Everything but the kitchen sink Oct 20 '03    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Kitchen Paula Deen 12-in. Nonstick Signature Por From $35 Kyocera 6-in. Everything Ceramic Mill From $17 The Bottom Line The art of packing well is a painfully acquired one. Maybe my experiences will shorten your learning curve. This essay was originally part of a product review of my luggage set, but I posted it there before I was aware of the existence of the WC Travel category. This seems like a more appropriate place for it, so I’ve taken the liberty of separating it from the product review, updating it, and reposting here. If you’ve already rated the original review of which this was a part, please feel free to not rate it again here. Either way, I hope you find it useful - it’s the sum of my acquired knowledge after years of traveling. I've done a small amount of travel - once to South America, eight times to Europe, once to Mexico, once to Turkey, and innumerable trips within the US - and each time, manage to mispack. Not in major ways - I've never left my camera behind, or taken a bikini to the Antarctic - but it just seems that each time I get where I'm going, I discover another goof. So I started taking notes, and keeping lists, and finally - FINALLY! - got it right on my last trip. So I want to share some of my hard-gotten wisdom with you, so maybe you can avoid some of my silly mistakes. Here are a few ideas that will make your travel easier and more comfortable. THINGS TO TAKE ALONG • An extra small suitcase, empty, or a foldable exit bag that you can pack into your suitcase. (The extra wheelie suitcase is handy only if you're on a tour-bus or are going to one place and staying there. If you're not, use the folding one instead, unless you really want to lug an empty suitcase around with you.) Unless you have iron self-control or hate to shop anywhere, chances are good that you'll do some buying. We took my 21" wheelie, empty, on our Turkey trip and filled it with beautiful and inexpensive items from the bazaars. But I also bought guide-books to each of the historic places we visited, and had no way to get them home. So when I found a sturdy exit bag in a colorful Turkish rug pattern for $12, I grabbed it and we filled it with books. (Of course, that made it too heavy for the two of us to carry, but that's another story...) Anyway, the moral of this story is that I have since bought a folding bag, roomy and strong, that slips into an envelope and into a corner of my suitcase. It lives permanently in my 28" suitcase, so I can always find it. (BTW, exit bags are those light-weight bags, usually of some strong material, usually with a shoulder strap, often foldable, that people use for just this purpose - bringing goodies home.) • Extra luggage tags. In addition to tagging everything I can think of - luggage, camera bag, umbrella, exit bag - I always take a couple of extras, just in case. I have been known to buy an extra bag to haul home loot (see above,) and it's good to have everything tagged. BTW, I never put my city on my luggage tags. I put my name, street address, state, ZIP, country, and e-mail address, but never my city. I've heard too many stories of desperadoes roaming airports, checking addresses on the luggage tags of out-bound passengers, and then cleaning them out while they're away. I figure they probably aren't carrying ZIP code directories with them, so I provide enough information for my bags to get back to me if they get lost, which they have in the recent past, but not enough for the bad guys to find me without considerable effort. • A lightweight bus bag. Any tote will do. That's what I call the bag that I keep with me during the day on the bus, if I'm on a tour, or in the car if we're driving. It holds a pair of comfy sandals to wear in the vehicle or when I'm not doing heavy-duty walking, any guide-books I can't live without for the day, an extra water bottle, a sweater and hat, a reading book if we have a long schlep planned for the day, camera and film, and anything else that I might need during the day. With my bus bag, I can hop off the bus to see something without leaving my stuff strewn all over the seat, and have everything in one place at the end of the day. If I'm going to be walking all day, my bus bag is a small daypack. • Lead-lined film bags, to protect film from airport x-rays. Yes, I know the x-rays aren't supposed to damage film, but it has done so on occasion. I keep unexposed film in one and exposed film in the other. But PLEASE NOTE: If you put the bags into your checked luggage and it gets x-rayed, your luggage will very likely get opened and searched because the bag will show up on the x-ray as a large black rectangle of unknown nature. In these post-terrorist days, it's just not worth aggravating the Security people, so be sure to put the film bags into your carry-on so they can be inspected at carry-on Security. And of course, if you only shoot with a digital camera, you won’t need this. • An umbrella. No matter where I've gone, and regardless of the season and weather predictions, I've always encountered rain. Raincoats long enough to offer any protection are too bulky to drag along every day - and don't get me started about those jobbies that supposedly fold into their own pockets or an envelope - so I have a bunch of small folding brollys and keep one in each piece of luggage we own. That way, I never even have to think about packing one - it's always there. They may be heavier than raincoats, but are a lot easier to slip into my bus bag or day pack, or even my purse. • Business cards with my name and e-mail address. I keep them in my wallet, and find them handy when I meet interesting people with whom I want to maintain contact. • Soap leaves. These are small pieces of paper impregnated with soap. They come ten to a packet the size of a large book of matches. You tear one off, rub