The most important of all to take with me!

This picture makes me happy. Here I am writing about the weight and size of this that and the other and I almost forgot to mention the most important thing to remember to take on vacation. A loyal travel companion. I don’t post a lot of personal pictures here but I mention Donna so much I felt you deserved a formal introduction. We have been married 25 years and Europe would be nothing without her. This picture was taken just before we boarded in Paris for London. She actually looks like she is traveling pretty light here. Her bag in the picture is just a tad bigger than the one she is taking to Switzerland.

Maximizing the quantity to weight packing ratio

I am just about there. For giggles, I took three pair of my favorite jeans and weighed them. They came in at 4.5 pounds on the bathroom scale. I then took my carefully selected vacation clothes and weighed them as well. I immediately saw the benefit. Basically, for the same weight as three pair of jeans, I was able to pack four pair of pants and four shirts. Two pair of the pants can convert into shorts. The other two are more tailored so I can get by in a decent restaurant with them. Everything was bought to go together so I can mix and match to my hearts delight. The brands I selected were a combination of Columbia Titanium, North Face and REI. What’s more, everything is made of synthetic blends that are noted for quick drying properties. This way they will shed water quickly on the trail and dry overnight from a good hand wash if necessary.

Filling up but room to spare

Above is how the bag is coming together. As you can see, even with four complete changes of clothes including shorts, there is still quite a bit of room in the bag. Next I added a total of seven Gap and Banana Republic spandex/cotton t-shirts. I can easily layer these for warmth or wear them by themselves. They are very comfortable and do not wrinkle. Oh, my light jacket will go in my backpack. The tripod has to stay on top in case of inspections at the airport. My goal is to keep it below the zipper line to keep it protected from rough handling. So far so good. Obviously we are planning to do laundry at least once either with a service or in the room.

I think I am going to make it!

I still have outer pockets available as well as most of the inside of the top of the bag for my personal items and what ever Donna has trouble getting in her bag. The top of this bag can be unzipped to expand about an inch, which may help if we get in a pinch. Hey, that rhymes! I will also have my camera/backpack bag for the on-the-go stuff. I suppose the backpack is next. I will have to do that after I get back from the east coast next week.

I hope you all are having a fabulous day!

A rainy day in Versailles - Still breathtaking!

Shoes are always a problem. They take up a ton of room and given the way we travel, one pair usually will not cut it. For some reason, I don’t like wearing shiny new running shoes on vacation. I feel like they say “tourist” almost as loudly as a Hawaiian print shirts and seer sucker shorts with black business socks.

A rainy day in Rome - Who is complaining?

When we went to Rome, Paris and London a couple of years ago in early May, it rained many days but not all day. We would generally wake up to wet streets and throughout the day a storm or two would roll over and dump a fair amount of water on us. We stayed near the city centers in all three places, which put us within walking distance of just about everything. That was good and bad. Bad in that we almost always got caught in the rain at some point. We did have umbrellas being the good planners we are, but our feet…well…got soaked. And things don’t dry overnight in these conditions!

A rainy day in London - Time for waterproof shoes!

The beauty of Switzerland surely has a lot to do with the amount of rain it receives on an annual basis. Despite picking an optimal time to go as far as weather is concerned, we are quite sure our feet are destined to be in or near water at one point or another. So, the task at hand is to pick shoes that look good on the trail as well as in the city, are light, and are waterproof.

My foot protection of choice for Switzerland and Italy

We ended up selecting Merrell Gore-Tex Cross Trainers. They are remarkably light, easy on the eyes, waterproof, and rugged enough for hiking and comfortable for long city walks. We bought them early so we could break them in gradually before we go. Frankly, Merrells are quite comfy out of the box. Now, the Merrells are not going to cut it for a swanky dinner in Bellagio on Lake Como. For such occasions, I will sacrifice some space in my bag and carry a pair of Mephisto slipons that I bought in San Francisco a while back. They too are light and also have a low profile for easy packing. I fill them with socks so that they maintain their shape during the long journey.

Already looking tight - I hope it all fits!

I hope you don’t find this terribly boring. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff and I hope someone sees some merit in it. I guess in the end, I think it pays to think things through so that we are able to spend more time enjoying the vacation and less time fussing with stuff. Tomorrow, I start weighing clothes!

