Packing: What I Missed & What I Didn't Need

Before departing in February, I put my heart & soul into creating the perfect packing list for 3 months in a hotel, in the mountains of Southern Spain, where it was cold and windy 85% of the time and sunny and windy the rest, but I desperately wanted to believe it would be hot and sunny the whole time. Throw in traveling to other areas of Spain/countries every weekend and a 50 pound limit and you've got quite the packing dilemma.

I also found out later that my detailed and picture including list that I posted to FaceBook before departure resulted in most of my fellow travelers thinking that I was half nuts, which isn't too far from the truth so it's fine. A few of them told me that they based their list off of mine but the majority of them wondered how I could be content with bringing so little. And I thought I had packed too much, I didn't even consider bringing anything other than my backpack and purse as my carry on!

CLOTHES & ACCESSORIES

The key, I suspected and found to be true, was to pack layers. Pack basic tank tops/short sleeved shirts and a couple of thick neutral colored cardigans that can go over anything. And jeans and thick black leggings. I only wore my shorts a few times. I unintentionally ended up with a whole wardrobe of black & other neutrals. I literally had one purple shirt that I never wore because it was a wrinkly fabric, a maroon dress I wore once, a gray cardigan and a tan one, and a red & black scarf but was okay with it because it was easy to mix n match. I have this one particular sweater I wished I had brought from home too when I found myself wishing I had brought just one more long sleeved item.

I brought two of my very favorite silky shirts from Express and only ended up wearing them a few times. One was the purple shirt I never wore, because the fabric was not conducive to traveling. I could not for the life of me get the wrinkles out, so I would just say to make sure the fabrics you bring along are pretty wrinkle resistant or will come out after being hung up for a day near the shower.

My black & tan padded bra-lettes were my best friends. However, 14 PAIRS OF PANTIES IS NOT ENOUGH. Take it from Madison and bring about 60 pairs. JK, 3 weeks worth would probably suffice but worrying about having clean & not bath-tub washed panties when laundry ran late was something she never once had to worry about and I , definitely did. Victoria's Secret isn't cheap in Europe, ladies.

Overall, I was very happy with what I packed. I wished I had brought more scarves. It usually didn't matter what shirt I had on because I was wearing my black jacket zipped up with that darn red and black blanket scarf (thanks Ty, I love it but...) it looked like I always had on the same outfit! Having one or two other scarves would've solved that problem. I loved my ripped black skinnies and my lulu leggings. I was very happy with my shoes too. They are all pretty worn out. My black booties were great but they resulted in very sore feet and a bad mood after a 14 mile walking day. I wish that I had a pair of thin bottomed vans to wear instead of my black Nike's. I just had to sacrifice looking fashionable for comfort after the first month. Once it warmed up, my black sandals were wonderful. I had my brother bring my Chaco's to me half-way through the trip after tearing up my feet climbing on rocks and had high hopes of them being useful for climbing rocks and traipsing through the ocean in Lagos, Portugal, but instead ended up not being able to walk because of the many blisters I received and lovingly left the Chaco's under a trash can at the bus station in Granada.

I wish that I had packed more comfy clothes. I even had my brother bring me a t-shirt when he visited over Spring Break. Madison and I were both under the impression that we couldn't wear our Norts and Pocket Tees while we were there. Yes we did get some looks and whistles when we decided to look unmistakably American but, Lanjaron is a small town and we were all about comfort during the weeks there. Work-out clothes were really nice to have for playing soccer and hiking in too. The hotel was very cold almost the entire stay too and I had my pair of fuzzy socks but house shoes would have been nice to have! I wore-out any sweat shirt I brought and wore Tyler's huge pair of sweats every day. I wore them to breakfast in the hotel restaurant and to class more days than not, complete with wet hair. Once again, you get looks, but you just have to decide not to care.

On one of our first group trips we went to Nerja, a near-by beach town and I quickly realized that it would be nice to have one of my simple black dresses from home to use as an easy outfit for dressing up or a swim cover-up. So I had my brother bring me a short flowy one and a short t-shirt dress. I never wore the black maxi dress I brought because I forgot how high the side slits were and it didn't really work with the windy weather. I also left all jewelry at home except for the ring I have literally worn every day since high school when my parents got it for me. Sometimes I wished that I had a simple necklace to add to an outfit but overall I was happy I left all the rest at home.

