“He who would travel happily must travel light.”
-Antoine de St. Exupery
We’ve tried to packed light for the month of travel! We’ll be in 3 locations for the 5 week period, and we wanted to pack in carry-on luggage. These backpacks are fairly small so the kids can carry their own bag most of the time. Backpacks have the added bonus of leaving our hands free to hold the kids’ hands in airports or buses.
I’ve included pictures of my children’s backpacks, but my husband and I packed very similar bags for ourselves. The number of clothing items are the same is each bag. We’ve all packed 4 outfits, plus we’ll have the one we’re wearing for a total of 5 outfits for 5 weeks.
When I was packing for this trip, I was thinking back to when I lived with 3 outfits for a few weeks on my first ‘simple adventure’. If you haven’t read this story yet, I was volunteering for several weeks and had taken out 3 outfits (from the many that I had packed) and decided to wear only those items during that time. There was no washing machine, so at the end of each day I would wash my clothes in a bucket, and hang the outfit to dry overnight.
During this trip, we’re lucky enough to have a washing machine in two of the three places where we’re staying, so I think 5 outfits will be more than enough.
Where the kids have some toys packed, I have an adult colouring book (okay, I guess I’m just a big kid) and I have a bag for all our toiletries. I also have a small purse that fits in the backpack.
Here’s my daughter’s backpack and everything that was packed inside:
The girls each wore one outfit with a cardigan and comfortable shoes.
Each child had a backpack containing:
- 4 outfits
- 1 cardigan
- 1 pair of pjs
- 5 pairs of underwear
- 4 pairs of socks and 1 pair of stockings
- light jacket
- kleenex and baby wipes
- small box with hair elastics and clips
- toothbrush
- crafts and toys which fit into a zippered folder
Using backpacks as our piece of carry-on luggage has also been helpful since arriving in Amsterdam. On the weekend we bought daily bus/tram passes and spent the days exploring the city for a while. Before leaving the house, I emptied one backpack and used it to carry everything we needed for the day: camera, keys, bus passes, my small purse, lunch, snacks, baby wipes and napkins.
So far we’ve been really happy with how we decided to pack for this trip; travelling light, and happily!
