Packing Light, Or, How I Managed A 3-Week Trip Out Of One Backpack

"Make a pile of the things you need to take, the things you might need to take, and the things you want to take. Now take the first pile and leave the others." --Liad [paraphrased]

 “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” --LOTR

Hello lovely denizens of the interwebs! One of the things I've been thinking about quite a bit lately, due to Many Weeks of Travel (3 weeks over the Easter holidays, another week starting yesterday by the time you read this, and another two or three weeks three days after that, minus) is packing light. 

From the time I first got to college, it's been my goal to be able to travel with minimum Stuff in my backpack. And while a lot of the time when I'm in the US and travelling, it's for break, so I have to bring a lot of stuff back with me, while in Europe, it is not so. 

And thus, on my Rome trip, I managed to finally do something I've been trying to accomplish since my freshman year of college: take a trip with a backpack that is not only not full but that is somewhat flaccid, not very heavy, and has room for (almost) all the souvenirs I could bring back from a three-week trip. 

Reader, it was a moment of great victory. 

And since one of my major weaknesses is posts that are lists/kits/packing lists/&c of any kind (I don't know why, but I find them incredibly satisfying), I thought I'd write up one for y'all with how the heck I managed to do that. 

I will preface this all by saying that there are a few necessary parameters to make this work:
-You have to be willing to wear much the same thing every day 
-You have to have access to at least a washing machine at least some of the time
-You can't be going somewhere Absolutely Arctic

Also, I packed a TON of wool clothes, and I love them, so I linked them, but obviously you don't /have/ to have wool garments in order to travel light (I get it! They're super expensive! Almost all my wool garments were gifts from my parents)...it's just what made it work so well for me.

With that out of the way... here's what I packed! 

- Backpack 
I was given this absolutely fabulous backpack for Christmas that is a) super lightweight, b) foldable into a tiny little pouch, c) water resistant (buuuuuut definitely not waterproof--let's be clear, my stuff did get soaked in that one Roman thunderstorm), and d) many-compartmented. It's not that big--it fits the under-seat baggage requirements for EasyJet, which is saying something--but it can fit a surprising amount of stuff, if you pack it right. And it's well-constructed enough that I've been carrying it on only one strap for most of my semester here (due to a shoulder injury of a sort) and it hasn't shown much sign of wear at all. Oh, and it's just about twenty dollars on Amazon, which I find somewhat incredible because it's one of my favourite backpacks I've ever owned. So yeah, a good backpack is key, and this one, in my case, was The Key. 

- Wool dress
The whole concept of travelling with only a smol carry-on under-seat piece of luggage was essentially based on my willingness to wear a dress while travelling for three weeks. And if that sounds weird, let me just say that it would've sounded totally strange to high-school Sam, but I'm now actually more comfortable travelling in a dress? I love my jeans as much as the next girl, but when in a dress and leggings, I have a lot more flexibility (literally and figuratively), and dresses are easy to (pardon my pun) dress up or down, whereas one really can't wear jeans to Mass. I mean, one can, but I don't like doing so. A dress + leggings is a lot more comfortable when sitting on a plane or train for hours at a time, and also accommodate long days of walking much better. Plus, it looks super cute in pictures, just saying. The dress I took on this trip happens to be my favourite wool dress, from Wool&--it's their Sophia Midi Dress. Their dresses are expensive, but I'm pretty sure I've worn that dress at least 50% of the days I've been in Europe, if not more, and it's showing zero signs of wear, so...it's a high-quality thing, is all I'm saying. (Also Wool& has a thing where if you wear one of their dresses for 100 days in a row, they'll give you a $100 gift card, which is pretty fab.) 
Also, in the praise of wool for a second: the thing about wool is that it's warm when it's wet (helpful when one gets caught in a Roman thunderstorm), but also warm in winter and cool against the skin in summer. As if that wasn't enough, it takes a LOT to make it smell bad AT ALL even when wearing it every day, and you can get stains out just with water--no soap or washing required. I know that sounds crazy, but a) I'm not being paid to say any of this, and b) I've experienced it firsthand in my life, I'm not just parroting stuff. ;) All that to say, I couldn't have made this few garments work if they weren't wool. 

- Wool leggings
I sang the praises of the dress + leggings combo above, but I'll also say that the leggings are nice because then you don't have to bring pyjamas--you can just wear leggings and a shirt to bed. My current leggings are from Woolly and have lasted me Quite A While without showing many signs of wear. (I've accidentally put my thumbs through the bottom cuffs a couple of times, but that barely shows.) 

- Wool socks (3 pairs)
The "wool-is-warm-when-wet" thing is especially key here, because having cold feet is no one's idea of a good time. That aside, though, wool also wicks sweat, making wool socks way comfier to wear for a day of walking. And because of the wool-doesn't-smell-especially-if-you-let-it-air-out-overnight thing, one doesn't have to bring quite as many pairs, which is nice. (My preference at the moment is the STEGO brand of socks. :) ) 

- Three shirts 
These layer over the dress so that I can feel like I'm wearing different things every day/to dress it down, because on its own, it's actually quite a formal-looking dress. For Rome, I took one long-sleeved wool shirt, and two short-sleeved cotton shirts, and I used/needed all three. 

