But that's not the point. The point is, I've never traveled that long at one stretch. Now, I have spent 3 summers out of the country but in each instance, I pretty much went to one place and stayed there the whole time. I had access to things. Plus, I was younger. This is important because medicine.
Being the smart person I am, I started asking around to my well traveled pals to find out all their tricks. Learned good stuff.
Mostly, take about one week's worth of clothing. Somewhere between 5-7 days worth will do it. You can find a way to launder within this time. We're not going to the Sahara, for crying out loud. Take things that serve multiple purposes. This is no time for the red sequined blouse (disclaimer -- I don't actually own one.).
Another interesting tip -- Try to buy all your toiletries when you arrive rather than bringing them with you. This lightens the load and significantly decreases the likelihood of things leaking:) Like, to 0%. This will work for us because we've got 2 days to kill in Hawaii before we get on the cruise ship. Plenty of time to buy the large shampoo and sunscreen rather than the under 3 ounce bottles if we traveled with them.
But, we're left with a few things we can't really avoid.
- Contacts. I wear dailies, which means I'll have more than 100 of them with me at the start of the trip. Everyday, the amount of space these take up decreases. That's the good part.
- Prescriptions: can't really get around bringing all this junk. The biggest annoyance is trying to get more ahead of time. So glad a few druggies ruined the entire system for the rest of us who just can't go to CVS on the 21st for 2 months in a row and need it all in advance. Yes, I am aware that some people can get a 90 day supply of whatever...I'm either not one of those people or the meds we take don't count.
- Shoes. Shoes are an interesting conundrum. Everyone says try to limit to 3. 3 mostly works for me. That's flip flops, athletic shoes, and something that passes for a dressy/casual. But then, there are excursions that say must wear closed toe shoes. Suddenly, I now need 4 because I can't have my running shoes be wet for 3 days. Then there is hiking. What kind of hiking? The kind where you legit need hiking boots? Sigh. Then there is can everything I am planning to wear go with these shoes? I'm not much into fashion (ok, AT ALL) but I don't want to look stupid.
- Makeup: I mean...I might be on vacation, but there will be a lot of pictures. I won't wear a lot, but I have to pack some.
- Hats: there are so many instances for hat wearing. Is it possible to pick one hat? Yes. I think it is. Which hat is a different story.
- Shaving: let's be real. People have things to shave in a 50 day span. Can we pick one shaving implement that works for both people and all the places? And can be carried on? Remains to be seen.
- Lack of wifi: this is a mostly good thing except when it comes to things like managing money. We're trying to ensure that everything can be auto paid. The largest unknown is things like paying the credit cards that are being used to pay everything else. Totally able to work around this -- just need to stay alert and on it because a) we won't always have wifi b) when we do we might not trust it enough to log into a banking account.
- Changing seasons. When we leave Texas, it'll still be hot as blazes -- still summer. but heading into Fall By the time we get to Australia it'll be spring. By the time we leave, it'll be more summer ish. When we come home, it'll be winter. All the seasons! This makes packing light more challenging. Especially as Jason is ALWAYS hot and I am most frequently cold.
Anyway, just sharing some of the more trickier aspect to traveling for many days in a row. When we finally get it all figured out and laid out to pack, I'll share what we came up with.
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