it over your hands for a good lather, and rinse as usual. I keep one in my purse at all times, because public bathrooms are often out of soap. You can get them at Crabtree & Evelyn or similar soap-and-lotion emporia. • An extra-fine-tip permanent marker, like Sharpie or Vis-a-Vis. I use them to write on film cannisters. • A supply of zip-lock baggies in various sizes. I think zip-locks are one of the great inventions of the 20th century (the others are Velcro and yellow posties.) I use them for all sorts of things, like packing damp swimsuits, or packing little fiddly things that would otherwise get lost. Another note: We were told that you can't take decanted drugs into Turkey; they all have to be in their original containers. Since I keep my pills in a pill-chest, I wasn't too happy about that. But I tossed all my pill bottles into a zip-lock and all was well. (And it turned out that no one was checking anything at C&I going into Turkey, so I could have taken my pill chest and saved myself a lot of aggro. Merde.) • I also pack a large plastic trash bag. I put it on the floor under whatever I've washed and hung up to dry, because hotel bathrooms often don't have windows and cotton knits take forever to dry unless they are hung by a window. The bag will protect the floor from drips. • For foreign travel, a flattened roll of toilet paper in a zip-lock baggie. I've found that the art of toilet-paper-making is largely unknown in some parts of the world; European varieties are skimpy, harsh, and sometimes even waxed (!), and in the third world, you may be lucky to find any at all. So I keep this in my purse and have been very glad I had it with me. (So was Penguinman, who had laughed at me... at first.) • An extra wallet . I have a heckuva time keeping my American money separated from my foreign money when I travel. So I take a small wallet along for the foreign money. It sure makes my life simpler, and I don't have to paw through my US money to find the local currency. • I have a super-absorbent towel for drying my hair, and it goes where I go. You can't always be sure of a second bath-towel in your hotel, and hand-towels are too small to wrap around the head. Mine dries very fast and takes no space. THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU GO • If there's anything that you use daily or in large quantities, break it up into small containers. I use a good slosh of Listerine every morning for my night-guard, and I pack several of the smallest size plastic bottles, rather than a single larger one, if I'm going to be gone for a while. That way, I can pitch the empties as I go, rather than lugging a large bottle with an ounce of product left inside. This is the only time I buy products in small containers. • If you travel overseas a lot, consider buying a 220-volt hair-dryer next time you go. In my experience, the dual-voltage appliances you get in travel stores are worse than useless. One morning in Scotland, years ago, as I was using my American dual-voltage curling iron on my bangs, I smelled something burning and saw smoke rising from my hair. I yanked my hand away and my bangs came with it. That's when I learned that a 110-volt appliance used at 220 will run a LOT hotter than at 110, converters be damned. It was also the day I went to Boots and invested in a 220 hair-dryer and curling iron, and a British-to-everywhere-else adapter for plugs in other countries. Since most of the rest of the world is on 220, and my British adapter covers all the plug designs in the known world (see below,) I'm all set. No more wimpy American 110 appliances that overheat, even with a converter. NOTE: On my last trip, to Prague, Krakow, and Budapest in March-April 2003, I learned that while the current on my British appliances was correct, and my adapter fit nicely into the Eastern European outlets, said outlets were recessed into the wall just far enough that the prongs wouldn’t reach. After a few days of struggling with this arrangement, I betook myself to a Czech appliance store and bought yet another hair-dryer and curling iron. So now I have two sets for foreign travel: one for Great Britain and one for the Continent. I have no plans to travel to the Far East... ANOTHER NOTE: Most hotels, motels, and B&Bs now have hair-dryers available for their guests, so you can probably leave yours home fairly safely. Or do what I did - hack off your hair so you don’t need a dryer! A FINAL NOTE: I also have a cordless butane curling iron that I sometimes carry on short trips. But it can never go into my suitcase, which gets checked into an unpressurized hold. So I usually use it for camping trips or car trips only. • I keep my toiletries kit, known in my family as a necessaire, packed and ready to go. I have a large one with two zipper compartments, one wide and one flat. I keep travel sizes of everything I need every day - toothpaste, cleanser, moisturizers, sun-block, deodorant, shampoo, hair goop, etc. - in the wide compartment. The flat one holds my comb, shower cap, folding travel alarm, long hair clips and elastics for pony-tails, band-aids, Tylenol, aspirin, Tylenol PM, Bonine for motion sickness, nail-file, and a large S-hook that I find invaluable for hanging my necessaire by its handles when the bathroom sink and floor are wet or dirty (usually in campgrounds; fortunately, I haven't ever stayed in a hotel that wasn't clean enough for me to put it down somewhere.) The whole shebang goes into a carry-on shoulder-bag, along with a folding hair-dryer (220 if I'm going overseas,) cordless butane curling iron, wine-bottle opener, Swiss army knife, change of unders, and foldable slippers and an eye-shade for sleeping on long flights. (Please note that in the post-September 11 world, the nail-file, wine-bottle opener, and Swiss army knife won't make it past Security, so they get packed into my checked suitcase. The carry-on lives in the bathroom