For as much travelling as I do, its pretty amazing that I’m still a terrible packer. Both that I pack too much and that I always wait until the last minute to get started. I have put together a great packing list in Excel that I print out at least a week before my trip. I look at it regularly during the week, but somehow I never manage to get started until midnight on the night before my trip. For this trip to Lebanon and Syria, I did a particularly good job of starting after 3:00 am (but that’s only because I was doing work until that time). At 3:00 am this was the state of my packing:
With a wide angle lens, I could have captured the additional chaos on the bed. I packed until 5:45 am slept for less than 2 hours then got up for the last minute stuff. Its amazing how much crap I can convince myself I need. I did try to make a sincere effort to pull out a few items at the end which helped a bit (yeah! I probably didn’t need 3 pairs of jeans), but still I’m far from the packing skills I want to have. I’d love to be that woman who has all the perfect wrinkle-free matching pieces. That woman who can fit a two week trip into a carry on bag. Hmm….would be nice, but if it hasn’t happened by this point in my travel career, I feel I just have to embrace my inner pack rat.
