Packing the Right Way

Over the last eight years I have learned a few things about travel and made every mistake in the book. For our upcoming trip I decided to actually do it right and take a few days to pack. We are notorious for packing in an hour and bringing way too much. I started pulling out clothes on Tuesday night and setting them together in outfits. Allowing me to see which shoes would match everything. If I don’t take the black Capri pants then brown sandals will work as my only dressy shoes and so on. Eliminate the cardigan by packing a shawl that matches all my dresses.

On Wednesday we started gathering gear and made finally decisions on clothing. Laying things in piles to double check the amount of intended items. Now on Thursday we are putting everything into bags, by having it all set out we are able to better assess what bags will suit us best. I do want my toiletries so a checked bag is likely. In the end we are taking one medium suitcase for gear (a checked bag) and two carryon size for clothes.

I was very proud of this process until this morning when Josh asked me to double check that I had our passports. Unfortunately the answer was no, and thus ensued a mad search for the cute little folder that holds them. We had just gone through all of our boxes and bag last night while packing our things into the locker we have for storage. So it was actually missing, luckily after about 30 minutes I remembered where I had put them in a truck and Josh remembered not looking there. So after a very tense drive to work the cute little passport folder was located just where I have left it. Lucky for us the truck was still in Michigan.  Oh the drama, we definitely need a vacation now.