Freedom from Luggage: How to Pack Light for European Travel and Beyond

Tired of luggage weighing down your vacation? With pictures and concise text, this manual shows how to exchange that suitcase with wheels for a light shoulder bag or daypack a bit larger and lighter than a gallon of milk. Thus unburdened, you can easily enjoy a wider world. Charming cobblestone plazas and staircases to authentic lodgings no longer wear out your arms for the sake of preserving clothing options and covering basic needs.By articulating general principles and giving specific examples, this book explains how to develop your own, personalized travel wardrobe. By identifying the key characteristics of versatile, durable, packable clothing, this guide makes you a knowledgeable shopper. Use sample packing lists, illustrations of layering for handling a range of temperatures, and mix-and-blend suggestions to build your efficient collection. You'll have enough to take you from a day hike in the hills to an evening in a nice restaurant, from a sunny beach town to a snowy mountain resort.You'll get practical suggestions for cutting down on toiletries and traveling with prescription medications. You're reminded of the ways electronics save space by incorporating everything from maps and travel guides to cameras and books for leisure reading. Photos help identify specialized travel products that we've found to be especially useful. Photos and text describe how to pack carefully-chosen items into a small, light shoulder bag or daypack. Examples of life on the road help to relieve readers' concerns about how taking so little actually works in practice. From how to keep a wardrobe clean to how to dress it up or down.Cruise travel with its combination of dressy dinners and days at the beach usually means you'll need a little more. Bus tours present similar challenges. The lessons from the cruise / tour chapter apply to numerous situations where you either want or need to carry more stuff. With your basic wardrobe in place and some help from photos and expanded cruise packing lists, however, you'll be able to shift from a huge suitcase to a small carry-on. Travelers often struggle with the "How much should I take this time?" question. This book offers specific suggestions on how to decide, depending on the nature of the planned trip.We're two retired folks who like to see new places, have travelled extensively, and yet hate to haul stuff. We've truly enjoyed the freedom we've felt over the 8 years since we changed our approach to packing. Like other converts, we feel the need to share our happiness. For background, one Appendix describes how our approach has evolved over a series of international land trips, sometimes extending 2 months, and a wide variety of cruises. Though we receive no compensation from suppliers, the other Appendix identifies our favorite sources of travel products. We invite you to experience freedom from luggage.