Packing has been on my mind a lot this week. Aha just kidding. It’s super boring. I find it hard enough to choose what clothes to wear each morning, how can I predict what I’m going to wear for the next two months? But as I’m leaving tomorrow evening, it’s not something I could put off any longer. But actually, I’ve gotta admit, I’m more organised than usual. Had my stuff neatly laid out for the past week, and I have thought about it a bit. My main worry was taking too much stuff with me. I wanted to pack light. Lighter than I thought I could deal with. My packing guide in the “Rough Guide to First Time Around the World” recommends I take one t-shirt, advice I’ve ignored; I’m taking five and a pyjama t-shirt. Mainly because there is one chore I hate more than anything in the world, and that is laundry. So if I have five t-shirts I have to wash them five times less frequently, right? The guide book says that if you wash them in the evening, they’ll be dry by morning. Can I just say, I’m travelling through the USA during autumn/winter. No way will they dry. And I’m not going to be spending as much time on a beach as this book seems to think I will.

One tip the book suggested which I am following, albeit reluctantly, is to leave my sleeping bag behind. Seems counter intuitive, but it’s true, I’m most probably going to be staying in hostels every night so shouldn’t need it… the only shorts I’m taking are swim shorts, I’ve got many pairs of underwear (cus of the aversion to laundry thing again), a hoody, a sweatshirt (which the guidebook also advised against), a brolly and a super ugly raincoat (which I’ll only use if I really have to). Toiletries, med-kit and a couple of books. Looking at the selection, it seems like hardly anything… my bag apparently weighs just 9kg! I’m not counting the weight of the clothes and boots I’m going to be wearing, and my hand luggage… so now I’m just paranoid I’ve forgotten a million super important things. Oh well. The USA is a fairly civilised country. I think they even have shops over there. So no problem if I’ve forgotten anything. Except my passport. Then there would be a biggggg problem…

The easiest way to know if I have everything is by giving my mum permission to nag me incessantly about packing. One of her ramblings might remind me of something useful!