My wife and I are about to begin our six month adventure in Europe and, since we have a little time during our layover in NYC, I thought I would take a few minutes to write about our packing difficulties and likely overestimation.
Spending six months on the road is a daunting thing for which to pack and plan. Lisa has been a trooper in the trip planning department but the planning of the packing itself has been a study in the alternation between excess and oversimplification. I have been trying to account for not only the standard day-to-day living, but for the hiking, snorkeling, amateur filmmaking, and serious photographic equipment that should be brought to avoid the sentiment expressed in the title, regret for not having brought the one piece of kit that would have enabled a certain activity.
As a result, I’m sure we have packed too much stuff. For a six month trip, a large suitcase and a backpack each seems reasonable, until you consider the nearly two-hundred pounds they collectively weigh. But as a rule I’m the guy who likes to be prepared and hates to regret not bringing something that would be hard or expensive to purchase at the destination. I usually err on the side of “yeah, I’ve got several of those just in case”. Especially when we decided to do a eurocar purchase/buy-back. Having a car encourages all manner of evil overpacking.
That said, even the relatively large amount we have was an exercise in essential gear only discipline that can only be a good for me. Or, perhaps, I’ll be writing soon to complain about something I left behind. Time will tell.
As we sit here in the airport waiting, after a miserable move and a frantic week of final preparations, I’m just glad to have made the go/no-go decisions and have them behind me. I think we have the right stuff, but maybe too much of it. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the gear actually just gets in the way. There’s a purity to backpacking travel. The simplicity helps you focus in the place.
We are not backpacking. Perhaps we will be by the time we return.