Packing: What's your style?

Nick-H · Jun 28th, 2005, 00:41

I've always envied the people who pack ten minutes before leaving the house and don't worry about it.

I particularly envy the people who put a shirt and a handerkerchief in a plastic bag and say, "that's more than enough for three months..."

I have two packing styles:

1. Consider very careful what needs to be takes make lists, open suitcases on spare bed and start arranging things carefully and neatly. The process will be started several weeks before leaving, and, apart from the toothbrush and razor, will be completed about two weeks before departure!

2. Accumulate a heap of stuff. a week or two before leaving, pile it into suitcases and estimate the weight, juggling check-in and hand baggage allowance. Give up in despair.
Return in a day or two and tip everything out, looking longingly at each item and deciding what must be left behind. Decide that the airlines have contrived to make any sort of post-flight life impossible. Give up in despair.
Return a couple of days before departure. Cram as much stuff into hand baggage as possible, even filling the permissible "small camera bag" with weighty small things like AC adapters to get the weight of the check-in baggage acceptable, hoping they don't weigh the hand baggage. Give up in despair, but at least, this time, packed and ready to go!

Unfortunately, this year, method 2 seems to prevail, and even though I am taking almost no clothes I am still juggling the weights! An added dimension this time is how to leave stuff for several months here in India packaged so that it doesn't get ravaged by dust, ants and other insects.

So: how do you pack?

lobo · Jun 28th, 2005, 01:25

Hmmm I actually went for 3 months with a rucksack which weighed 5.2 kg.
VERY light it was hand luggage in the plane there and back.

AllanM · Jun 28th, 2005, 01:42

I used to travel with a 50 liter monstrosity, but after a few trips, I found that two changes of clothes, a torch and my computer and I am all set.

Anders · Jun 28th, 2005, 01:49

I take out my 30l pack about 2 days before departure. Pack the laptop and coffe making equipment, pack whatever clothes and assorted things that will fit, close the zipper. After that I go and get a beer and start dreaming about the trip.

skell · Jun 28th, 2005, 01:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by lobo

Hmmm I actually went for 3 months with a rucksack which weighed 5.2 kg.
VERY light it was hand luggage in the plane there and back.

Excellent! So tell us what's in it. Were you just in warm weather? My biggest worry about packing too light is is keeping warm enough.

Nick-H · Jun 28th, 2005, 01:59

OK, folks... so make me feel really bad!

snowcrab · Jun 28th, 2005, 02:01

It pretty much depends on whether you are actually to have to survive on what you can carry with you, as you would going off into the bush or on a month long railway ride across a continent, or if you are going to be landing somewhere resembling civilization where you can buy everything you need and just leave them lying about your room when you go out for the day.

For the deepwoods trip, well you are going to need a lot but not more than you can carry, little less for a train, no cooking pots for instance. If you are just off to visit your brother in law for a week, well, couple changes of clothes, toilet articles and gifts if applicable are all you really need.

Packing up the India house will probably be more of a problem.

cyberhippie · Jun 28th, 2005, 02:58

I have a funny kind of ritual that takes places mostly the night before and the morning of the big trip!
Over the years we know what we're happy traveling with and it all lives in the bottom of a cupboard ready for the next journey to India.
Everything goes back into it's alloted slot in my pack and I zip it up then un zip it to add socks or something completely obvious that you've forgotten to put in

There are variations on this, as I occasionally get mean about what I want to carry and out comes the 30 litre pack, great idea except I then try to get all the stuff in anyway and sometimes succeed

Whilst all this is going on my wife looks on in dispair as she started getting organised two days ago and can't understand my need to leave everything to last minute.

"Hey it's just the way I do things"

I always reply, perhaps too smugly as she always has a good laugh when I suddenly realise what I've forgotten in the haste of my travel weary way of packing

Anyway that's the way I screw up packing Nick I'm sure you'll find a personal twist in how to forget that very important article you were sure you wouldn't forget!!!
The only other advice I can offer Nick is for England you're gonna need the following

