Poland 5: The Bearable Lightness of Packing

On the train from Gdańsk to Toruń yesterday, I shared my compartment with an English-speaking Polish guy who turned out to be Tomek, the head instructor at a Krav Maga self defence academy in Łódź. Krav Maga is, apparently, a hand-to-hand combat system from Israel.

All interesting, of course, but what Tomek really wanted to ask me about was how I packed so light. He'd noticed my backpack on the rack above my head, knew from our conversation that I was from Australia and was touring Poland, and his interest was piqued.

To clarify, the backpack isn't one of those huge ones that seem larger than the backpackers they're attached to. It's cabin luggage sized. And it's the only luggage I ever take with me when I travel, whether locally or overseas.

Tomek, who travels a fair bit for his business, said he wanted to travel more lightly, but the problem was in choosing what to leave behind when he finally got around to packing. To which, I laughed carelessly and shared my secret with him (and now you): the "rule of three".

After years of travel, experimenting with less and less luggage and still complaining about how heavy it all was, I finally had this vision in Italy in 2001. Not that I put it straight into practice... bad habits die hard. But nowadays I swear by it.

The solution came by finally pinning down an ideal number of items of clothing, not to be deviated from. And that number is three. I pack three of the core clothing items in my backpack (actually two, as I'm wearing the third items onto the plane), with some variation on other items.

Here's an outline of my clothing packing for this Lonely Planet trip:

• 3 shirts (2 T-shirts, 1 with collar)
• 3 pairs of socks
• 3 pairs of underwear
• 2 pairs of trousers (1 jeans, 1 black)
• 1 fleecy top
• 1 scarf
• 1woolly hat
• 1 jacket
• 1 pair of boots

You can see it covers all the seasonal variations for spring in Central Europe, and I have worn everything on the list at some point in this trip. If it gets unusually cold, I could wear layers, but so far it's been textbook: cool nights and mornings, sunny warm days.

The single pair of footwear is a necessary element, as footwear is so hard to pack; they're solid black walking boots but look fine in a restaurant as well. Speaking of which, that's the point of the collared shirt and the second trousers: for wear at concerts, parties or meetings at the Australian Embassy (all of which have happened this trip).

In addition to clothing, I have the following:

• toiletries
• ultraportable laptop computer which weighs just over 1 kilogram
• the Lonely Planet Poland guidebook
• folder with papers, maps etc
• mobile phone
• camera
• PDA
• leads and chargers for the above
• stationery items
• foldable bowl and fork/spoon
• small satchel

As I mentioned above, several of these items are carried on my person rather than going into the backpack. If you're wondering about the folding bowl, it's a miracle of design that allows me to have a simple meal of muesli in a hotel room from time to time.

Once off the aircraft, the satchel leaves the backpack and stays over my shoulder even when moving between cities. It only goes back when I need to get on a flight. And for reading material, I download a bunch of novels from the Web to read on my PDA (either paid-for downloads, or works available free because they're out of copyright).

You'll have noticed an obvious point: if you're going to travel this light, you need to wash clothing more often. Sure, but I think it's well worth the trade-off when I'm walking with a smile and a light step to the train station, with my easily manageable backpack on my back...

[For my April 2012 update to this blog post, click here]