What I Forgot this Trip (It's a Doozy!)

[canyonwalker]

Pacific Northwest August Travelog #5
Retrospective

Often as I wrap up trips I check on how much stuff I packed that I didn't use. Unnecessary stuff is wasted space and weight, and some magazine articles I've read estimate that the average traveler packs as many as 7 pieces of clothes they never wear each trip. But there's also a flip side to packing mistakes: forgetting something you actually do need!

I've often joked that "Every trip I forget one thing" when it comes to packing. Of course that's not a hard-and-fast rule. There are trips where I miss packing nothing. But if nothing else, "Every trip I forget one thing" is a fun rule of thumb. I even test myself as I'm leaving, "Okay, what did I forget this time?"

Again, the answer is often nothing. And sometimes I do forget to pack one thing but it's minor and turns out to be unnecessary anyway. For example, when I traveled for a trade show a few weeks ago I nominally forgot my swim trunks. I remembered that when I arrived at the hotel and rode the elevator up to the 17th floor; there was a poster in the elevator of their pool. I didn't have time to use the pool that trip, anyway, so it seems like a technicality. But I wish I'd gone through the conscious thought during packing: "Should I pack swim trunks? No, I'm not going to have time for the pool."

What I forgot this trip, though, was a doozy. I forgot to pack underwear! I realized it Friday morning in the hotel as I got dressed for the day. Not having time to go shopping that morning I put on the previous day's pair. I was just going to get sweaty with a full day of hiking anyway.

Friday night, before checking in at our next hotel, I stopped by WalMart to buy underwear. It wasn't out of our way as a) the store was literally right on our route, and b) we were buying a few groceries there anyway. But I sure felt chagrined for forgetting to pack something so basic.

Comments

[sorcyress]

Ha! I am _obsessive_ about packing lists, and for Pinewoods (the big two-weeks-dancing-in-the-woods I do every summer) I frequently make *un*packing lists, where I inventory every individual item that comes out of my bags as I put them away. This helps me determine what extra things I brought and don't need next year, but also the unpacking list is damn useful for packing the following year "oh, I used these twenty three pairs of underwear" sorts of things.

~Sor

[canyonwalker]

I write lists when I'm going on a longer trip that requires more complex preparation, such as when we're going camping. What tripped me up on this trip was that I didn't stage my clothes. Usually I lay out my clothes on my bed, rolling and/or stacking them before putting the pile in my suitcase. Seeing the staging pile helps me ensure I've readied everything I want. Then putting them into the suitcase is a double-check. This trip I was cavalier and put clothes straight from the closet into the suitcase. I'll go back to my staging method next trip!

[sorcyress]

Oh yeah, the staging is critical. When I have the laundry basket free*, I tend to pack by first tossing everything I need into there, and then moving it from the basket to my actual bags.

~Sor

*My room is not so spacious that it makes sense to have both a place to store the basket *and* a hamper, so it serves as the collection-spot for dirty clothes, which makes it very easy to just bring them down to the basement when it's laundry time.

[canyonwalker]

We use our laundry baskets as hampers, too. It makes sense: accumulate the dirty clothes in the basket, carry it to the washer, empty it into the machines. Except we don't really put clean clothes in the baskets after washing and drying. We return them to the closet.