5 more days until we’re heading to Europe!!!!
We decided we wanted to try to travel light since we would be traveling on trains and such every few days. No one wants to lug a heavy suitcase around. We researched travel backpacks a while ago and found the Osprey brand made a backpack that was carry-on approved. We saved the backpacks in Amazon and watched the prices for months. Original price is $160 each. We visited REI recently to see them in person and make sure the sizing was right and found that they were on sale! We checked on Amazon and they were also on sale with free shipping AND I had a $100 Amazon gift card laying around so it made sense to buy them online and save some money.
Having a little patience to track prices for a while meant that instead of paying the original price of $320 for 2 backpacks we got to pay $161.25 for 2 bags. I’m gonna call that a win.
I got the Fairview 40 and my husband got the Farpoint 40. This is our first travel backpack. I’ve never lived out of a backpack before or have gone away for this long. It’s going to be a challenge to fit everything in that I want but I’ll definitely be reviewing the bags after we get back. I’m one of those people who always comes home from a travel with 3 shirts and 2 skirts I never wore that I carried for nothing. But the one time I was conscience of not over packing I under packed and ran out of shirts. It’s something I need to work on. But we’ll find out soon enough if this is a good idea or we should’ve stuck with larger bags. No one wants to stop sightseeing to wash underwear, am I right? Also we can always ship things back in a box no? Is sending a package cheaper than checking a bag on a plane nowadays?
A couple of days ago I started to pack just to make sure that I wasn’t forgetting anything. I took out the bag and realized that in my mind, it had kept growing as the days passed and I realized in reality it did not. I have no idea how I’m going to fit everything in here. What was I thinking?! I’m not a millennial! I like to have options! After laying all my clothes out and writing out a list of outfits for each day, I determined I could bring enough clothes to get me to Berlin before I had to do laundry.
I used my new packing cubes and was pretty amazed at just how much I fit in. Right now I was able to close the bag but there’s not a lot of room left over. I still have 2 shoes to fit in and bras and underwear. Have to do some adjusting but I think it will be ok. Just worried about how we will carry back any souvenirs.
The other stuff we need to purchase for our travels were:
Outlet converts
Pouch for our electronics/wires/ etc.
Mini flat iron
Small backpack for daily travel
Walking sneakers
None of these are a must have (maybe the converter) but we had birthdays last month so I got all these things as presents. The only other stuff we need is really some toiletries. Other than that we have to put the final touches on our itinerary and finish packing.
I can’t believe that it’s been almost a year of thinking about this trip and 6 months of studying maps and museums and spreadsheets. I’m so ready to get out there already and start seeing things. I’ll definitely be posting some blogs about all our cities. Here’s our final itinerary:
Paris
Brussels
Amsterdam
Berlin
Athens
Agion area (Greece)
Poros (small Greek island for 2 days of all inclusive drinking and eating)
1 day in Athens before returning home
Life With Purpose (And Other Things) 