cupboard, packed and ready to go on short notice. • I remove the address book pages from my day-book and put them into a small vinyl-covered ring binder, along with some blank paper. My day-book is much too bulky to take traveling, but this one fits into my purse. I clip medium Bulldog clips to the front and back covers and slip postage stamps, sales slips, etc., under them. Because it's always with me, I can keep a brief reminder journal of the day's activities, or make notes on anything that comes to mind. You can't find these little binders at places like Staples or Office Depot; look for them in the school supplies section at your local mega-drugstore instead. NOTE: After I lost my entire address/day book and travel journal in Prague last spring, I put my reconstructed address book on my word processing program. Now when I travel, I either select the people I want to write to and print out only their addresses, or greatly reduce the entire file and print it out, to be packed in the lid of my suitcase. • I keep a plastic grocery bag in each piece of luggage we own, for laundry. When we get home, I upend it into the hamper and put it back into the suitcase. OK, WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY PACK? True to my genetic pack-rat roots, I usually take far too much to wear, except for my first trip to Europe in 1973, when I went for three months with two pairs of trousers, a skirt, four tops, a sweater, a raincoat that doubled as a bathrobe, two pairs of shoes, three changes of unders, and my necessaire. It all fit into a shoulder-bag. Everything went with everything else and my tops and bottoms generated 12 outfits. These days, though, now that I am - ahem! - a year or two older than I was then, I need a shoulder-bag just to hold the spackle I goop onto my face every day. • Be that as it may, here is a technique I learned long ago, but only recently started trusting and using. 1. Beginning about a month before I leave, I start thinking about what to take and how to maximize a minimal selection of clothes. That gives me time to shop for the black shirt or new skirt or whatever I need. 2. About three days before I leave, I start laying out what I want to take. I make sure that everything mixes and matches, so I'll have plenty of choices. 3. Then - and this is the hard, but most important, part - I put half of it back in the closet and pack what's left. I'm sooo tired of dragging eight T-shirts and three camp shirts and five pairs of pants and two dresses and six pairs of shoes all over the world, especially since I find myself wearing the same things all the time. So I finally got smart and started trusting my planning. I've got it down to four or five tops, three pairs of pants, one skirt, a sweater or two, three changes of unders, and two or three pairs of shoes. That's what got me through a very busy three weeks in Turkey. A friend accessorizes with scarves and jewelry, but for me, vacation means just that - a vacation from such concerns. So I took a scarf to cover my hair in mosques, a funky hat for sun protection, and a bathing suit and cover-up, but that was it. If you plan carefully, you can get by indefinitely on less than half of what you think you need. Trust your instincts - you don't need all those clothes. And if you don't trust yourself, trust me. I know. • There are as many ways to pack as there are authorities on the subject. I've tried them all, and the ones that work best for me are the Flight Attendant Roll and the Steamroller Bag techniques. The former is a trick used by flight attendants; you roll each item up into a sausage and pack them tightly into the luggage. You can easily find the item you want without disturbing the rest of them. And rolling things can help keep them relatively wrinkle-free. I put a rubber-band around each roll, to keep them from unwinding. The Steamroller Bags (my term; don't go to a travel store and ask for them by that name) are large zip-locks with one-way vents at the other end. You put your items flat into it, zip it closed, and then roll the bag tightly toward the other end, forcing the air out of the valve. Once it's as tight as you can get it, unroll it again and pack it. I've used commercial ones, but find that giant zip-locks work almost as well; they don't have the valve, but you can leave the zip-lock partially unzipped until you've forced all the air out and then quickly zip it before unrolling it. I put trousers in one, tops in another, etc. I even put unders into large zip-locks. On our last trip, everything in my suitcase was in a bag and it saved enormous hassles with packing and unpacking - you just remove the bag you need and the rest of your stuff remains undisturbed. The other advantage is that you aren't packing a lot of air, so you can fit a lot more into your suitcase. The disadvantage is that the bags don’t last very long - I usually get two trips out of mine before they spring some sort of leak and no longer stay deflated. These bags are available under several brand names in travel stores. • Having discussed packing, I know that a lot of people prefer to travel with garment bags. I'm not among them, but I've done it in the past and have a suggestion for maximizing space while minimizing wrinkles: If you carefully fold each garment in half lengthwise and drape it over the bottom bar of a sturdy plastic or metal triangular hanger, you can stack several items on each hanger. I've fit as many as five pairs of pants and skirts or eight tops onto one hanger using this method. If you prefer garment bags and travel with a lot of clothes, this method could work well for you. There are lots and lots of tips for travelers, and entire shelves-full of books written on the subject, but these are a few that have made my traveling easier. If you have any more, I'd love to read your comments. Bon voyage!

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