I have recently come to terms with the fact that I am not a natural born packer. In order to be a natural born packer you must possess a certain set of skills including rationalisation, spatial awareness, a penis and at least a level 10 at Tetris. So over the past few months I have had to learn the art of packing the hard way…by trial and error.
Trial and error packing is risky business, Bear Grylls stuff, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who values clean underpants and a toothbrush. So being the humanitarian that I am, I will share with you all a few of the basic when it comes to putting your life in a bag.
Don’t be afraid to embrace your inner traveller
One of the great things about travelling is the high turnover of people you meet once and will never see again. This removes the very real danger of being seen in the same outfit twice. All you need is a pair of jeans, a black top, a light jumper, a pair of undies for each day, bra, socks, comfy walking shoes and a hat.
If you’re ever worried about looking substandard don’t. The Perve Scale is a fluid thing and will automatically realign itself depending on your surrounding environment including hostels, capital cities, all public transport and dodgy nightclubs.
The perve scale in action
Rock n’ Roll
I have spent many years artfully dodging having to iron my clothes and have maintained the belief that pure body heat will dewrinkle them for me. However if you need a little more than this, you should roll your clothes instead of folding them. Not only will this be less physically demanding, but it will also save you some much needed space.
Best left behind
Things that take up the most space such as towels, linen and shampoo are usually provided for you at the hostel and if not can be bought for a small price. Some hostels even go one step further and offer you a range of eco-friendly options such as this place.
Hans Brinker budget hostel
Keeping it in hand
One of the best pieces of advice I can give is only taking only what you can carry. The majority of airlines will let you to print off your boarding pass and avoid the painfully long check-in lines for those who have not read this post and packed excessive luggage. Serves them right. If you can go one better, try to fit it all into a backpack which will give you the agility needed to jump between trains, hurry up stairs and run away from Gypsies.
Zip It
Due to toothpaste related terrorist activities, you are not allowed to take any liquidish items on the plane over 50mls and those under must be kept in a separate clear bag. If you want to save some time lining up, grab a zip lock bag from home and put everything in such as toothpaste, deodorant and even chap sticks.
Thanks toothpaste terrorist
Welcome home
Every time you reenter a country have to announce your non-citizen status by filling in an arrival/landing/incoming card. If you would like to avoid the brutal race between strangers who have been stuck in a confined space for hours, I suggest you discretely flog a small stash of these next time you go through and keep them in your passport holder for future use. That way you can fill them in before you land and be the first one through passport control. Not that I’m competitive.
Become a seat guru
This may not be directly ‘packing’ related but will possibly be the most useful piece of information you will ever receive. I hope you are sitting down for this. Seatguru.com is a website worthy of sainthood as it has performed the miracle of being able to predetermine what the best and worst seats are on your flight. Simply enter in your flight details and presto, a detailed review of each seat on the plane. You can then take this information, log into your airlines website and make the appropriate changes to your booking. Note: it may only be the larger airlines that offer this service.
The magic of seatguru
Adapt or die
Last but not least, the answer for the dickhead who decided to have a different power plug for each country. You need to get yourself this nifty little thing called the Universal Adaptor. It will probably set you back around £17.00 but it pays for itself when it comes to charging phones, cameras and other gizmos.
