Best Results Organizing

Recently, I returned from Italy. For most of 2018, I knew I was going to be going on a Smithsonian Highlights of Italy tour, and so I had a lot of time to prepare. I imagine you’d expect that as a professional organizer, packing for a two+ week trip to Italy would be no big deal. But I’m also a panicked packer. I may do laundry many days before the trip, only to decide at 1 a.m. before a 10 a.m. flight that I need to take a dress I haven’t worn in two years and may not have shoes to match. As a long-planned trip approaches, I have been known to shop for a new wardrobe of shoes, or socks, or foundation garments, or shirts, making me Kohl’s favorite shopper.

It’s not that I’m not organized; I have no issues with packing electronics or toiletries or meds. I put my mail on hold weeks ahead of a trip, and arrange my ride to have plenty of time to be at the airport, finding myself through security with fully-charged devices and little to do ahead of my sure-to-be-delayed flights.

Nope, it’s just clothing. I suspect it’s a body image thing: a fear that the ubiquitous photos, the only “true” proof that a vacation or conference or any other trip ever happened, will show my physique to a disadvantage. It’s a neurosis. The best I can do is to plan all of the details related to my trip with the precision of a wedding (or an invasion) – and the only way I can do that is with lists. Lots and lots of lists.

Whether you’re heading over the river and through the woods for Thanksgiving or crossing an ocean to visit a famous, giant, naked dude, consider the lists that might make your trip less stressful.

1) LIST OF WHAT TO ACQUIRE

Note, I say acquire and not purchase because many of the things you need for a trip, but only for that trip, need not add to your personal clutter. 

Spread the word among your friends (via social media or in person) about your trip, and ask for guidance among those who’ve traveled extensively. I guarantee that you will learn some surprising things.

Friends of the blog Nanette Duffey of Organizing Instincts and her mom, Maxine, are smart travelers and kind people. In addition to travel standbys, they offered me a variety of supplies on loan for the trip, including a few things I may not have realized or remembered I needed:

• electric converter and adaptor with Italy-specific prongs
• opera glasses/small binoculars
• bungee cord laundry line with small plastic clips
• cross-body bag (halfway between a purse and a backpack)
• small Eagle Creek bags and money belts serviceable as purses or mini-packs
• personal, battery-operated fan
• inflatable travel pillow

All of these were great ideas, and I appreciated their help. In the end, I bought a fabulously squishy (non-inflatable) neck pillow on sale at TJMaxx for $6 instead of using the inflatable one, and PaperMommy bought me a Baggallini water-resistant cross-body bag that has replaced my everyday purse, but this largesse made planning the trip so much smoother.

My biggest regret, as you’ll understand as you read on, was eschewing the little fan, thinking it was too much of a luxury given my 44-pound luggage limit. (Trust me, ladies, even if you’re outside of the “power-surge” age group, unless global climate change experiences sudden reversion, a mini-fan is a small miracle.)

2) LISTS OF WHAT TO PACK: CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES

In the US or Canada, you can pack very lightly because if you find you’re missing something, a quick trip to Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, or the nearest mall can find you what you need. When I visited Disney World in 2005, the airline lost my suitcase for 36 hours, but a zip over to a big box store (and a ridiculous familiarity with store layouts) meant that we lost less than an hour of precious vacation to obtain a few essentials. 

However, if your luggage is lost in a foreign country, or you’ve failed to bring shoes that match the outfit you plan to wear to give a speech, accept the Nobel Prize, or make (or receive) a wedding proposal, not having your stuff can cause anxiety. Planning is key.

Start with your schedule. What special events or activities require certain articles of clothing? Will you need a ballgown for meeting the Queen? Hiking boots? I saw people climbing the steps of the Colosseum in sandals, but I know I really needed grippy treads and closed-toe shoes to feel safe.

