The Packing Minimalist
The Pleasure of Just Enough
I’ve been re-visiting Autumn in Venice, a good book about Ernest Hemingway’s life around the time he wrote Across the River and Into the Trees (a truly amazing bad book). Like many things about Hemingway it’s fascinating, impressive, infuriating and sad. One remarkable detail was the involved logistics of travel back in the years around 1950.
The Hemingway family brought their entire Buick (plus driver) and over thirty pieces of luggage by sea from Cuba to Europe. Their trips lasted months; it was like a military campaign (though more romantic). They would stop in towns for a few days just to re-pack. I like a long road trip myself. There’s a pleasure in knowing your car has a cooler, a Tom Petty CD, a pair of waders and anything else you might possibly need.
But there’s no reason to go crazy on a weeklong trip. Packing is an exercise in clear thinking and knowing your needs. And I really, really think it can help you become a better dresser. That’s why we keep coming back to what to pack. I wrote about general principles about what you really need and esoteric ideas about you rarely need.
There are times, like a fishing trip, when it’s good to imagine every variable. Rain, heat, dry flies, sinking lines. These are forty pound duffel bag trips. Then there are civilian trips to Europe or Japan or wherever. A light bag makes everything easier. And you realize how little you need when you get back home.
The gap between packing and when you’re actually traveling is huge. I might need this, you say, before the trip. I might need that. But once you’ve arrived you realize you just need the basic things and a few outliers for temperamental weather.
Here’s what I brought for a little over a week to France:
-Sport Coat. No surprise here. I would never travel without this and you shouldn’t either. Not just for the sake of formality but for organization (passport in this pocket, wallet in that, etc.). When you find the right summer coat—one that’s at home in a Paris brasserie or a seaside dinner—then you’re living well. For me that could be linen. This trip was a tan, cotton Prince of Wales check Drake’s coat that I love to no end.