Posts Tagged ‘packing’

Travelling light

Friday, October 9th, 2015 | Thoughts, Travel

travel-bag

Those of you who have travelled with me will be pretty shocked that this bag is the only bag I took when going to Blackpool for an entire weekend. Literally, this was it. No little extras, no camera slung round my neck, everything went in this one bag.

Of course it is a medium-sized sports bag, which is quite a big bag, but for me this is super light. I am not sure it has really sold me on travelling with this little stuff though. It was easy to move around, but by the time you have put some clothes, toiletries and a laptop in it, it is pretty much full.

Here is the useful stuff I had to leave out to get it down to that…

Camera

I like to bring my camera, and a couple of lenses. I gave up and decided to make do with my iPhone. Normally I could have taken some really nice photos with my full set up. Instead, I was forced to actually enjoy the moment, which was very irritating.

Toiletries

Obviously I bring some, but I coast by using Elina’s tooth paste, shampoo and conditioner. No shaver or towel either.

Guitar / piano

Okay, it would have been a struggle to bring the piano. However, I am supposed to practice every day so it is a little annoying to be without any musical instruments all weekend.

Books

I would normally bring a book a book to read. Instead, I had to switch reading to something I had a Kindle edition of.

iPad charger

Luckily for a weekend I managed to get all I needed from one charge. No space for mistakes though.

Headphones

Normally I would take two pairs. My small in-ear ones for walking around and my big noise canceling ones for when I am at the hotel, on a plane, etc. I did not bring either and it turned out I did need them when I got up at 5:45am to watch the Japanese grand prix. Luckily Elina had some I could borrow.

You almost certainly don’t take all of these items with you when you travel. But do you take some of them? I feel like I have genuinely cut out useful stuff here. It’s not just because I am a horrible over-packer.