Somewhere Between Overpacked and Unprepared: Packing Lessons from 30 Years of Travel
After decades of travel — Peru, Europe, Antarctica, West Africa, the Arctic — my packing philosophy has become less about packing light and more about packing thoughtfully.
I’m not a minimalist traveler, but I’m not a heavy packer either. My goal these days is simply to use everything I bring. You never know what spontaneous whims you’ll have or what Mother Nature will throw at you, so flexibility still matters, but it’s a useful guiding principle.
On our recent trip through West Africa, I came close. Almost everything I packed got used. The exceptions were my dive log and prescription swim goggles — we’d hoped to get a dive in on one of the islands, but the weather didn’t cooperate.
And yes, there were a few things I used or wore mostly so I could say I used everything. But whatever. It still counts!
Cruises are more forgiving — you unpack once and your luggage mostly stays put. But on adventure travel — boats, rough roads, multiple stops, variable infrastructure — every extra item is something you’re hauling yourself or sacrificing space for something you might actually need.
My full packing checklist is available as a free printable:
Where You’re Going Matters
Some destinations are forgiving. Forget sunscreen in Italy? You’ll buy sunscreen in Italy. Forget a sweatshirt in Seattle? Easy fix.
Other places are different.
In parts of Africa, the Galápagos, the Arctic, Antarctica, or other remote destinations, replacing forgotten items may not be simple, convenient, or even possible. Packing mistakes follow you longer there. The calculus changes — not just what you pack, but how seriously you think through the list beforehand. A man on our Arctic trip made it onto the plane to Svalbard but his bag didn’t. The boat couldn’t wait for it, so he had to cobble together what he could from the Svalbard stores and borrow from fellow travelers. Luckily OAT had warned us all emphatically not to put our parkas in checked luggage. The Arctic without a parka is a non-starter.
And then there are places where the search for a forgotten item becomes part of the trip itself. Wandering through local stores, trying to translate labels or explain what you need through gestures and approximate language, can become one of the unexpected memories you bring home.
Thinking about which kind of destination you’re heading to changes how you pack.
The Thing I Finally Admitted My Mother Was Right About
I’m not naturally an organized packer.
I’m the kind of person who throws things into a suitcase and assumes future Wendy will figure it out. My mother folds things neatly, sorts by category, and somehow always knows exactly where everything is. My husband is the same way.
For years I resisted packing cubes because they felt overly fussy. But eventually, after one too many trips spent digging through my suitcase looking for a charging cord or a clean pair of underwear, I gave in.
The breaking point may have been Ecuador, when I became convinced I had lost my phone charger somewhere along the way. After tearing apart my bag multiple times, I finally gave up and bought another one. Days later I found the original charger mixed up in some clothes in my suitcase.
Now I use packing cubes for medicine, electronics, underwear, and other small things that otherwise disappear into the abyss. I still pack a little chaotically. Just now with smaller zippered compartments added in.
The Things You Don’t Think About
My mother brought electrolytes on an African safari in 2023. I hadn’t thought about them before, and when she first offered them to me I waved her off. It seemed like overkill — something for athletes, not travelers.
And then we stayed at a safari camp in Botswana where we spent the hottest part of the day lying on our beds with fans blowing over us because there was no AC and it was just too hot to move. By the second day of that, the electrolytes and I had built a bond.
I added them to my packing list after that.
I use Liquid IV packets that dissolve into water bottles. I brought them to West Africa earlier this year and started using them early on. At one point while walking around Togoville in Togo, mom and I basically became a tiny traveling pharmacy, sharing packets with people who thought they might faint from the heat. Eventually one of our fellow travelers asked our guide to detour to a pharmacy so he could buy his own supply.
They seem like just another small item on a list. They aren’t.
Getting Practical About Safety
Travel has made me less paranoid and more practical about safety.
Over the years I’ve had a camera stolen in Costa Rica, had a wallet stolen while traveling with a friend, seen bags partially unzipped by pickpockets, and watched friends get fraudulent credit card charges within minutes of arriving somewhere new. Guides in markets have quietly pulled us aside to warn us about situations. It accumulates.
So now I do a few things consistently: keep backup cash separate from my main wallet, carry copies of important documents, use bags with locking zippers, and avoid keeping everything in one place.
I’d also gently push back on the advice to “blend in.” In Benin, our group wandered around in cargo pants, sun hats, and camera straps looking exactly like what we were: visitors.
That’s fine.
The goal isn’t invisibility. It’s reducing easy opportunities and making problems easier to recover from when they happen. I wrote about these experiences in a previous blog post on travel theft and what I’ve learned.
Flexibility Matters More Than Perfect Preparation
You can spend months researching visas, vaccines, adapters, medications, safety advice, and packing lists — and then weather reroutes your ship, Morocco gets canceled, someone’s bag falls on your mother during landing, or someone makes it onto the plane while their suitcase doesn’t.
Preparation helps. It genuinely does.
The list gets you to the airport. What happens after that is travel.
The full master packing list — organized by climate, broken out by category, and built to print — is below:
