Traveling Lite

So in preparation for my NYC trip this past weekend, I decided I was going to travel in fashion, but lite. Normally I have to always check in luggage and bring a carry on. I’m a little bit of a freak and have to have at least one day’s worth of clothing on me while traveling along with all of my necessities in toiletries. I’m always afraid of loosing my luggage. So this time I challenged myself to not over pack and to only bring carry on. This was going to be hard since I like options in clothing, shoes, accessories, and I tend to always lug my whole bathroom with me.  Since I really didn’t’ need to bring my computer, I was going to leave it at home. Scary thought. Which is also why my blogs are a bit late this week.

In preparing for my version of traveling lite, I started to collect travel sizes and samples of my favorite make up counters. If I couldn’t get a travel size, the merchants were always great at making me a sample in those tiny little containers, which I will be saving for future travel. Normally I freak out with such a small amount, what if it’s not enough for the whole trip and god forbid I was to run out of anything! This time I would be gone for 3 nights, so I kept reminding myself to ration things out and that a little goes a long way, besides I never use all of the products at home. So while I made sure I had everything liquid and gel in small containers less than 3 oz. and that they all fit in a zip lock bag, I started to obsessively check the weather.

Every day I would check the hourly forecast; I needed to know how I was going to get by with just 2 pairs of shoes max. If it were to rain, I’d have to switch out my leather boots, for my wellies.  Also if it were to rain I’d need my water repellent coat instead of my pea coat. I waited to the last possible minute to pack my clothes based on the weather. I was trusting the weather predictors with my wardrobe needs. Please don’t fail me now!

I decided to wear on the plane my skinny 7 jeans, a gray tank top, green long sleeve American Apparel sweatshirt, and Tom’s shoes for easy security check point. Then I packed for my first day in the city, a long sleeve dark gray cashmere dress, black tights, black over the knee knit socks, black leather knee high boots, and my only coat for the trip a charcoal gray pea coat. I wanted to look nice for the show we were seeing that evening and not slum it. Just because I’m out all day and traveling with a carry on didn’t mean I had to look it.

For Easter I brought a gray v-neck long sleeve, my favorite J. Brand dark denim skinny jeans, and wore the same black leather boots. I added a bright green scarf for some color.

Then for the travel back, which I had to rush straight from the airport to a last minute audition, I luckily had a maroon long sleeve button up that I wore with my 7s and Toms so I was able to travel easy and comfortably and still look presentable off the plane straight into an audition.

So everything worked out, I ended up having brought too much product as usual, even in those tiny containers. I had way too many pairs of underwear. I was even able to fit all of the new clothes I purchased from Brandy and Melville in my carry on to take home. So it was possible to pack lite, even for me. It just took a little planning and imagination when you don’t get to bring your whole wardrobe with you.