When you wear your jeans a few times they stretch ( my black Gap skinnies didn't though, hence why I loved them so much), so I was glad I brought my belt. My BCBG jacket was warm but came with a pouch that it could be squished into and was light to carry when I didn't need it. I loved the long length and saw a lot of similar jackets while I was there. Army green was a really popular color too, a lot of girls on the trip had those as well and I love them too. MAKE SURE IT HAS A HOOD THOUGH, or at least make sure you bring a lightweight rain coat with one. My umbrella fit in my purse and was a life-saver as well.

BATHROOM PRODUCTS

I DID NOT NEED to throw in my steamer, hair straightener, or blow dryer at the last minute. I promptly discovered that they did not work, nor did I need them and sent them back state-side with my brother over Spring Break.

When Dr. Hudson told us at the pre-departure meeting to leave all the hair tools & make-up at home, I laughed in my head. Of course in EUROPE I would need to look my best at ALL TIMES. But I quickly realized upon arrival that she was right. The makeup, I did use but mostly only on the weekends and I was glad I only brought the basics. Being able to compact my make-up into an even smaller bag for weekend travel by bringing a liquid blush and bronzer and using the puff in my powder and going without my eyelash curler and big bottle of face lotion (to be able to leave the extra tools at the hotel), was really nice too. I also bought make-up removal wipes (carry on approved for planes) so that I wouldn't have to take my big face wash with me on travel weekends.

Pre-trip, I bought two new shades of nail-polish, the kind that is meant to be like a gel polish but you can remove normally and I don't really think I needed any nail polish at all. Re-polishing my nails was a task that seemed useless and I probably could've made it 3 months and come back with polish still on my toes. Definitely bring nail clippers, but my point is, stick to a color or two if you must bring polish and the "gel-like" polish isn't really that much better than normal.

Madison and I bought big bottles of shampoo, body wash, and conditioner to share for the hotel shower/awesome bath-tub. I brought travel size containers of these products from home, and bought a travel size toothpaste & hairspray too. When the travel size containers ran out of product, we would just fill them up from our big bottles. I brought my razor, probably should've brought an extra head for it as it got a little rusty, and used body wash or conditioner as shaving cream. I usually left the razor at the hotel when we were only gone for a few days too. Bring a toothbrush head case, too!

I did have my mom bring me a loofah when she came to visit and SUNSCREEN. I had to buy a 13 euro bottle of it before she came because preventing a nasty sunburn was worth the price. But it could have been avoided. Bring a mini size one too, for flights when all you bring is a carry-on. And FYI, A lot of people on the trip that swore they never got sunburnt, got burnt to a crisp.

Hand sanitizer & tissues for your purse are key for bathrooms when traveling as they often don't have toilet paper or soap.

I was really glad I bought enough tampons and such to last me the whole trip too. Also, work with your insurance and pharmacy if you have prescriptions that you normally only get once a month. Mine had a special override that allowed me to get 3 months worth at one time, enough to cover the whole trip. I bought a new pack of allergy pills for the trip too but forgot about them until finding them the last week, and they would have been nice to remember because my allergies were definitely acting up!

PACKING FOR WEEKEND TRIPS IN A BACKPACK & BAGS

I thought there was no way I could pack for a whole weekend in my backpack. So I brought the black and pink VS tote too but never ended up using it. Get this. I packed everything I needed for Spring Break IN MY BACKPACK. It is so nice to not have to worry about checking bags or picking them up after your flights. Pants were often worn for multiple days and rolled up shirts didn't take up too much room. Stick to one pair of shoes and I wore my cardigan,coat, and scarf to travel in. You don't need your laptop or your iPad or anything but your phone and your friends and the places you are traveling to, to keep you entertained. My Osprey Quasar backpack is the new love of my life, sorry Ty.

My Fossil purse was also one of the better purchases I made before the trip. It matched everything, held up perfectly, and has such great compartments for zipping up important documents or being able to quickly grab my passport and boarding pass from.

I thought long and hard about buying a passport case and I never did it and I'm glad I didn't. Madison had one, which was so cute, but they always took it out of the case to stamp it! I also wanted to buy a new vera bradley keychain wallet and ended up just sticking with my large zip-up wallet and I'm so glad I did. EURO COINS ARE WORTH SOMETHING. So my wallet was always heavy with coins but I had room for it. And my passport fit in it perfectly.

I bought a pack of locks from Amazon for my luggage and backpack before the trip but ended up never using them. In the first hostel we shared with a stranger we were glad to have Cecily's lock for our bags but I never ended up using it to lock my luggage. It was too much of a pain to have to lock and unlock to get into anything.

The bag I brought with me for groceries was useful until I loaded it up too much and the strap broke (have to have you fix that Aunt Mo, sorry!). The good news is, the Dia market sold big, reusable bags for a few euro's or less so I would just buy one of those upon arrival! You have to pay for bags if you don't bring your own and have to much to carry on your own.