1.The LP Guide:
2.A medical kit: to cover all those diseases you might come across on a trip to Gt Britain.
3 Pepper spray: for those wide boys at Kingscross.
4.A Hinglish-English dictionary: you've been away a while now.
5. Some chilli paste and a wee bag of chai masala: how else you gonna cope with all that bland food and weak tea?
6. A good pair of sunglasses: No I'm not expecting a good summer but you have to stop making eye contact, it can get you in lot of trouble in somewhere like London
7. The British Tourist Board Guide to Bollywood Film Sites: no journey to the UK is complete without this.
8. A pre booked ticket from Heathrow/Gatwick into London you know how busy the trains are (if they run at all) and a taxi with a London cabby is too frightening for the pocket even to consider.
9. The telephone number and address of your nearest Indian take away: you never know when you'll tire of eating local food and just need to splurge at a decent Indian.
10. A GPS device: optional but consider this, do you really want to ask someone directions in London???
11. Steven Ber's Tel No: in case you miss your train!!!!
12. Lastly pack your patience and sense of humour, your gonna need it, the UK can be trying for the traveller especially if you just come from the land of plenty, take it easy and break yourself in gently and remember not every Brit is a potential scam artist or mugger, it just looks that way

Enjoy your trip mate

*jyoti* · Jun 28th, 2005, 05:45

lol. I admit it! I am the first--everything is packed two weeks before and I'm living out of a suitcase up until the moment I leave. If I haven't started packing about a month before I go, I have nightmares about arriving in my underwear with no luggage!

Once, I had about 3 weeks notice to move across the country. Then my dog got hurt really bad, right before I left, so I was stuffing the tiny U-Haul the morning I left!! I still "find" things (or don't find, as the case may be) that I left behind that I wish I hadn't... And run across things that I would have left instead...

SHIMLA · Jun 28th, 2005, 07:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick-H

I particularly envy the people who put a shirt and a handerkerchief in a plastic bag and say, "that's more than enough for three months..."

I sympathise with those who'll be in the company of such people !

mira4bai4 · Jun 28th, 2005, 07:44

I do have packing down to a fine art, that's the packing as in no space left vacant and if there is too much space left, put something else in ~ you might need it. I do the packing for both of us and usually no more than a week prior do I start planning it, my wife has everything laid out weeks ahead and all nicely pressed for me to squish it all down.

So far always gone for 25kg and using suitcases, the hard plastic ones and these in themselves weigh more but it seems safer to me. I carry to much, much of it I don't use but then I am not back packing so it is not an issue yet. I roll things that can roll to fill in spaces, stuff shoes with socks and any gizmos are wrapped in clothing. It is surprising how well clothes travel rolled up (the tidy stuff) and often don't require pressing before dining out.

I once got away with a smaller hard suitcase as carry on plus a shoulder bag that was jammed with stuff, it took a bit of talking to get it on board but it enabled me to get off the big jumbo very first before the 1st class even, did a runner and away through customs and gone into the waiting masses at Delhi.

guerik · Jun 28th, 2005, 07:50

I get out my 80L pack (it's a pack with a daypack stuck on it), pack the 2-3 sets of clothes I carry around on top of the books I'll be reading.
This last trip it was a couple of full-size Eng-Hin and Hin-Eng dictionaries, my Hindi textbook, and two small version dictionaries I carried around in my daypack, plus at least 2 other books for entertainment purposes (which got traded in at used book stores all over the country). More if I was going on a long journey as I read too fast for my own good.
If I was travelling with someone, and not studying, then maybe I could be one of these superlight packers, but I couldn't bear to be separated from my books :P

camelgirl · Jun 28th, 2005, 08:16

Started years ago with a (12 kg) 26 lbs backpack for 3 months and managed freezing cold to stifling heat & had a sleeping bag. Have gotten progressively heavier and more "needy" & changed my packing needs/luggage/style as I've gotten older

I've always mentally packed a month in advance, adding & subtracting stuff in my head. Then I make a list. Then find a spot to start assembling little things I MIGHT need and it keeps growing. The day before I leave I pack and have to leave out at least 50% of what's been put out. I now take about 16 kg (35 lbs.--too heavy--got to do better next trip).

My husband packs the night before we leave and has no list and few ideas and makes me stand and watch as he pulls things out of the closet and drawers. I have veto power

He still takes too much stuff. His luggage is bigger than mine. He takes the whole bloody medicine cabinet. I bring a little first aid kit, which is what we wind up using.

I always bring a little dual voltage immersion heater (they probably still sell them at airports), 2 thermal plastic cups to boil the water in (will leave) and a couple of "emergency" beverages for when I don't want to leave my room for a cup of tea--particularly when I'm awake at 2am from jet lag. Will buy more chai as I go. I also bring ginger tea for tummy soothing and a couple of packets of instant soup--which has always come in handy after a bout of illness.