Check the weather report. The Smithsonian info packet included a list of the average highs and lows in Sorrento, Rome, and Venice for the month of September. However, although it was delightfully sunny for all but one day of the half-month tour, the temperatures were more than ten degrees higher than the average. It was hot. Damned hot. Checking the ten-day forecast online helped me decide to jettison anything with long-sleeves and add a few lighter skirts. And if unexpected inclement weather hits? The Points Guy blog has 13 tips for keeping rainy weather from ruining your trip.

Bear in mind that if you’re traveling internationally, many religious sites require covered shoulders for women and trousers for men. You can often buy inexpensive but beautiful scarves (or inexpensive but ugly rain slickers) outside the Vatican and other religious sites.

Don’t pack what you can’t afford to lose. Certainly, you have insurance (right?), but even the best policy only covers the monetary value of what gets lost or stolen. I made the decision not to bring any jewelry at all. Perhaps excessive (and a fashion DON’T) but losing my favorite pieces would have spoiled the trip for me. Instead, it gave me a shopping goal to find a memorable (but affordable) piece of jewelry while traveling.

3) LISTS OF WHAT TO PACK: EVERYTHING ELSE

If you’ve never made a packing list before, start by playing “Let’s Pretend.” Start at your bed and walk yourself through your day from tooth-brushing, showering, and grooming, and on through the rest of your typical day. Keep your pen or notetaking app near you for a full day, as you’ll remember things you might otherwise have forgotten.

If you consider yourself low-maintenance, or if you’re the sort of person who can crash on a friend’s couch or sleep in a tent, bully for you, but for those of us who rarely leave home without using “product” in our hair or have activity-specific shoes to avoid blisters, there are issues to consider.

For example, I’d been warned that even with converters, American hairdryers won’t work abroad; my fancy and tress-tending dryer would be staying behind, and precious space meant leaving behind the smoothing velveteen-coated curlers that keep me from looking like Art Garfunkel when it’s humid. I felt I had no choice but to accept the hotel hair dryers, but I invested $20 at Amazon for a dual-voltage haircare product. Results were mixed, especially when the temperatures topped 90°F, but at least I didn’t waste my luggage space on devices that would have blown up.

What are your little saviors? Only you know what you need in your daily life, but I can tell you what helped me survive (admittedly) “first world problem” awkwardness on this trip:

• Zip-lock bags in multiple sizes – Yes, you have to put your carry-on liquids in a one-quart baggie, but these little marvels work for much more, from gathering all of your small chargers and earbuds neatly inside a small day pack to safely transporting the only non-enormous container of baby powder sold anywhere in Italy without making your suitcase look like blizzard scene from a Christmas movie.

• Tissue packs – When we got off the “motor coach” in Orvieto, a lovely hilltop town, our wonderful tour director advised us to skip “not the greatest toilets” and wait until we climbed up into the city. We should have listened. There was no toilet paper. (Also, no soap, and as we found all throughout Italy, no toilet seats. But that’s another blog post!)
• Anti-bacterial gel – See prior paragraph. Also, you’ll be touching handrails touched by thousands of people each day. I switched back and forth between environmentally un-sound but comforting Wet Ones and a non-alcohol gel. (This isn’t the blog to argue about the dangers of anti-bacterial products on overall global resistance. I won’t hold my gelato cone with a hand that’s covered in Vesuvius ash and dead Etruscans, and you can’t make me!)

• Insect repellant, sunblock and a hat – I may not have been pinched by any Italian men, but their mosquito cousins did their worst. Our group debated the efficacy of sprays vs. lotions vs. those telephone-style coiled bracelets designed to keep bugs at bay, but came to no conclusions. Enjoy nature without becoming a victim.
• Compression socks/stockings – As someone who once had a deep vein thrombosis, and as one of almost 20 people in a tour group of twenty with swollen ankles and legs blotched with broken blood vessels, I encourage you to wear compression socks or stockings on your longer flights.