TECHNOLOGY & BANK CARDS

I probably didn't need my iPad. Granted a couple of my "required books" were kindle version but funny story, besides my Spanish book, which was heavily used, I opened not a one of the others. I'm just saying. I would suggest checking with professors about the actual need for the book before purchasing, especially on this specific trip.

GET AN EXTRA BATTERY. You know like the charging sticks they have every where these days? Mine was a life saver. I would even dare to say bring two, and you can share with someone who doesn't have one.

I'm sure my mom purchased my universal power trip on Amazon, and it was a life saver too. Madison and I both used it in the hotel room. Just make sure you also have one or two more adapters (not necessarily converters) to use when traveling and you will have to use one to plug your strip into the wall if it's an American plug like mine was. Converters are usually sketchy, you never know when something's going to start a fire so I'd just go without to be safe. Sometimes you can buy dual voltage items if you really can't go without but even they can go on the fritz. UK OUTLETS ARE DIFFERENT THAN MOST OF THE EU. Luckily Madison had a UK adapter so we shared but my phone almost died on that trip. I believe Switzerland's are different as well?

I have the Capital One Venture One credit card. If you don't have any credit, start now with a student card. You have to have pretty good credit to be approved for this one but it has no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. If I spent $1,000 in the first three months I received $200 worth of mileage points, which got me a $200 credit to my account using the purchase eraser on any travel expense. And you get 1.25 miles for every $1 spent. I never spend more than I have in my checking account right then and pay off my whole statement balance every month.

For checking, I use regions. Yes, the ATM fees are usually $5 on top of whatever the ATM charges but I did my best to withdraw cash as few times as possible. In Europe splitting the check didn't seem to be a popular thing so we often needed cash to pay our part of the bill which took Madison playing banker to make sure everyone ended up with the right amount of change. We also usually paid for our hostels this way too. There was a small fee every time I used the card to purchase things, which is why it was nice to have the Venture because it doesn't do that. My online banking app for regions made it easy to budget throughout the trip as well. And easy to transfer money from savings to checking. (Capital One has an app too and I set up automatic payments)

I use Audible through Amazon to download books the listen to which I particularly love because I don't get carsick trying to read on a bus going through the Sierra Nevada mountains. And I use Spotify for my music, I pay the student fee of $5 a month to be able to download songs to listen to offline. I downloaded Sweet Home Alabama to my iPad and never ended up watching it. The long international flights have TVs with good movies to watch for free and I was too busy to really watch it any other time. Sometimes we would use our classroom projector and sound bar to watch movies together in the salon with drinks from the restaurant downstairs, which was a lot of fun.

I loved having my Samsung Galaxy S6 active. I drop it on the reg and it has yet to break (knocks on wood) and the camera is one of the best phone cameras out there. I go back and forth on whether or not I think it would have been worth it to invest in a real Digital SLR camera. Maybe one day, but for now I'm just pleased to have made it back home with my phone at all and, it still works perfectly so that's a bonus.

I (my family) uses AT&T and my dad very nicely paid for the smallest international package for me. It was $30 a month and included unlimited texting, a very small amount of data and lower priced calling. Having unlimited texting was priceless for me. It was nice to have data for if I really got myself lost and to know I could call someone in an emergency without immediately racking up a huge bill. But for calling I used Facebook Messenger when I had Wi-Fi and had friends send pictures through there because I'm pretty sure it used up my data to download their images, but I could send all I wanted. I probably need to double check that, it's a little confusing. A few students bought Spanish cell phones and I think they would tell you it was not worth it. I just made sure to have International Data Roaming turned off, if I wanted to use my data I would turn it on, and then back off. Simple.

SOUVENIRS

I brought a few things back for Tyler & Paige and just a mug, sweatshirt, and headphones (because I lost mine) for me and besides that all of my money went to experiences, transportation, housing, and food. Pictures are my souvenir of choice and they are easy because they're free to take and only take up digital space on your phone and not in your suitcase. I'd also say I wished I had stopped and asked people to take pictures of me with other people more. I'm usually to shy to do that or think it would be too complicated and take too long, but the people you travel with have such an impact on the place you go to, so it's nice to have those memories captured in a picture. I'm not a selfie stick fan but I sure loved it when Cecily pulled hers out.

Overall, I was pretty proud of my packing list. Just take out the unnecessary electronics/hair tools and throw in a few more comfy/warm items of clothing and some more panties (seriously, that was my biggest problem)!

#Packing #Travel #Spain #Andalucia #3Months