Travel involves some sort of choreography, a performance that is initiated far earlier than when the plane actually starts boarding. The initial and the most important I think takes place in the silence of your own house, around an open and unfinished packet of luggage. It is the dress rehearsal. And a solo tour in Europe, you are not marked out the more as a success by how much baggage you carry, but how very little and nice. I have seen them you see. The other passengers in the train. I watch them in my window seat in a Cafe in Montmartre or on a train platform waiting to take a train at Milano Centrale. They are those, who are struggling with monstrous, wheel-like giants on cobblestones, and their face masks expression of struggle and remorse. The bags are like this huge anchor, which they have made themselves, and it controls their travel. It reminds them that they can by no means go up the stairs, that the enchanting-looking attic room is just too much trouble, that a spontaneous side-trip is altogether too much exertion. They are not explorers, they are cargo managers to their unlucky decisions.
The craft I exercise, that of acting, has entered me much into the lesson of economy. Of cost on a stage, of quantity of words in a script. Each gesture, each line should be used to an end. I transfer the same to packing. In my case, backpacking alone across Europe is not an ordeal, but a skill that needs to be mastered. It is ultimate freedom. It is also social power to get out of the plane in Lisbon and avoid the sad group of pilgrims around the baggage carousel and be already sitting drinking coffee in the Alfama and still waiting for others to show up with their textile-filled sarcophagi. It is the freedom to go to a country weekend on an invitation, without asking any questions, to move in and out of the cabins of a fast train without hurting people with bruises, to look up at the flights of a walk-up to a beautiful Roman apartment and think only of the prospect of a beautiful view. It is not about what you pack in but it is about what you get.
The boat herself is you greatest scene partner. Just omit the hard-shelled, four-wheeled inventions that go so well over a polished floor at an airport and turn into lifeless and good-for-nothing weight on a graveled road in Provence. Those are the props of an imaginary voyage, not of itself. The soft-sided and quality carry-on is your best friend, ideally, it is possible to wear it as a backpack. You see. Your hands are loose to have a train ticket, an espresso, a map. You are a moving component of the crowd and not an object in it. This bag is your wardrobe, your portable life and its size is not limiting, it is only a creative brief. The aim is to ensure that each square inch is working extra-time, to select a product line such that it seems that it has no boundaries.
The art work is in the wardrobe. It is grounded on an uncompromising adherence to the palette of colours. and this is your costume plot. I am more of a symphony of a neutral: navy, charcoal grey, a hint of olive, and black. It is not dull; it is fantastic. It implies that all of your packed clothes can be brought together with each of the other single items. Even a few pieces of clothing enable the geometric combinations of outfits exponentially growing. One of them is a charcoal sweater on top of a white shirt and navy trousers. The same sweater in a grey t-shirt with olive chinos is a different one all together. Such tactical monochrome liberates you of the tyranny of the outfit. You can not bring outfits, you bring parts.
In this color scheme are the starring actors, the hero pieces that do the hardest working. In my case, it is always unstructured navy pattern blazer, with a likelihood of wool cotton mixture. The thing is a chameleon. Worn with a t-shirt, it prepares you to visit a museum in Berlin as a very appropriate identity. Together with an appropriate shirt, it gets you a table at a neat restaurant in Madrid. It fits your passport and phone, it keeps it wrinkling too much when rolled up into a ball and it keeps you warm in a surprising degree. It is the action pack of the travel wardrobe a man has. Forget jeans. Granted, it is blasphemy to some, however denim is very heavy and voluminous and it takes forever to dry should one be trapped in a London drizzle or when it is convenient to wash in the sink. However, I take up two pairs of high-quality trousers, a pair of slim-fit high quality chinos in a neutral color, such as stone or olive, and a pair of more formal, technical, thin-stretch, wrinkle resistant, and navy or grey. They can be formal or casual and they are suitable to be worn on an overnights train.
