This summer could see travel return to pre-pandemic levels as we Americans swarm out into the unknowns. We’re looking to rediscover the open roads, the open skies, the open cruise ships, and how to go viral by getting attacked while feeding a chipmunk in a national park.
This pent-up travel demand means a lot of people are out of practice, and might need some refreshers on how to make the most of their journeys, or even how to do them. Yes, you will need more than one peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a change of undergarments. Which brings me to today’s topic: Packing! It won’t be enough just to figure out how to out-navigate the hordes of zombie travelers. You also need to out-pack them. So, I’m here to offer friendly travel hacks from research I’ve done and experience I’ve gleaned during my own preparations:
• Be prepared: Amelia Earhart once said, “Preparation … is rightly two-thirds of any venture.” Unfortunately, she was lost over the Pacific shortly after, so maybe this was a bad quote to use. Instead, I will give you Abraham Lincoln: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” This is much better. Except … who gives someone 6 hours to chop down a tree? And would it really take 4 hours to sharpen that axe? I could do that in 20 minutes. Anyway, the point is made. I would add to this that no matter how much you plan and prepare, you are still bound to forget your underwear or your wife’s suitcase because you thought it wise to sit down and watch a soccer game. Dummy!
• Forgetting other peoples’ stuff: When your wife tells you her suitcase is ready and at the top of the stairs, what she means is: It’s ready, it’s upstairs and go get it! This is not just some random knowledge she is dispensing. She’s not just saying this to keep the oxygen flowing in the house. She is communicating that all of her very important stuff is there at the ready for you to bring down. And you would be wise – VERY wise! – to stop watching soccer and go up there to get it. Because I can tell you, good friend, it is not a pleasant experience if you forget it, but remember to load your suitcase into the back of the car. It also will not be cheap when you spend the first day of your trip at expensive clothing stores replacing everything YOU left behind.
• Packing cubes: Have you heard of these? They’re all the rage now. The square nylon zip-up bags that allow you to supposedly organize and neatly pack more of your clothes that you won’t wear into your suitcase. You are supposed to, again, “neatly” roll up your clothes, thereby preventing wrinkles, as well as making them more compressed and easy to pack. Plus, you can tell all your friends: “I use packing cubes!” The reality, and I suggest you just get-good with this, is: You’re terrible at rolling clothes! You have no idea what this is all about, or how to do it, and when you arrive, your outfits will look like you balled them up and threw them in the hamper. This is OK for one very simple reason: No one else knows how to use packing cubes, either, so their clothes will also look like they’ve been runover by a car.
• Overweight suitcases: If you’re flying, you run the risk of overpacking and missing weight when you go to checkin. Should this happen, my suggestion is not to discretely pull off to the side and begin shifting stuff around. Rather, start yelling that there’s no way your clothes weigh that much because you use “PACKING CUBES!!!” and then start waving your underwear around until the airline employees either relent and let you through … or call security. Either way, you’ll be on your way.
• Odds and ends: This is a really important one. Make sure to pack some things so well that you ensure you will never find them. For instance, a corkscrew. Or your medicine. Or your boarding passes. To do this, you really need to find those hidden compartments in your suitcase, or jam it way down into the parts you never reach. If you do it right, you’ll never find it again. I did that with a flashlight about 10 years ago. I literally just found it while searching for my corkscrew.
• Be patient: I throw this in with packing because you need to realize that after all of this hard work, the airline is either going to lose your luggage or you’ll do a shoddy job of strapping it to the roof and it will fly off the minute you hit the interstate. That is, if you don’t forget it at the top of the stairs. But any way you look at it, you’re going to be spending the first day of your trip at a mall buying a whole new wardrobe. So, just relax, go with the flow and remind yourself what Amelia Earhart said … right before she was lost over the Pacific.