Not many clothes. A hat.
Some extra Tshirts to leave behind--& make room for purchases.
A clothes line and pegs.
A camera.
Sandels and sneakers (trainers).
Don't bring sleeping bags or water purifier anymore.
My "skeeter-defeater" bug net and loads of insect repellant and sunblock.
Paperbacks to read and leave.
and more that I can't recall.....

Indiadancer · Jun 28th, 2005, 11:14

My style is thus:

Start the panic and buying frenzy months before the trip.
One month before the trip start making lists. Make the same list over and over again only to lose them or just leave them in separate locations around the house. Panic more.
One week before the trip find a suitcase.
The night before try to jam everything in. Forget about the list, I'm taking everything. Except for the stuff I bought in the original panic. And the things I actually need. Example? I spent last summer in Germany. I mistakenly thought it would be warm. It wasn't. So I had packed about 100 pairs of shorts and tank tops. Had to buy a jacket and keep washing my two pairs of pants. Also have been known to bring socks but no tennis shoes. Or tennis shoes but no socks. Or a hair dryer when I didn't actually have much hair. You get the drift. I have come dangerously close to paying those over-weight luggage things too. I had to lug 70 lbs of assorted crap from one end of Germany to the Netherlands following a bus accident and let me tell you it was no picnic.

I leave in one month to spend 9 months in Pondy and I'm in panic phase. I shudder to imagine what my actual suitcases will look like/weigh.

Nick-H · Jun 28th, 2005, 12:42

OK, I am relieved to find that I am not the only one that goes through various degrees of psychosis on this

Cyberhippie: all good advice. You didn't mention inoculations: do I need any for UK? Pepper spray is, I think, illegal there, and I'm more concerned about the East Ham lads than Kings Cross! At least there's lots of Tamils there.

As for patience, that will evaporate the very first time I get in my car

.

Packing? Finished except for the hairbrush and razor. This time most of the stuff I'm taking is not even mine! There's 16 Kg of musical instruments, about 4Kg of clothes, 2Kg of chilly powder (plus what GF will bring for herself!)... ... ... But there's two of us travelling, so the rest will be ours. I even bought a spring balance to hang from the ceiling to check out he weights!

Jun 28th, 2005, 00:41	#1
Nick-H Loud-mouthed, Noisy Bird Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 28,368	Packing: What's your style? I've always envied the people who pack ten minutes before leaving the house and don't worry about it. I particularly envy the people who put a shirt and a handerkerchief in a plastic bag and say, "that's more than enough for three months..." I have two packing styles: 1. Consider very careful what needs to be takes make lists, open suitcases on spare bed and start arranging things carefully and neatly. The process will be started several weeks before leaving, and, apart from the toothbrush and razor, will be completed about two weeks before departure! 2. Accumulate a heap of stuff. a week or two before leaving, pile it into suitcases and estimate the weight, juggling check-in and hand baggage allowance. Give up in despair. Return in a day or two and tip everything out, looking longingly at each item and deciding what must be left behind. Decide that the airlines have contrived to make any sort of post-flight life impossible. Give up in despair. Return a couple of days before departure. Cram as much stuff into hand baggage as possible, even filling the permissible "small camera bag" with weighty small things like AC adapters to get the weight of the check-in baggage acceptable, hoping they don't weigh the hand baggage. Give up in despair, but at least, this time, packed and ready to go! Unfortunately, this year, method 2 seems to prevail, and even though I am taking almost no clothes I am still juggling the weights! An added dimension this time is how to leave stuff for several months here in India packaged so that it doesn't get ravaged by dust, ants and other insects. So: how do you pack? __________________ . Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

Jun 28th, 2005, 01:42	#3
AllanM mistri Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: St. Louis, MO US Posts: 124	I used to travel with a 50 liter monstrosity, but after a few trips, I found that two changes of clothes, a torch and my computer and I am all set. __________________ Me fail English? That's unpossible!--Ralph Wiggum

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Jun 28th, 2005, 01:25	#2
lobo Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: london Posts: 431	Hmmm I actually went for 3 months with a rucksack which weighed 5.2 kg. VERY light it was hand luggage in the plane there and back.

Jun 28th, 2005, 01:49	#4
Anders Maha Guru Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: England Posts: 630	I take out my 30l pack about 2 days before departure. Pack the laptop and coffe making equipment, pack whatever clothes and assorted things that will fit, close the zipper. After that I go and get a beer and start dreaming about the trip.

Jun 28th, 2005, 01:59	#6
Nick-H Loud-mouthed, Noisy Bird Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 28,368	OK, folks... so make me feel really bad!

