Sunday, November 15, 2009

Packing for a 5 day trip to Montreal


All the items I carried to Montreal
All the items I carried to Montreal

The first weekend in November I took a five day trip to Montreal.  This was for a professional conference, and I had some interviews and meetings lined up.  In the past I would have brought a lot of clothing, probably in my Samsonite Silhouette 11 Spinner Garment Bag.  The Silhouette was the bag I used for last year’s conference in San Diego, and it allowed me to pack two full suits, several pairs of shoes, and walking-around clothes for about four days, as well as more clothing for a second leg my wife and I took to visit her family for a few days.  The Silhouette worked great, but its a big bag.  Though it rolls easily, it’s not the kind of bag you want to be pulling around a city all day.
In addition to this, I’ve also been very influenced lately by the philosophy espoused by Doug Dyment on his excellent site, OneBag.com.  Dyment challenges his readers to really think through what they bring on trips, and to try to keep these items as limited and light as possible.  With this in mind, I decided to accept the challenge and see how light I could go and still remain presentable for the interviews and the meetings.
In the place of the Silhouette, I chose two packs, one for my back and one light enough to carry in my hands or on my shoulder.  The back pack was a RedOxx Roadster Mini-Ruck rucksack, and the carry-all was an Eddie Bauer 20″ Northlake Duffel Bag.  These Northlake duffels are hard to find these days (I should do a separate post on how I chose this particular one over other – inferior – Eddie Bauer bags currently available.  I’m going to keep using the Northlake until it gives out – probably a good while from now – then I’ll likely switch to a RedOxx Beanos bag), but I’ve been super pleased with how well is keeps things organized and how well it holds up for this kind of travel.
The OneBag site suggests you make a list of things before you pack, to minimize the temptation to over-pack.  So I did, thinking through both what would go in the bags as well as what I would wear or carry on the plane itself.  I figured a good first post for this site would be a run-down of those lists, with some commentary on how the packing went, how it worked, and what I would do differently next time.
What I’ll do is give the packing list for each bag.  What I ended up not using I’ll include as a strike-through item on the list.
RedOxx Roadster Ruck:
Northlake Duffel Bag:
In addition to this, I wore the following on the trip there and back:
While I was in Montreal I used some small packs of Woolite soap to do laundry in the hotel sink.  I used the ShamWows to wick out the excess moisture, and hung the clothes to dry in the closet and on the flexoline.  This allowed me to pack half the clothing I otherwise would have had to.
When I arrived in Montreal, I had packed the fleece vest, gloves and fleece cap so that they were quickly accessible.  This allowed me to transition to the colder weather almost as soon as I got on the ground (which was good, since the shuttle bus dropped us a couple kilometers from my hotel.  I was able to navigate the surface streets with little discomfort due to this planning).
The bulk of the trip was all about managing the temperature (which fluctuated from the high 40′s to the low 70′s) both inside and outside, as well as trying to keep each day’s load as light as possible to save wear and tear on my feet.  The TravelSmith day bag was a bit bulky to pack, but paid dividends on the ground for light packing day-to-day at the conference.
All things considered, I managed to pack pretty light, but it still seems like I could have packed lighter.  That gives me something to work towards for the next trip.  Thanks for reading, and your suggestions or tips are welcome!
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