i hate packing, but someones gotta do it

Things every frequent traveler (the house packer variety) must have:
Duct tape
Lots of good sturdy little locks
Masking tape
Lots of plastic bags and newspaper
At least one big hard piece of luggage
Extra large plastic bag
Plastic Rope (optional)
All bags must have wheels
Weighing machine (actually not required if you can guess the weight of a bag with a margin of error of two kgs like I can, but years of practice needed for said ability to evolve)

This list is particularly for when you’re traveling by plane (I think that point was already understood, but I thought I’d clarify it anyway).

Most of the stuff on the list might sound unnecessary, and maybe for some people it is, I obviously don’t speak for everyone, but it’s always worked for us. Let me elaborate:

Duct tape: Sometimes your bag might be on its last leg and you’re taking it for one final trip, or maybe you’ve just overstuffed it and you’re not too sure if it’ll stay shut by the time you get it back. Strategically placed duct tape helps. If nothing you feel reassured about the safety of your stuff. It actually helped us this one time when a bag of ours (brand new I might add) kinda-sorta fell apart in the end; the duct tape helped hold it together. But please please don’t overload on the tape. You don’t want it to look like you’ve bandaged your bag for a trip to the hospital. One tip to avoid spoiling the bag though, take all the tape off when you’re home. Leave it on long enough and the glue will stay behind. No further explanations necessary. But it doesn’t stick particularly well on certain synthetic-fabricky bags.

Little locks: to uh, lock all your bags (attach it to the zips). The combination lock isn’t always enough.

Masking tape, plastic bags and newspaper: to pack away Each and Every bottle/tube/jar of liquid/cream/whatever. To avoid messy spills in your bags. And the layers of paper and even plastic bags are good for padding the easily breakables (you can’t bubble wrap every damn thing)

Hard luggage: again, to protect the easily damaged stuff.

Extra large plastic bag: tucked away somewhere accessible (incase of excess baggage).

Plastic rope: extra useful to hold bags/cartons/lumpy-clumpy-questionably-shaped luggage together. Not for the faint of heart. It really doesn’t look so good. Buts it does the job better then duct tape. Tying your stuff together with these florescent ropes is an art form, and doing it correctly is definitely a skill.

Weighing machine: to be aware of how much weight you’re carrying. And to see if it’s possible to stuff more stuff in ;)

Ok I can’t think of anything else. So until the next post…happy packing (?)