Jun 28th, 2005, 02:01	#7
snowcrab Maha Guru Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Alberta, Can Posts: 1,054	It pretty much depends on whether you are actually to have to survive on what you can carry with you, as you would going off into the bush or on a month long railway ride across a continent, or if you are going to be landing somewhere resembling civilization where you can buy everything you need and just leave them lying about your room when you go out for the day. For the deepwoods trip, well you are going to need a lot but not more than you can carry, little less for a train, no cooking pots for instance. If you are just off to visit your brother in law for a week, well, couple changes of clothes, toilet articles and gifts if applicable are all you really need. Packing up the India house will probably be more of a problem.

Jun 28th, 2005, 02:58	#8
cyberhippie Account Closed by User's Request Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: the Netherlands Posts: 6,009	I have a funny kind of ritual that takes places mostly the night before and the morning of the big trip! Over the years we know what we're happy traveling with and it all lives in the bottom of a cupboard ready for the next journey to India. Everything goes back into it's alloted slot in my pack and I zip it up then un zip it to add socks or something completely obvious that you've forgotten to put in There are variations on this, as I occasionally get mean about what I want to carry and out comes the 30 litre pack, great idea except I then try to get all the stuff in anyway and sometimes succeed Whilst all this is going on my wife looks on in dispair as she started getting organised two days ago and can't understand my need to leave everything to last minute. "Hey it's just the way I do things" I always reply, perhaps too smugly as she always has a good laugh when I suddenly realise what I've forgotten in the haste of my travel weary way of packing Anyway that's the way I screw up packing Nick I'm sure you'll find a personal twist in how to forget that very important article you were sure you wouldn't forget!!! The only other advice I can offer Nick is for England you're gonna need the following 1.The LP Guide: 2.A medical kit: to cover all those diseases you might come across on a trip to Gt Britain. 3 Pepper spray: for those wide boys at Kingscross. 4.A Hinglish-English dictionary: you've been away a while now. 5. Some chilli paste and a wee bag of chai masala: how else you gonna cope with all that bland food and weak tea? 6. A good pair of sunglasses: No I'm not expecting a good summer but you have to stop making eye contact, it can get you in lot of trouble in somewhere like London 7. The British Tourist Board Guide to Bollywood Film Sites: no journey to the UK is complete without this. 8. A pre booked ticket from Heathrow/Gatwick into London you know how busy the trains are (if they run at all) and a taxi with a London cabby is too frightening for the pocket even to consider. 9. The telephone number and address of your nearest Indian take away: you never know when you'll tire of eating local food and just need to splurge at a decent Indian. 10. A GPS device: optional but consider this, do you really want to ask someone directions in London??? 11. Steven Ber's Tel No: in case you miss your train!!!! 12. Lastly pack your patience and sense of humour, your gonna need it, the UK can be trying for the traveller especially if you just come from the land of plenty, take it easy and break yourself in gently and remember not every Brit is a potential scam artist or mugger, it just looks that way Enjoy your trip mate

Jun 28th, 2005, 05:45	#9
jyoti gori ferungi ladki Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Negotiable Posts: 277	lol. I admit it! I am the first--everything is packed two weeks before and I'm living out of a suitcase up until the moment I leave. If I haven't started packing about a month before I go, I have nightmares about arriving in my underwear with no luggage! Once, I had about 3 weeks notice to move across the country. Then my dog got hurt really bad, right before I left, so I was stuffing the tiny U-Haul the morning I left!! I still "find" things (or don't find, as the case may be) that I left behind that I wish I hadn't... And run across things that I would have left instead...

Jun 28th, 2005, 07:44	#11
mira4bai4 Lost in Space Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: ND PaharGanj Permanently/Temporarily Posts: 1,197	I do have packing down to a fine art, that's the packing as in no space left vacant and if there is too much space left, put something else in ~ you might need it. I do the packing for both of us and usually no more than a week prior do I start planning it, my wife has everything laid out weeks ahead and all nicely pressed for me to squish it all down. So far always gone for 25kg and using suitcases, the hard plastic ones and these in themselves weigh more but it seems safer to me. I carry to much, much of it I don't use but then I am not back packing so it is not an issue yet. I roll things that can roll to fill in spaces, stuff shoes with socks and any gizmos are wrapped in clothing. It is surprising how well clothes travel rolled up (the tidy stuff) and often don't require pressing before dining out. I once got away with a smaller hard suitcase as carry on plus a shoulder bag that was jammed with stuff, it took a bit of talking to get it on board but it enabled me to get off the big jumbo very first before the 1st class even, did a runner and away through customs and gone into the waiting masses at Delhi.

