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Travel thoughts
Packing for travel is often more stressful than traveling. My wife and I have traveled the world for several decades, so we have learned through trial and error how to balance what we absolutely need to bring to avoid lugging the stuff around the planet that we should have known we would never need. We never check our luggage. If you check luggage your vacation is at the mercy of a vast bureaucratic system that is not your friend. Everything we think we need has to fit in a carry-on piece of luggage and a backpack no matter how long the trip is. It should go without saying that we differ on what constitutes the essentials.
We differ on shoes of course. I won’t denigrate Mrs. Pessimist’s choices but I stick to a lightweight pair of hiking boots that are waterproof and very comfortable. I only wear them for travel and serious hiking. You can recognize good hiking boots by the spots of epoxy glue that repair the worn seams. I haven’t worn them for a while, but when I tried them on yesterday, I thought, “I may sleep in these things.” I also bring simple lightweight rain gear. A camera, some deodorant, charging wires, and travel clothes that can be washed in the sink and worn the next day.
I am not a professional photographer but I look and travel like one. Professional travel photographers look like they have 40 pounds of camera equipment on their backs and one change of clothes. Mrs. Pessimist does not dress or look like a professional photographer but she still packs a lean and mean backpack.
I am posting this just before getting on a plane that I hope will take us to Scotland. By the time I read your thoughts about essential travel gear, it will be too late, but they will be appreciated nonetheless.
Published in Travel
Forget the gear, let’s see some photographs of your trip! :-) How has travel changed since Covid? How about your destinations?
My grandparents traveled all over the world. My grandmother would put the opened suitcases (this was a long time ago :) ) on a guestroom bed for a couple of weeks before their departure. That would give them time to think about what to put in and what to take out. :)
I can’t imagine traveling for more than a couple of days using just carryon luggage. That said, I know there are some travel clothing lines available that are astoundingly lightweight and easy to wash and pack. It’s fascinating stuff. :)
I too am devoted to hiking boots. My son-in-law used to work for REI, and he bought me some for Christmas one year. They were the best shoes I’ve ever had. I would love to see the design used for people with mobility issues. What distinguishes hiking boots from regular sneakers and shoes is the very rigid sole. The hard sole creates an instant flat stable walking surface no matter where you are or what you are walking on.
Enjoy your trip. :)
Mrs. Pessimist follows your grandmother’s packing regimen. Your description of the benefit of good hiking boots is spot on. I think my hiking boots look much better than Joe Biden’s mobility shoes.
Check out James Lileks’ Bleat from last week. His photographs are always better than mine. I have traveled five or six times overseas since covid hit and have seen no changes. I did have to extend my stay in Rome for five days in 2021 when I tested positive for covid the day before flying back. That was an expensive change but I still enjoyed the extra days of vacation. It would have been a longer vacation if I had not figured out how to cheat on the covid test.
I hiked all over the White Mountains in them. Amazing shoes. I really loved them and my son-in-law for getting them for me. Getting to top of the mountains . . . :) What a gift. :)
Mrs Tex flew everywhere with a surprisingly small travel rolling bag. Mostly carried it herself but FedEx crew have lots of deadhead flights on passenger carriers and her bag never was lost (27 years). Since she retired I’ve noticed she is more generous in her packing regimen.
I also travel with a pair of low hiking boots, but typically with a softer sole than climbing boots. Years ago I remember reading that black jeans are excellent travel wear as they can look a bit nicer than regular jeans. The last Europe trip we did was at Christmas time so zip up fleece was the order of the day.
It’s a victory if I return home and have worn everything I packed.
Scotland is wonderful. This is Mrs Tex on the French knights’ parapet from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Castle Donne). It amazed me how many places in Scotland we had seen in movies.
In addition to comfortable hiking shoes I wear a travel jacket that is water resistant and has huge interior pockets that can separately hold my iPad, phone, wallet and travel documents. I feel like a terrorist wearing a bomb but I would never say that out loud in an airport.
After decades of travel, and for every single trip making a list of what to bring, I decided only this year that I could reuse such a list. For Uruguay in September 2024 I will prepare exactly as I did for Argentina in September 2023. Wish me luck!
Something I now bring on overseas trips is a compass. This would hardly be necessary for Scotland – at least I think it wouldn’t be – I’ve never been there – but for tours between the Tropics, I just can’t figure out directions. Sometimes the sun is in the northern half of the sky, sometimes it’s in the southern. Doesn’t take much to confuse me!
Ok, advise me. How does one pack for carryons only, to spend 11 days in Amsterdam, attending concerts every night at the Concertgebouw? Jeans and sneakers are out.
Except on my October 2020 trip to Brazil, having to prove overseas-acceptable health insurance, and wear a mask the whole time on long flights, and submit to this or that temperature check entering a town or a shopping mall, I too have seen no changes. But speaking of photography…I think even now, everywhere, you can still take pictures of surviving social-distance markers and face-diaper nagging. Those placards and stickers and decals just haven’t been peeled off!
From Honduras back in March of this year:
Have your clothes shipped ahead of your visit. :) :) :)
Packing is always more challenging than I think it will be. It takes me probably well over an hour, and I end up getting hangry and despairing, finally fueling up with some lunch before I can resume all the decision making. My daughter and I are boarding a plane tomorrow, and she is urging me to start packing tonight. That is probably wise.
