honing the kit

Inspired by a recent post on getting better at traveling I'm working on honing my travel kit a bit. On my latest trip to London, I knew I'd have to do a lot of walking around with my luggage so tried to keep everything to a single EMS backpack/travel bag that I've got (a la Rick Steves), but it was just a little bit heavy for me to carry around on my back for very long so I opted for a pull behind and a smaller backpack for my carryon. It was manageable but I could have gotten away with paring it down a bit more. Traveling in winter and the fact that I had some fairly high-end meetings to attend made it more difficult since it meant i needed to double up on jackets and such as it's a bit difficult to pull of rolling up to a lunch at a fancy joint wearing a fleece hiking vest and a sport jacket. So here's my notes for next time

• Electronics
• USB phone charger/cable
• plug part not necessary as can charge via usb off of laptop
• camera (no charger or extra batteries brought as I know my LX3 can go a while on one charge)
• laptop
• laptop power adapter with UK plug (Apple handles internationalization of adapters like a champ).
• clothes for business trip
• Biz clothes 
• 3 pairs of wool dress pants (wool pants are key and I could have gotten by with two pairs for four days)
• 3 dress shirts
• wool dress sweater
• sport jacket
• clarks - wore these the whole time and shouln't have brought sneakers since the hotel didn't have a gym
• wool top coat (man this was a bear to lug around, i prob didn't need to bring it).
• travel clothes
• cords
• fleece vest and rain layer (the rain layer was key in london and i ended up wearing it around over my sportcoat wherever I went).
• longsleeve smartwool t-shirt (this was great for the plane where the temp changes a bit)
• tshirt
• 1/4 zip wool sweater
• sneakers
• exercise clothes
• endo pants (never ended up running while I was there so this and the sneakers were a waste)
• tshirts (2) 
• toiletries
• razor
• toothbrush
• toothpaste
• shaving cream
• prescriptions
• promethazine (nothing like abusing some prescription drugs to help get me on a sleep schedule).
• tylenol
• sinus rinse 

Comment (1)

Feb 06, 2010
Peter Bilton said...
Nice follow up. I agree, business travel adds extra challenges. For a recent three day conference I brought three shirts, two pants, and one jacket. I could get away with one jacket because I wasn't seeing the same people every day. I was able to get everything I needed from my briefcase into a rolling carry-on. But if I wanted more casual clothes than a pair of jeans, I would have needed a briefcase/backpack. As it was, jeans with a dress shirt and dress shoes was perfect for a dinner with friends, but if I was going to be out sightseeing for a day I would have wanted a complete outfit and a sweater.

Backpacks obviously won't work when you have to take your luggage with you to and from meetings because the straps will wrinkle your dress shirt and jacket and you'll look like a backpacker - but most convertible soft-sided carry-ons have a shoulder strap. Not, unfortunately, my bare-bones Rick Steves bag - I might have to add some D-rings.

Also - I always bring workout clothes, figuring that I'll suddenly develop good habits, but I almost never use them.

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