- Underthings (five pairs of underwear, one bra)
Hoping this is self-explanatory. 

- Jacket
I have this absolutely fabulous plaid quilted jacket-type thing that was given me for Christmas when I was in high school, and which I've been wearing ever since. It's just the right weight to wear if it's not Absolutely Frigid, it's water resistant (not waterproof), and it works ok to layer over a dress for a somewhat formal look. It's pretty much all I ever wear as a layer once it's over 40 degrees consistently, so I of course had to bring it. :)

- Raincoat
Raincoats are lovely in many ways: they protect one from the rain (obviously), but they also work nicely as a wind breaker and as an extra layer. Plus, they usually pack down very small, making them a convenient thing to take along, especially when you're going somewhere where they REINACT THE FLOOD REGULARLY AHEM (what the heck, Rome). The raincoat I have with me is my Illini Dairy Judging Team swag one, which I think is kind of funny, and I'm sure was and is confusing to the Europeans. XD  

- Hiking boots 
I brought and wore one pair of shoes, and it was these waterproof, flexible-sole, not-super-clunky black hiking boots, and I honestly didn't feel the need for another pair. They were great because it was good to have some foot support for days where I was walking all day, but I could still feel what was going on under my feet. 

- Retainers & thermometer 
Yes, I am a college student, and yes, I still wear my retainers! I got them replaced recently, actually, because I grind my teeth and night and had almost worn through the previous pair. The thermometer is for cycle charting. :)

- Toiletries (toothbrush, deodorant, lip balm, hairbrush)
First of all, let me just say I would absolutely have brought toothpaste if I hadn't run out literally days before I had to leave and been so swamped with homework I didn't have time to get any more. Please--I'm not a savage. But other than that, I pared the toiletries down to the Absolutely Necessary: just enough that I wouldn't smell, my teeth wouldn't rot, and my lips wouldn't chap. Good stuff. 
I actually think that on my next trip that's longer than a week or so, I'll bring nail clippers, because it turns out that after about two weeks, my fingernails reach a length that's so annoying I will literally get a pair of kitchen scissors from an AirBNB and hack them off. (Ask me how I know...or maybe don't.)

- *cough* Feminine hygiene items
Yeah so if I didn't know for sure that I needed to bring these (because of charting my cycle) I wouldn't have, but...I did. So that was fun. 

- Planner
I could probably have left this at home, but I had the space, so I decided to bring it, both because I wanted to include observations and sketches about things I saw (which there's space for in it, specifically) and it's also my Type-A Choleric self's security blanket, so there's that. XD

- Sketchbook
I felt like I needed a sketchbook for Rome, and ended up doing a brief (usually quite bad) architectural sketch of each church I went into, both for the memories and for the sketching practice (sorely needed). Again, could probably have left this behind, but I really enjoyed using it! 

- Book(s)
A true necessity for any trip! I mostly just got books on my phone (both on Kindle and Hoopla), but I also brought one physical book... The Napoleon of Notting Hill. :)

- Adapters & phone charger
I am in the peculiar position of mostly having things with American-type plugs, but living in England currently, which meant that I couldn't order a USA --> Italy adapter...I had to order an England --> Italy adapter and then use my USA --> England adapter on top of that. Which felt like it shouldn't be allowed but in fact worked just fine. (While in the end leaving lingering questions about whether that was the reason that USA --> England adapter stopped working five days later...)

- Camera 
I took what felt like an obscene amount of photos, and still haven't edited them all...that's a problem for next week, or maybe even the week after that. XD But since I'm still not as good at sketching as I'd like AND I love photography, even though a camera is heavy, I consider it a necessity. 

- Passport & case
I finally got my first passport stamp in this new passport on the Italy trip! (Thanks, Brexit! XD) I have one of those around-the-neck passport holders, that I don't usually wear 24/7 while on a trip if my AirBNB has a door that locks, but that I use in the airport and would continue to use if my lodgings didn't have a door that locked. 

- Wallet
If I was trying to travel even lighter I probably would have just put the cards I needed into my passport case. But as it was, I appreciated having a more capacious storage solution for my Monetary Stuffs. 

- Rosary
*cough* I'm pretty sure I actually brought two...? But it's a necessary accoutrement for a Catholic, especially in Rome. All kinds of fun things to touch it to. :) And they're small! 

- EpiPen
Kind of a necessity, given that I have life-threatening food allergies...although praise God, I did not have ONE allergic reaction in Italy. Slightly ironic, given that I've had a couple in the UK where I do speak the language... 

- Water bottle 
One of the things that I loved most about Italy was the public water fountains where I could top up my water bottle all the time...and conversely one of the things that drives me INSANE about England is that there are NO public water fountains to fill up one's water bottle! Still, a necessity for travel and the everyday. (Because I lost my previous water bottle on a train a while back, I just got a super cute new Herbology water bottle, which I think is the perfect accessory for a landscape architect. XD)

So yeah! I've had a crazy week, so that's all the post you get today, but I hope it was just as satisfying for you as list posts like this always are for me. :)