For other packing suggestions, consult the experts:

Rick Steves’ Packing List  (as a list) or as a printable checklist PDF

Eagle Creek: What to Pack: The Ultimate Travel Packing Checklist

Travels’ Interactive Checklist – This unassuming site is a marvel! Answer a few questions and get personalized lists: travel prep activities; how to handle documents, money, and tickets; packing lists; time, weather, currency, and safety advisories for your destination; flying and packing tips; a map!

Roll It, Bag It, Cube It to Pack Light and Tight — and Save on Travel from The Penny Hoarder

4) LISTS OF WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOU LEAVE

Stop deliveries. What gets delivered to your home or office? Mail? Meal prep kits? Place a hold.

Think like a doctor. Don’t wait until the week of your trip to think about refilling prescriptions, or the timing may leave you without access to essential meds. Talk to your pharmacist (and, if necessary, your physician) to make sure you’ll have what you need. (Of course, you should pack all medical essentials in your carry-on.)

Call your health insurance provider. I was delighted (but surprised) to find that my marketplace-acquired Blue Cross Blue Shield policy had Global Core coverage to ensure that if I needed to be hospitalized or receive medical care (emergency or otherwise) while in Italy, I was safe.

Be a money honey. Review your bank account activity and identify what non-automated tasks you’ll have to address before you depart. Are there bills for which you’ll need to schedule payment even though the actual statements won’t have arrived before you depart?

Call your bank and credit card companies to alert them that you’ll be traveling (so you won’t be flagged as a fraudster or thief) and find out which of your cards charge international transaction fees.

Gather your documents. Take a photo of the interior page of your passport. (Don’t worry – your photo can’t be as bad as mine.) Keep copies in your phone’s camera roll and in Dropbox or Evernote or wherever you collect trip-related documents (like copies of your itinerary, hotel contact information, and emergency numbers). Email or text a copy to people who are always immediately responsive, like your BFF or your mom. Or my mom.

5) LIST OF IMPORTANT PHRASES

This summer, I realized that my paltry Italian vocabulary of ciao, grazie, prego, gelato, and mafia was not going to cut it, no matter how much my frequently-traveling pals assured me that everyone in Europe speaks English. I started using Duolingo, a fun and free program (available for browsers or in-app) to learn languages. While it makes language learning fun, Duolingo builds language skills using some quirky phrases. Thus, I arrived in Italy knowing how to say, “My monkey is hungry” and “My mother’s toothbrush is green and white,” but not yet how to say “Where is the bathroom?” or “How much does this cost?”

If you are traveling to a locale where your primary language is not spoken, download Google Translate (or at least bookmark the less robust web page). It’s a great app, and you can type, handwrite, or just hold it up to a sign or menu and it will magically translate what you’re seeing into English. You can also speak into it and it will translate your phrase, which was hugely helpful when the hotel laundry lost my shirt and the nice lady from housekeeping wanted to foist a lovely (and obviously more expensive) shirt on me rather than giving me my own.

My cell phone carrier promised me I’d have the same texting and data plan as I have at home and would only spend extra on voice minutes, but WiFi was sometimes lackluster and I learned early on that data was racking up major moolah. So, make a list of the essential questions you think you might want to ask while traveling and keep it handy. For example:

• “Hello, pardon me, I’m sorry that my [language] is poor, but could you help me? Thank you.”
• “How much should a taxi cost to get me to [point on the map]?” or “How long would it take me to walk to [point on the map]?” “Is it safe for me to walk to [point on the map]?”
• “How much does this cost?”
• “I’m severely allergic to [X] and I will die if [X] is in my food. Is [X] in this?” 
• “My language course only taught me how to say that my monkey is hungry and my mother’s toothbrush is green and white. I’m certain your English is better than my [language]. Please feel free to laugh at me after you tell me where to find the toilets.”

As it turned out, “grazie” proved to be the most valuable vocabulary words I studied. After “gelato.”

Organize your planning, your packing, and your preparation with lists  – it will help you avoid being anxious or listless (literally and figuratively) as your departure date approaches. Buon viaggio!