we all have a lot of clothing, we all say we don’t have enough clothing. Well now that you have to leave something behind you will find a scenario in your head for every item of clothing you have. You will pick up a top you haven’t worn in over 6 months and I can guarantee you will think, well this would look nice with this skirt or this occasion. No. We ruthless. Go to items which you would wear in your home country in the season to where you are travelling to. Let me explain that a bit more; if you are going to a Summer destination, pack in your bag what you would wear in the Summer at your home. That top which may look nice, but you are never going to wear it out there, because you never wear it anyway, is a waste of space.
Bottoms; skirts, jeans, trousers, shorts, leggings. Have a think about the destination you are going to. Is it going to be very hot every day? Are the evenings going to be cold? Are you going to be doing a lot of active things? Are you going to be dressing up and going out a lot? It may be the case that you aren’t sure if its going to get cold or whether it will be hot every day. Just as before clothing can be bought out there, if you need a jumper you can buy a jumper. Try and pack items which are going to be multi use. Usually I like to be active on my trips so for me it would be more important taking 2 pairs of gym leggings (which can also be comfy evening leggings, plane leggings, or warm leggings) rather than take an extra pair of jeans. However 1 pair of my favourite blue jeans can be both casual day time and dressy evening time if paired with the right top.
Once you think you have collected your first pile of clothing that you want to take with you, I would like you to go through this pile and go through the exact same process and ask the same questions again. Chances are you can throw away 10 items of clothing in that pile. Then, guess what? Repeat the process. After this you will have dwindled your clothing down to what you need. NEED being the operative word there. If you need to repeat the process again feel free to. Remember clothing can always be bought for any occasion, you will (hopefully) be returning to these items so you will see them again. It’s not like you are leaving your only child at home. Become unattached to clothing. When you are out on your adventure you will probably only wear 50% of what you have bought out anyway.
Let me know if you found this useful. I will be diving deep into other parts of the packing process in a few sets of blogs.
LEAH HANCOX 