Jun 28th, 2005, 07:50	#12
guerik Maha Guru Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 1,038	I get out my 80L pack (it's a pack with a daypack stuck on it), pack the 2-3 sets of clothes I carry around on top of the books I'll be reading. This last trip it was a couple of full-size Eng-Hin and Hin-Eng dictionaries, my Hindi textbook, and two small version dictionaries I carried around in my daypack, plus at least 2 other books for entertainment purposes (which got traded in at used book stores all over the country). More if I was going on a long journey as I read too fast for my own good. If I was travelling with someone, and not studying, then maybe I could be one of these superlight packers, but I couldn't bear to be separated from my books :P

Jun 28th, 2005, 08:16	#13
camelgirl 10 year Visa okee dokee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Swannanoa NC usa Posts: 1,099	Started years ago with a (12 kg) 26 lbs backpack for 3 months and managed freezing cold to stifling heat & had a sleeping bag. Have gotten progressively heavier and more "needy" & changed my packing needs/luggage/style as I've gotten older I've always mentally packed a month in advance, adding & subtracting stuff in my head. Then I make a list. Then find a spot to start assembling little things I MIGHT need and it keeps growing. The day before I leave I pack and have to leave out at least 50% of what's been put out. I now take about 16 kg (35 lbs.--too heavy--got to do better next trip). My husband packs the night before we leave and has no list and few ideas and makes me stand and watch as he pulls things out of the closet and drawers. I have veto power He still takes too much stuff. His luggage is bigger than mine. He takes the whole bloody medicine cabinet. I bring a little first aid kit, which is what we wind up using. I always bring a little dual voltage immersion heater (they probably still sell them at airports), 2 thermal plastic cups to boil the water in (will leave) and a couple of "emergency" beverages for when I don't want to leave my room for a cup of tea--particularly when I'm awake at 2am from jet lag. Will buy more chai as I go. I also bring ginger tea for tummy soothing and a couple of packets of instant soup--which has always come in handy after a bout of illness. Not many clothes. A hat. Some extra Tshirts to leave behind--& make room for purchases. A clothes line and pegs. A camera. Sandels and sneakers (trainers). Don't bring sleeping bags or water purifier anymore. My "skeeter-defeater" bug net and loads of insect repellant and sunblock. Paperbacks to read and leave. and more that I can't recall.....

Jun 28th, 2005, 11:14	#14
Indiadancer Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Virgina, USA Posts: 76	My style is thus: Start the panic and buying frenzy months before the trip. One month before the trip start making lists. Make the same list over and over again only to lose them or just leave them in separate locations around the house. Panic more. One week before the trip find a suitcase. The night before try to jam everything in. Forget about the list, I'm taking everything. Except for the stuff I bought in the original panic. And the things I actually need. Example? I spent last summer in Germany. I mistakenly thought it would be warm. It wasn't. So I had packed about 100 pairs of shorts and tank tops. Had to buy a jacket and keep washing my two pairs of pants. Also have been known to bring socks but no tennis shoes. Or tennis shoes but no socks. Or a hair dryer when I didn't actually have much hair. You get the drift. I have come dangerously close to paying those over-weight luggage things too. I had to lug 70 lbs of assorted crap from one end of Germany to the Netherlands following a bus accident and let me tell you it was no picnic. I leave in one month to spend 9 months in Pondy and I'm in panic phase. I shudder to imagine what my actual suitcases will look like/weigh.

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Jun 28th, 2005, 12:42	#15
Nick-H Loud-mouthed, Noisy Bird Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 28,368	OK, I am relieved to find that I am not the only one that goes through various degrees of psychosis on this Cyberhippie: all good advice. You didn't mention inoculations: do I need any for UK? Pepper spray is, I think, illegal there, and I'm more concerned about the East Ham lads than Kings Cross! At least there's lots of Tamils there. As for patience, that will evaporate the very first time I get in my car . Packing? Finished except for the hairbrush and razor. This time most of the stuff I'm taking is not even mine! There's 16 Kg of musical instruments, about 4Kg of clothes, 2Kg of chilly powder (plus what GF will bring for herself!)... ... ... But there's two of us travelling, so the rest will be ours. I even bought a spring balance to hang from the ceiling to check out he weights!