The Travel Sage
9 Tips for Ladies Packing Light
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If your trip includes multiple destinations and traveling without a tour company, then packing light will make for a much more relaxed and enjoyable trip. This is especially true if you’re traveling through cities without a car. It is stressful to haul multiple bags up stairs, across cobbled streets, in and out of trains, etc.
Tip #1 – Set a goal. Decide which suitcase you want to fit everything into. Consider whether you will also need an additional carryon, and if so, make sure you can easily carry both items. It’s great if your carryon is a backpack, but if not, be sure that it will easily strap to the top of your rolling suitcase.
Tip #2 – Start packing days or even weeks in advance of your trip. I find that the earlier that I start packing the less I will bring. That may sound counter-intuitive since you are allowing yourself more time to add stuff to your suitcase, but if you start out with the intent of getting everything into one particular suitcase, having more time allows you to better plan.
Tip #3 – For extended trips, be sure to consider the availability of laundry facilities when choosing a hotel or Airbnb rental. Laundromats can be a pain and are sometimes costly. (I once spent 50 Euros in Italy to wash and dry 3 loads of laundry in a laundromat!) Instead, opt for hotels with onsite laundry facilities or apartment/house rentals that include a washer and dryer. It may not be necessary for all of your accommodations to have laundry facilities, just estimate when you are likely to run out of clean clothes and be sure that you’ll be in a place with a washing machine at that time.
Tip #4 -Choose just one or two color schemes. I have a serious shoe fetish and I can easily fill a whole suitcase with just shoes if I don’t limit the color of clothes I bring. On my first road trip as an adult, I packed 18 pairs of shoes for a 7 day trip. All those shoes wouldn’t fit into a suitcase so I carried them in a large black trash bag. That got a few laughs. Don’t do that! Perhaps you can choose light colored clothes that all go with either beige shoes or white shoes. And then all of your darker color clothes can coordinate with either a black or brown pair of shoes. The same thing goes for packing shirts. Don’t pack a top that only goes with brown/beige pants if all of your other tops go with black or white pants.
Tip #5 – Pack multi-purpose shoes. Do you have shoes that are comfortable to tour in during the day but also look attractive enough to wear out to dinner in the evening? If not, now’s the time to buy some!
Tip #6 – Choose pants and skirts that can be dressed up or dressed down. I recently purchased this skirt in black from Amazon to wear with a couple sparkly tops for formal night on a cruise, but some people wear the same skirt with tank tops and sneakers. In fact one of the “fancy” tops I bought works great with a pair of jeans.
Tip #7 – Bring undershirts. You might think that it’s impossible to pack light in winter because cold weather clothes are too bulky to squeeze into one suitcase. But I actually have an easier time packing light in the winter. My trick is to pack light undershirts that I can wear under 2 or 3 sweaters. This allows me to re-wear my sweaters numerous times without having to wash them. This trick could work in warmer temperatures too if your over shirts aren’t very skimpy but your undershirts are. Sometimes I steal the undershirts that my husband has outgrown and cut out around the sleeves and the neckline to keep it from showing.
Tip #8 – Don’t go overboard preparing for every possible emergency. Non-clothing items can quickly add a lot of weight to your suitcase. You should pack that sunscreen, but perhaps you can skip the aloe cooling gel that you planned to bring in case you get a sunburn. You might also consider skipping the calamine lotion for bug bites and the peroxide in case someone gets a cut. However, let me qualify this – if you are going into the Australian Outback, go ahead and bring those things. But for most trips you’ll likely be in close proximity to a store where you can buy these things if necessary.
Tip #9 – Plan to layer. Layering is especially important when your trip will include variable climates. Don’t try to pack separate outfits for warm and cold weather. Instead pack for warmer weather with items that can be added for the colder days. One item in particular that I recommend is a rain jacket with a removeable fleece vest. This can keep you dry in rainy weather, and with the vest added it becomes a warm coat.