Here the magic of contemporary textiles happen in the form of the supporting cast. I am a religionist on Merino wool. It is a performance fabric in itself that is done by nature. I wear three or four Merino t-shirt. They are pliable, they smell wonderfully, and their super power is the fact that they do not smell. It will last a long time before a Merino shirt smells after a long trip and that is a blessing. It warms when it is cool and cool when it is warm. This also applies to socks. You can use four pairs of Merino socks. They protect your feet and also absorb moisture and can be washed in a hotel sink at night and be dry in the morning. I will need to complete the tops with a couple of button-down shirts, maybe an iconic white one or a blue Oxford, and one, ideal sweater. It is to be a fine gauge knit sweater, either cashmere, or Merino which can be worn under a shirt or a t-shirt without bulk. It is your snug of warmth when the night is cold and in Amsterdam, or in an internationally- air-conditioned aero plane.
Your performance stands on the bottom of footwear and at the same time it can be a downfall. there you will be walking. There will be much more walking than you will dream of. though cobblestone so up hill on up and up and up a museum. Here is where you have to invest. You do not have to have an army of shoes. Then you require two pairs. The initial candidate is your workhorse: a pair of cool, comfortably-cushioning pair of leather sneakers. None of these garish athletic trainers, but something cool in understatement in white, black or brown that can tread ten miles by day and not be anything under your chinos at a the casual dinner. Your second day choice is an evening wear, either a smart yet comfortable loafer, suede desert and Chelsea boots. On the plane you wear the heaviest one, your boots. and do break them in before you go, please my dear. Blisters are an unnecessary and inhumane disaster.
The dopp kit, your tiny bag of hooch and cosmetics, needs to be auditioned also. The adversary in this case is in liquid. I have trained myself to pour all into small 50ml bottles that can be used again. However the real epiphany has been the discovery of solids. A good solid shampoo bar, a solid conditioner bar, a solid cologne stick, even toothpaste tablets. They solve the problem of a gooey explosion in your bag, they do not need to deduct on your liquid allowance during the security check and they are long lasting. All of my grooming can fit in my bag which is as thick as a paperback book. Technologywise, the same thing: think economy. Your phone is your camera, your map, your mouth piece. Throw in a Kindle which stores the library in one neat thin book. Take along one universal plug converter device with several USBs to charge all at once. A power bank that is thin is not an option when you want to spend many hours navigating using your phone. And last but not least, two good quality noise-cancelling headphones. These are not a luxury, it is a mobile refuge. They can shut out the drone of a jet engine, or the clatter of a full train and put you in a little oasis of quietness all to yourself.
Packing itself there is a technique when the last rehearsal arrives. I hand on my head to packing cubes. They are your luggage stagehands because these tiny, zippered pouches are made to hold a lot inside of them. Tops, underwear and sock, one for trousers. Your clothing can be tightly folded and save an unbelievable amount of space, and frankly, much more importantly, they organize you. You will no longer have to desperately rummage through your whole bag to get to a clean pair of socks. I am a roller not a folder. By folding your clothes tightly, you reduce wrinkles and will fit them by putting them together as a jigsaw puzzle. The blazer is folded specially and with more discretion and it rests on top. Your more intelligent pair of shoes, which you pack with socks to save luggage room and keep their form, are put by the sides. There is a place and time of everything.
So, the performance is now in order. You are at your door with your bag in your hand, or probably on your back. It is lightly done. It is an effect of pure unadulterated possibility. The payoff is this. It is a silent self-assurance of pushing a trolley through the airport. It is being able to alter your plans when you feel like, to say yes to a sudden opportunity. It is the classic comfortable joy of being in the world, and being in it well. You are not a tourist who is fighting over your belongings. You are a voyager, a player in the great drama of the world and every place is your scene. The biggest secret you have discovered in the course of the journey is that by having less weight to carry you can live more.
the bathroom sink of the hotel. It has a method: a smooth rubbing, a good rinse and the all-important process of rolling the wet clothes up firmly in a towel and giving it all a twist. This dries the greater part of the water, and next morning they may be hat-dried by hanging over a chair, or a towel-rack. This short, ten minutes rite is a moment of rooting, a practical activity, which brings you closer to your road, in a concrete manner. It is the moment of silence which lets the show run. A trip to a local lavanderia is an event in its own way in longer journeys. It is the piece of real non-touristic life. You can sit in the places of locals and watch flows of their day, maybe, even talk to them. And it is a pause, a stop to change your wardrobe and your mind a reminder that life even away on the road has the little needed routines and rituals.
