Wendi’s Wanders

Take from this world only to the measure of your needs, and forgo that which exceedeth them. Bahá’u'lláh, Bahá’í writings

When I am travelling from place to place, perhaps on a round the world tour or going from one city to another in quick succession, I don’t want to waste too much time at luggage carousels or have to drag a number of suitcases around. Many of the trips I take involve different climates and a variety of events, from sightseeing to staying in remote villages, to media events, to giving lectures, to meeting dignitaries. Packing for such different activities used to be a nightmare of huge suitcases and confusion.

I have now found that a maximum of `three of everything’, if well coordinated, is enough to give variety to my travel wardrobe and also allows items to be washed or cleaned often enough to remain fresh and pressed.

These days I use the charts below to choose what I am going to take. I list under each category which particular things I am taking, e.g. black suit, red dress with black dots, black short-sleeved jacket, red blouse, black trousers, black high heels, might fill the first line. The basic idea is to colour coordinate around a few basic colours and patterns that look good on you and that go with each other. For example, this year I am generally wearing black, white, pink and red.

Having filled in the top chart, I check to see that I have at least 6 different `outfits’ that will take me through the different climates and activities I have planned. Six variations seem to be enough for every trip I have taken, although, of course, if I am clever about it I get a huge number of combinations, usually enough for a different one or two every day. In any event, if you are travelling constantly, the people in town C don’t know that you wore the same thing in town A, provided it is clean and pressed and fresh.

The `other’ category is for things like evening dresses (necessary if meeting the queen, for example!) or snow suits (for ice-fishing) or chador/burkha (for travel in Islamic lands).

I have often been tempted to take `just one more top’ or another pair of trousers - and have usually regretted it. I try not to do `what if’ packing - you know, what if it snows? what if I tear these jeans? what if I gain weight? - and instead incorporate those into the lists below. Most parts of the world have clothes shops if any disasters overtake one.

I can’t promise everything below will fit into one medium-sized suitcase but I usually find it does if I am ruthless. Don’t forget the `stuff’ packing also has to go in!

(To make this work for you, make an actual table of these lists below, so each item in is a separate column - hard in a narrow blog!)

Suits/jackets Skirts/dresses Tops/blouses Trousers Shoes Other

1

2

3

Outfit 1 Outfit 2 Outfit 3 Outfit 4 Outfit 5 Outfit 6

Top

Skirt/
Trousers

Jacket/suit

Shoes

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