Packing light is something I learned on my first trip overseas. Roger was speaking at a conference in the Netherlands for work; I was to meet him for 10 days of fun after.
Roger insisted I pack for the trip in a carry-on bag. My first trip to Europe…Yikes! I didn’t know what to wear, what to take and all in a carry-on. Well, I decided to pack only the basics, underwear, socks, a couple pair of pants, shirts, sweaters, two pair of shoes. How was I ever going to make it? Well, I managed to cram everything in, had my in-laws stay with the kids, booked a car to the airport and I was off. I had one bag, a jacket and my purse.
When the driver picked me up, he couldn’t believe it. He kept asking how long I was going to be gone. He explained that his wife took three bags with her on three-day weekends. I insisted that I would be ok and that he didn’t know Roger…
I made it just fine. Lugging a bunch of extra bags around on that trip would have been a pain. We took the train all over from The Hague to Haarlem, Delft, Amsterdam and back.
We switched hotels, pensions and B&B’s a lot on that trip. Many places didn’t have elevators and every place had stairs.
Boy, was I glad I packed light!