Let us talk about the minor crises, the twist of the plot. My dopp kit is not only full of toiletries, but also of an expert-picked mini-pharmacy. This is not a bulk and pre-packaged first-aid kit. It is a selected and repackaged edition of solutions to the most basic travel symptoms, my own bedside apothecary. Blister plasters are the top-end variety, such as Compeed or, if you can find them, Polish baszma-plaster (they are worth their weight in gold and can mean you limp miserably all day through instead of getting about little with gay abandon). I pack a tiny strip of painkillers to treat a headache, three or four antihistamines in case of allergy or being stung by a hornet, and probably any personal prescription medicine, not scissored to pieces. That’s it. Anything more serious would be needing to visit a local pharmacy that are everywhere and pleasantly stocked in Europe making it an attraction in itself. The kit is minimal, by dealing with the minor problems without attaching a pharmacy full of what-ifs to you.
After that is the issue of the day-pack. That is your main carry-on and it is in your room, the place to live. But what is it you carry out into the city to-day? Such a decision is also a stylistic and purposeful one. An oversized backpack shouts out tourism. I have two-pronged solution. On most days, when I visit museums or cruise through neighborhoods, I carry a basic and good quality leather or canvas tote bag. It is fashionable, subtle, and spacious enough to take the necessities: a water bottle, my notebook, a power bank and probably the jacket that can be packed up. It is convenient to access and will not attract attention as a target. During days that are more active with walking or hiking around or when I want to carry just some more then I use the small, elegant, and fully packable backpack. There are usually featherlight backpacks in various brands which fold up into a small pouch. It can be stored in my main bag waiting to be deployed when necessary, and I will always be ready without hurting my style to function.
Another artsy thing is the discharge of odour. What is the way to smell good without the heavy glass bottles? I have already said solid cologne, a great invention. My other tip is to assemble a variety of fragrances samples. Prior to a journey, I will go to a fine departmental store and order some samples of perfumes that I like. These small containers are ideal to carry to travel. They enable me to have various fragrances, perhaps a more fresh one during the day and a warmer, spicier and a bit stronger at evenings. I now have strong scents that allow me to remember specific substances that other smells can never induce memories of a specific person associated with that since such as the smell of rain in Copenhagen or the sweetness of the sun in Sicily. It is a method of making an olfactory map of my travels, this history-making is so potent and intimate and it does not weigh one single thing.
And although my phone and my Kindle are my digital workhorses, I am not prepared to do any meaningful travelling without a couple of analog props. My passport is contained in a pretty but tattered leather passport holder with space in it to carry several cards. It has weight and personal touches in my hands. But before putting it in it, I always place a Moleskine notebook and a good pen. Watch, watch; as an actor it is my business to catalogue moments, mannerisms, snatches of dialogue. In my notebook, I pick up the world. I will go to a cafe and describe how an old man plays with his hands, how the church bells sound, what color the sky is. This activity of physically writing the world, of renaming it, makes me experience this world in a more intimate manner than a photograph can. It does not make me look, but it makes me see. It is a dialogue with everything around me and my notebook turns out to be the greatest souvenir ever.
So in the end it is really not about denial all this stuff about packing light. The reverse is the case. It is a deliberate effort of impoverishment by virtue of removal. All the things I decide to take with me are of good quality, are purposeful and give me a little joy to use them. It is an investment in items that contain a story of themselves, which accompany me and collect a rind of experience. This purposefulness makes my mind free. When there is nothing to think of because I am not working to secure my possessions, when I am not thinking about the weight of my possessions, I am available radically. I can immerse myself fully in the scene I am in and become fully present to perform in the day.
It is very deep psychology. Our society teaches us that we should have more things to be more ready, more safe. The adventurer gets to know how things are not the way they appear. The heavier the burden you have, the more your items hold you. They develop into a condition of worry. An independence of carrying all the items you will require in a month within a small, comfortable bag is the feeling of immense power and self-sufficiency. It shows that you really need much less than you imagine. You are taught to trust your capability of resourcefulness, skill of solving problems and your charm to get through the world. You do not hide yourself behind a storehouse of materials, you expose yourself, you are available to deal with the world on its own. This is not any kind of packing, it is a life strategy. It is recognizing that to travel and live a rich life, you do not require amassing items, you need to build the capital of moments, and moments of connections, and memories of being in the sun, and moments of epiphany under the rain. It may be defined as the art of backing off, of cutting your life down to its gorgeous essentials, and in so doing, opening space to the world.