FIrst things first...sizing the carry-on

Call me crazy but I thought it would be fun to do a series on packing for overseas vacations. I am always amazed when I see huge bags being hauled around by tourists when I go on trips. I like to think of packing as a science. I even have Donna thinking this way and trust me, it has been no small feat to convince her to pack lighter and more efficient. When traveling for work, there is no mercy for the uninitiated. When my co-worker Brian went on a Europe trip with me, he showed up at the airport with an enormous bag plus a briefcase. We were only going for three days! I could not resist and asked him if he had gotten the luggage from the Ivana Trump collection. He learned very quickly while hauling the bags up and over train platforms in England that he needed lighten up on the next trip.

I am still learning how to make my overseas travels more efficient so I like to try and continuously improve my methods each time I travel. My packing is a bit more complicated than average because I haul a fair amount of camera gear too. I have carefully selected my camera gear not only for picture quality but also for a weight and convenience factor. And, because I shoot HDR, I always take my tripod with me.

So, the picture above shows where I start. This the only piece of luggage I will take (Donna has her own) on our two week trip except for a moderate sized backpack that has also been carefully selected for my needs. I will highlight that in another post. This bag, which I bought at Target for $85.00 is perfect. It will fit front-to-back in just about any overhead airplane luggage compartment. I carry on whenever I can because airlines lost our bags a couple of years ago in Italy and it took Donna four hours on the phone with three countries to find them. Not worth it!

Although Rick Steves recommends a backpack-like suitcase, I still prefer to have a wheeled option when I travel. If we encounter cobblestone streets or stairs, this bag is still very easy to pick up and carry by the handle. If the bag is too tall, you have to haul it in an unnatural way to keep it from dragging on the floor. At 23″ it is short enough to be lifted easily by most people.

Now for the packing. First off, I like to pack my tripod in the bag. The tripod you see is about the sturdiest one you can buy with the lowest weight factor. It is a Gitzo GT1541T Series carbon fiber tripod with a specially made Markins Q3T ballhead. Specially made, meaning the design of the ballhead, which is the thing that attaches my camera to the tripod, is made specifically for my tripod. It allows the tripod to be reverse-folded as designed without hitting the adjustment knobs on the ballhead. In the end, this saves me a few inches and allows the tripod to fit in smaller carry-on bags.

At about $1000 for the setup it is not cheap but the design and build quality is second to none. It’s kind of like the Ferrari of camera supports. At 17 1/8″ tall and about three pounds, it fits nicely in my small bag with plenty of room left for…well…clothes. Most big airports know what the tripod is when they x-ray the bag. We’ll have to see if the international airports do. All my stuff was checked by a screener once at a small airport because of the gear. It slows me down but that is always fine with me considering the security concerns these days.

I will cover clothes and shoes next. Donna and spent some time last weekend picking out some items with comfort, weight and glamour in mind.

All my trip details at my fingertips!

Can’t tell I am getting excited can you? My evening project was to make sure all of my upcoming vacation trip details were at my fingertips. Traveling to new places can stressful enough without having to worry about things that are easily controllable. Our itinerary for Switzerland and Italy is a little complicated because we are taking the train everywhere and we will be visiting several towns across Switzerland including a trip across the border to Lake Como in Italy.

So, Instead of having to pull out paper every time I need to know a little detail, I decided to give the free service Tripit a try. It had great reviews and they also have a free iPhone app that downloads all your trip data directly to the phone.

When is that train leaving? Just drill in for the nitty gritty!

Basically you set up a free account and enter as much data about your trip as you like. Confirmation numbers, room rates, addresses and phone numbers are all possible. It seems they have thought of just about everything you will need to enter. Some information like flight specifics are automagically downloaded for you as soon as you put the flight number in. You can add hotel accommodations, rail services, restaurant reservations as well as maps and images among other things. Oh, and it also automatically provides the expected weather at your destination! Imagine being able to show the train attendant or taxi driver exactly where you want to go despite any language barriers. I love being organized. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Need to get your bearings? Click the map icon!

There are also handy tools for sharing your trip with others as needed as well as means to generate a calendar feed so your mobile calendar is always up to date with your latest arrangements. Based on what I accomplished today, I am confident that this nifty tool will make my travels abroad easier and more stress free! Now to get some sleep and dream about all the pictures I am going to take on the trip.