G & J away from home

Thursday, 26 May 2016

On this travelling light lark I do want to be able to get everything in one bag - the 'worst case scenario' situation where it's better not to have a the day pack to look after as well.  This wouldn't be flights (because the day pack will be a cabin bag then), or even trains (because on our marathon train journey from St Malo in France to Interlaken in Switzerland I will probably have the day pack with me while my bag may be in a luggage storage area).  The only-one-bag scenario is more for walking from place to place to meet public transport, checking in to and leaving hotels and using taxis - that sort of thing.  Those times when having just the one bag to deal with would be helpful.

So, just excluding the minimum of items to wear (hot weather clothes, sandals, Kindle bag with Kindle, passport, and camera) I packed everything else in my bag.

It was not easy.

Little bag bursting at the seams

After much agonising, packing, and repacking the little orange bag weighed 11.4kg, which is about what I expected from the trial pack as checked bag + cabin bag weights.  It's possibly a little heavy for me to be back-packing around any great distance but the problem is that there's a distinct lack of room even after I've put aside the laundry kit and bag scales to go in Gary's bag, swapped the day pack for a draw-string bag, and reluctantly eliminated a couple of bits of clothing.  The items causing the difficulties are my raincoat (not very compact) and my sturdy shoes (in case of snow or rain).

I tried a few different arrangements and then documented what's in there and how it is packed:

Laptop and documents

The laptop would be in the day pack (acting as a cabin bag) for flights.

Open side organisation

Closed side organisation

Everything back out of the bag

The items above plus what I would be wearing (below) are everything I'm taking.

Wearing

Unless I change my mind ...


4 days to go.

Edited to add: Springwatch (one of my favourite tv programmes in the UK) is counting down to their start date which is, coincidentally, the day we set off.  So, today my Facebook news feed had this:


Why yes, thank you for asking.  I believe I am getting excited!
 

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