Easier for a woman, as our clothes and shoes are smaller (generally speaking!). I’d pack a nice a-line black skirt and roll 3-5 pull-over tops and wear a nice sweater or blazer on the flight and wear one pair of comfortable, but nice looking, black flats and pack another. If I had room, I’d add a simple black dress. The rest I’d do with jewelry (pearls!), scarves, changes of hairstyle, etc. I guess the male version would be nice black trousers, a white, light blue, and striped or checked button shirt, two or three ties to mix and match. Sweater or blazer can be worn on the plane. Two pairs of decent shoes (they get stinky/icky if worn every day), one worn the other packed. Underwear, socks, etc. don’t take much room. Then toiletries, meds, etc. It can be done.
They weren’t hiking boots, but I got a pair of thick, lined boots to wear on our trip to Russia. My feet never got cold, even walking around outside at -30 degrees . . .
I go with hiking shoes by Merrell, though I recently acquired waterproof running shoes. Next time will be a toss up between those. We usually go somewhere with beaches, so some sort of sandal is a must, and those don’t take up much room.
The photography bag travels inside my carryon (a high-quality backpack). For our trip to Curacao, I took a photo ball/lensball and that was a big mistake. Security personnel didn’t know what to make of it, and it has liquid in it. The carryon will also have a change of clothes in case the checked bag is lost, plus charging cords for phone and Kindle, reading glasses, car rental agreement, house rental agreement, all kinds of stuff. The backpack itself is a key functional item for our activities, which usually include day trips to explore the destination as much as possible. Our son is always insistent on a boat excursion of some sort.
My kids are 12 and 13, so one key item is a recharging station with multiple outlets and USB ports (photo). It’s never let us down. I fried a media player in Puerto Rico by plugging it directly into a wall, but the recharging station has surge protection.
Be sure to check with your mobile phone company on their international plan. These seem to be uniform in the Caribbean/Central America region, and the plan is surprisingly reasonable. It charges for use by 24 hours, so, if you’re careful and keep it on airplane mode when it’s not needed, you can save money. We use the phone for car navigation and rarely stay in one location the whole trip. Always use Waze when abroad, Google Maps will steer you wrong.
Nobody has explained how they bring their bicycle as carry-on luggage. I always check mine. It fits in a suitcase and weighs just under 50 lbs, so goes as regular luggage. The airlines never check the dimensions, but always check the weight.
I’ve heard of people taking their Bromptons and fitting them into an overhead bin, but that might be an urban legend. And while Bromptons are good city bikes, and while some people take them on cross-continental tours, I want a bicycle with a more normal gear range, like my new Bike Friday New World Tourist. Bike Fridays are also made in the USA.
Packing cubes. That is how you travel with just a carry-on and a backpack.
I don’t know if they help me pack lighter, but they certainly help me to be more organized about it.
I’ve never even tried!
Me too. Or I always did, up to the last time I ever flew the thing somewhere, which was 2014.
I am impressed! That there is such a thing, for bicycles. But after you arrive, where do you put the suitcase? Do you bungee it to the back of your bicycle?
Me, I stick the little vehicle in a box if I can get one, a box I throw out at the airport after arrival, but otherwise in a denim bag I made in 1985 and still have. Some airlines are skeptical but none has refused carriage.
Here is some travel trivia: when FedEx crews take off for long trips they sometimes need extra pilots (trips like Memphis to Japan). After take off they take turns going back to the sleep pod and change into sweats or PJ’s for the long stretches and only change back into their uniforms for landing. I assume that’s cargo carriers only since the passenger carriers can’t have passengers seeing it.
It’s a problem if you’re not going back home the same way you came. In those cases, each situation is different as to what you might work out.
It’s also a problem for any of the bicycle luggage you can buy these days for traveling by air with a regular bicycle. Given that airline fees for bicycles transported this way are not so bad these days compared to what I was hearing 20 years ago, it might seem there is no point in traveling with a folding bike that you can put in a (large) suitcase that goes as regular luggage.
However, if rental cars or train travel are involved, the smaller package is still an advantage. I travel with my wife, who likes to travel but doesn’t ride. What works for us is staying several days at one location while I get in a few day rides. I kind of like getting to know the area in and around one small city before we pack up and go to the next place. The smaller package works well for that.
Bike Friday also sells a kit that can be used to turn your suitcase into a trailer. One Bike Friday owner told me he had no trouble traveling across Dublin that way, but that’s an example of a place where I do not want to be towing a trailer. My old suitcase was getting pretty beat up to the point where I had to use a couple of straps to hold it together. I wondered what would happen when TSA decided they wanted to look inside (which happened once when it was in better condition). So with my new Bike Friday (a model that takes wider tires) I bought a new case, but the case they’re selling now is a softer-sided one and I wonder if anyone really uses this one as a trailer.
This first time we visited Ireland, back in 1999, I took a regular touring bike in a cardboard bike box and left the box at the Shannon airport in a room where people left boxes. I wrote up my experience at the time, but now I just don’t remember whether I found the same box for the return trip or got a different one from the room.
That’s interesting about your denim bag. Back in the early 70s I made camping bags from denim, and have hung on to one or two of them. I hadn’t thought of making a bicycle bag from denim. Bike Friday sells a travel bag that one can use for intermodal travel involving trains that allow bikes if they are protected by a bag. I bought one for my new bike, but haven’t used it yet. I have heard of people using a soft-sided bags like that for airline travel, but I haven’t wanted to risk it yet. I have a hunch that your denim bag weighs less than the bag that Bike Friday sold me.