The big challenge packing for this trip was figuring out what to bring for five months with a mix of situations. However, there’s a whole new trend that helped immensely, the capsule wardrobe. One of my friends is way into this concept, and she put me on to the spring/summer business casual capsule wardrobe list at Cladwell.com as a guide. It was a huge help.
The only real “travel” thing I own is a ScottEVest trench coat with enormous pockets. I’m not sure I would get the trench model again, as I had to have all the buttons resewn, but I would get another ScottEVest coat. The pockets make it easy to keep stuff in reach while schlepping through airports and bus stations, and they are useful for limiting the schlep if you buy smallish items while site-seeing. The coat can look a bit ridiculous when stuffed with a wallet, a few magazines, a bottle of pop, and keys, but once empty, it looks fine. Furthermore, it has a good mix of both accessible and hidden pockets so that your passport and wallet will stay safe.
Old Navy Pixie Pants have become another travel fave. They fit me off the rack, always a plus for relatively low-cost pants, and the same cut is available in several different fabrics and colors. Many of the fabrics really can be dressed up or down, too – not the hot pink with gold stars, necessarily (not that I own any like that) but certainly the solid black. That gets you some extra wear. And, in part because of their synthetic content, they wash up well in the sink and dry reasonably fast hanging in the shower.
I am a believer in doing laundry in the hotel sink, by the way. If you’ll be somewhere more than three nights, everything will be dry by the time you pack for the next segment of the trip, with the possible exception of 100% cotton in the tropics. I even do a lot of hand laundry in my apartment as there is not laundry in the building and I don’t want to spend time hanging out in a laundromat.
If you’re travelling to a major city and your size, hair texture, and skin tone won’t make you stand out, you can pretty much find whatever you need when you get on the ground. the global chains and global brands are, well, global: H&M, Old Navy, P&G, Revlon. Although I am taller than the average Mexican woman, I’m still within normal size ranges for many clothes. (I’ve already been to Old Navy because I realized I brought only one pair of jeans. Despite a checklist. Oops.) High SPF sunscreen, on the other hand, is not commonly found outside of tourist areas. In China, buying clothes for my 5’7″ self was close to impossible, but sunscreen was easy to find.
Anyway, packing is hard for a lot of people. I’ve been doing it for years and still hate it, but it’s not going to keep me home.
