A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 28 – Travel Chic
May 17, 2020
Fiona Ferris calls Day 28 “Get Your Chic Travel Game On” in her book 30 More Chic Days. She shares some of her favorite traveling tips and how they help make her travel experience easy and enjoyable. She has found that planning everything out in advance – using a packing list, a travel checklist plus laying her prospective travel wardrobe out on her bed a week in advance of her travel date – makes packing for her trip much easier. With her travel capsule wardrobe carefully thought out and everything in tip-top condition, she is free to enjoy her trip from start to finish.
My family and I travel quite a bit and have done so since my youngest child was 3 1/2. As much as I enjoy exploring the world, packing for several people for a multiple week trip can be really stressful. Like Fiona, I use lists to keep myself sane in the lead-up to departure day. The travel checklist is the first pole in my “travel sanity support system.” This is the list where all required travel objects and tasks are organized. An example from our first big trip with the children (4 1/2 weeks long) would be 3 extra of my youngest child’s favorite pacifiers. An example of a task from that list would be to purchase the pacifiers at the baby goods store.
The second pole in the TSSS (“travel sanity support system”) is the actual packing list for each person (organized by item and by day (if it’s a short trip – a week or less.))
The third pole in the TSSS (“travel sanity support system”) is the “emergency chocolate stash.” (Go for the very best quality that you can find. When you need it, you really need it.)
Suitcases: giant suitcases if it’s a moving/long trip (like when we moved here to Paris the first time (for 6 months) or this time (for at least 18 months). If it’s a more traditional trip (3 weeks or under), we each use carry-on only. This can be a challenge but it’s worth the brain-work up front to truly understand what we must have from home and what can we live without (or find at our trip destination.) Normally, my husband and one child prefer a spinner type carry-on suitcase. The other child and I each swear by an LLBean underseat carry-on suitcase.
Past carry-ons have been backpacks. Last year, we did a 10-day trip that included planes, buses, boats and water taxis that encompassed Slovenia, Croatia & ended up in Venice for 3 days. We each had one backpack. Trust me – in Venice, lighter is better!)
About a week before the departure date, I lay out the suitcases in the least trafficked room of the house. When the children were young, the room had to have a door on it so I could keep them out of the suitcases. As required objects entered the house, I would toss them in the appropriate suitcase. Two or three days before departure, I would pack the children’s suitcases using the suitcase packing list. (My husband takes care of his own packing.) I have learned the hard way to do my own packing first – usually 4 or 5 days in advance. This usually means that I have a small collection of things that I know I will tuck in the night before departure.
Plane personal carry-on: small leather backpack. I usually keep my use-on-plane items always in my plane backpack (I call it my “go-bag” and I restock everything as part of my return home to-do list.). Soft fleece slippers and a pashmina-type shawl. I always have a small ziplock with my facial cleanser, toothpaste, toothbrush, facial serum, super moisturizer (usually a leave-on moisturizing facial mask) plus extra lip balm and a coughdrop or two. I also have a small travel makeup set. I bring my own plane food – I’ve found that I like my own travel treats/food better than plane food.
Now that I am typing this, I could go on for pages. I love traveling for pleasure and I also like to “optimize” for ease and fun. I especially enjoyed reading Fiona’s tips. Another good source for travel and packing tips is Karen McCann. Her blog is www.enjoylivingabroad.com and I found her book, Pack Light, Quick and Easy Tips for Traveling Everywhere With Exactly the Right Stuff, both informative and humorous, I also enjoyed Packing Light: The Normal Person’s Guide to Carry-On-Only Travel by Fred Perotta. (If you have the Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read it for free from Amazon.) There are a host of packing/travel books that I’ve looked at on Amazon but I’ve had to really pick and choose to find one that resonates with my own travel style. Fiona’s Day 28 is one of the best discussions that I’ve read on the subject.
