Firstly, let me confess that in the past I have been a notorious over-packer. Inevitably I would fill my case to the brim and upon reaching the airline's weight limit, I've been known to sneak things into my boyfriend/brother/Dad's bag unbeknownst to them in order to take my entire holiday wardrobe with me, complete with full beauty kit. As I've decided to spend a year seeing as much of Europe as possible, I've had to accept that carting all this stuff around isn't just impractical, it's plain stupid. Every holiday I would come back with most of my clothes unworn anyway, so in order to save as my shoulders as well as my wallet, I decided that I would respect the budget airlines' cabin baggage restrictions, plump for a sensible sized bag and condense my belongings down to one small bag.
Here is what I decided I would need for our first seven wintery weeks of the trip:
- Warm clothing
As we will be visiting cities such as Prague, Geneva and Berlin in the winter, this is a non-negotiable. Proper base layers (super light, and they pack down to nothing) are an essential, I found mine from Sports Direct at a good price.
Now for the exciting part...my travel capsule wardrobe!
I had to choose a hardworking selection of items, which would be practical enough for sightseeing and walking around in sub-zero conditions, without compromising on style. This was no easy task, I assure you, and I'm still not completely sure I got it right!
I tried to choose items of clothing that would multi-task their ass off, and everything needs to go with everything to give the maximum possible outfit combinations... this is a travel AND style blog after all!
- Travel Accessories
As we will be staying in a mixture of accommodation - we are combining hostels, AirBnb and Couchsurfing - we need to be prepared for the quirks of these varying environments.
Most important perhaps are our choice of bags - mine is a Dakine Day Pack while my fiancé is using a CabinMax Metz Rucksack. We have tested these out and so far seem to be pretty robust as well as fairly comfy.
These will be small enough to avoid any extra baggage fees and should be light enough to keep with us at all times, should we find that we don't have somewhere secure to leave them behind.
We went for some combination padlocks on Amazon, they do the trick and should help to protect our bags from thieves and pick-pocketers. Also handy when padlocks aren't provided or you have to hire them by the day!
As some of the places we will be staying don't provide bedlinen, we chose a couple of sleeping bag liners to use as lightweight bedding, one single and one double, which will also come in handy if we are lucky enough to stay somewhere with low standards of hygiene...
Most places don't provide towels either, so we chose some quick-drying, super light and compact microfibre towels. Let's face it, they will never replace a big fluffy bath towel, but they will dry off in no time and help to keep bulk and weight to a minimum.
- Gadgets
Ideally valuables should be kept to an absolute minimum on this kind of trip but realistically it would be impossible to write a blog and take nice photos without bringing a few essential pieces of kit!
A great camera is really an essential for anyone travelling anywhere - I absolutely love looking back at all the great places I have been to, and sharing my photos with family and friends is a must! My Nikon 1 J2 is light and compact but still produces high quality images.
An iPad is a great way to kill time on long journeys so that has found its' way into my bag, loaded with magazines, books, films and TV series galore. This is complemented by a really cool going away present I was lucky enough to receive, a Seagate Wireless Plus. It has 1TB of memory to be filled with even more films and TV series which can be watched wirelessly direct from your tablet or smartphone, and will also help to hold backups of all of our photos.
Fingers crossed I've remembered everything...!
Milly ♥
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