What to pack, what to pack, what to pack? I have been fascinated with the blog discussions about what to pack for our trip. Everyone has an opinion and many are contradictory.

I know that I am a chronic over packer. I always have been. My Dad used to complain about it when I was growing up and now it’s my husband complaining. Now that I know I am going to have to carry everything I take, I really tried to pay attention to what I took and what I actually wore. I traveled a bit for my job so I had an opportunity to practice packing conservatively.

I will be taking my Osprey Farpoint (see the October 30, 2014 post), it’s a 40 liter bag, a day pack and a Pacsafe shoulder bag. Michael is taking a 46 liter Osprey Porter (See the June 14, 2014 post) The travel blogs suggest practice packing and I have, but as its gotten closer to time to leave I have added this and that to my list. So now as our time to leave was here, it was time to face the music and get everything in my bag.

Here’s my backpack and here‘s what I hoped to take. After trying to put things in several different ways, I had to make some hard choices of what to leave behind. Lindsey and I have a joke about no crying in packing and while there was no crying there was definitely some temper as I tried to wrestle my bag into submission. I ended up leaving one long-sleeved blouse, four short-sleeved t-shirts (I had too many anyway), a swim suit and a dress. Michael agreed to carry my vitamins for me. So all is well and I have almost everything I wanted.

Here we are all packed and ready to go. Both of our packs are about five pounds heavier than we had hoped but everything is in and we can carry them. The little day pack has things for the plane (water, snacks…). For our valuables I have my Pacsafe purse and Michael has a fanny pack.

I am sure we have too much but we can leave stuff behind or send it home as we discover things we do not use or don’t want to carry.