Packing for the road

What counts as an essential item?

A guitar, a game of Bezzerwizzer, my winter jacket, and a fold-up drying rack for clothes were spread out in front of us. Several packed clear plastic containers were stacked to one side, each marked with blue packing tape and the handwritten label “STORAGE.” To the other side, an empty plastic container waited to be filled.

“Genie, we only ever played Bezzerwizzer once, with Diana and Charley. I don’t know if you can even play with two people.”

“But it’s so fun!”

Aaron shifted his gaze away. Apparently, to him, it was not that fun.

“Okay, fine. But you know there’s definitely no room for the guitar, right?”

We were in our garage, trying to work through what to bring with us on the road, what to store, and what to donate. We were trying to keep an eye on Darcy, who waited at the bottom of the steps inside by the front door (separation anxiety), and we were sweaty and overwhelmed. It was not going great.

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Aaron and I decided in June of this year to take our life on the road. It was the culmination of a few things we’d been thinking about.

After more than two years of working remotely, the townhouse was just too small. And while we’d really found ways to do our best with Darcy and find places for her to get exercise, we knew she’d do so much better in a house with a yard.

Plus, the last two Seattle winters had taken a toll on my mental health - they’d been extra dark, extra gloomy, and we’d been trapped inside the whole time. I used to hate walking to the bus and then the office and then back to the bus on Seattle’s rainier days, but I’d never realized how those brisk walks in the fresh air provided much-needed relief from the oppressive gray skies and the feeling that winter would never end. Working from home, in the same room every day, with the same darkness outside every day had become truly painful.

At first, the plan was simple: sell our townhouse and find a house with a yard to rent. But once we were talking about taking one step, we started talking about all the others. Did we actually want to stay in Seattle? How would we pick the next city when we’d been to so few? Didn’t we want to travel and see a bunch of cities while we could still work remotely?

It was a quick snowball effect (especially once we admitted that we did want to start living our lives for ourselves, and not the dog, again) that took us to the new plan. And then, a stroke of luck led us to a buyer for our townhouse before we’d gotten ready to list it. Just like that, we needed to head to our first Airbnb on August 1 and prepare to close the sale by August 19.

Which is why, on a hot day in July, we were standing in our garage, simultaneously moving our entire lives out of our first home while also paring down to the bare essentials that could fit into the back of our Subaru.

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How does one pack for a life on the road? We had no idea. But we did have a friend who’d been living the same nomadic life for about six months already, so we called him. This is what we got from talking to him, and what we’ve learned so far in the first two months.

How To Pack For A Year (or More) On the Road

1. Clothes: Think geographically. Seasonal options are great, but you don’t need a suitcase full of winter coats if you’re spending the winter months in southern California. Also, think like a capsule wardrobe: what do you absolutely love wearing, and in how many different outfits can you wear it? A one-time dress that you never have an occasion for will take up valuable space.

2. Regular Use: It’s great to have your guitar nearby in case you’d like to play, but be realistic. If you haven’t played it in the last two years when you were staying at home, how likely are you to play it when you’re on the road and exploring a new city? (Same goes for board games, sadly.)

3. Comfort: What do you use regularly that might feel a little superfluous but goes a long way in making you feel at home? For our friend and his partner, it was their robes and slippers. For both of us, it’s the Nespresso milk frother we use for our daily coffee. For me, it’s having my 10-pound dumbbells so I can alternate between running and strength workouts. Whatever it is, make space for it and don’t downplay its importance because it might feel less “essential.” (I’m already really missing the yoga blocks I didn’t bring for this exact reason.)

4. Flexibility: Can you use it multiple ways or in multiple contexts? Our friend recommended getting two camping chairs that fold up into a small little bag. We never would’ve thought to buy that kind of thing, but we’ve already used them when a couple of friends came by and we needed more seating in the backyard.

5. Books: Oof. This is a tough one. Our friend said that he was bringing no physical books and was only reading e-books for the duration of the trip. And while I totally understand that in theory, man it’s tough for me in practice. Aaron reads a lot of comics/graphic novels, which really require the right device for a good digital reading experience, and he hasn’t found one yet. And we both just love holding a book in our hands. To start the trip, we didn’t bring many books with us, just a couple each that we could squeeze in between our clothes or something else. But I’m already running into problems. If I really like a book and want to keep it, now I have to continue to pack it and carry it from city to city? Or should I mail it to my mom or sister for safe-keeping? I did buy a few e-books, but I often struggle to finish digital books, I’m not sure why. So we’ll still be figuring this out, and in the meantime, I bought four books at Powell’s City of Books last night. Oops.

So what did we actually bring? We each have one big plastic container of clothes. We have one carry-on-sized suitcase that holds all of our shoes. We’ve got a small box of general medical stuff (all those medications you only need occasionally, band-aids, etc.), and we each have a toiletry bag. Our backpacks carry most of our personal remote working tools (laptops, notebooks), and we have a thin plastic container of general office stuff (extension cords, notecards, pens, external keyboards, etc.). A box full of dried food stuffs: pasta noodles, crackers, granola, flour and other baking ingredients, whatever we haven’t used up that’s worth keeping. Aaron brought his gaming consoles - which I thought was too much at first, but honestly it’s been nice, because you can load them up with all your streaming apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) and hook them up to the TV in your Airbnb. So no matter what type of TV the place has, we can plug in the console and have all our apps, logged in and ready to go.

And I'm already seeing what we brought that we aren't using. I brought all my earrings and make-up (admittedly, a very small collection for both), but seeing as I haven't worn either of them more than a handful of times in the past two years and I haven't gotten them out yet in the past two months, they might be a space waster. We brought three sets of dumbbells (10-, 12-, and 15-pound), but so far I've only used the 10s and occasionally one of the 12s. I wanted to have the 15s for Aaron (I originally bought them because he said the ones we had were too light), but, in keeping with the theme here, he didn't use them much in the past two years, and that hasn't changed now. I'm still kind of hoping I'm gonna get strong enough to use the 15s more regularly but...we'll see. My shoulders are weak.

We also brought two plants! This feels doomed to fail. We've spent the last year killing most plants. However, someone gave us a cutting of bamboo that Aaron has painstakingly kept alive and he really didn't want to leave it behind. And then my younger sister, who's been keeping one of my grandmother's plants alive for the last eleven years since she passed, gave me a cutting of her plant as a Christmas gift. It made it through the plane ride from New Orleans back to Seattle, and we're trying to keep it going now, but it looks rough. I think the best plan might be for me to leave it in Los Angeles with my other sister to keep alive until we're ready to settle somewhere.

Leaving Ocean Shores and packing up was easier than I expected. The car was still packed absolutely full, but considering we'd brought stuff to Ocean Shores in two trips (the main moving day, plus picking up a few extra things we'd left behind on another trip back to Seattle), I was amazed we got most of it in. And leaving Portland will be different again, because we won’t have Darcy with us. So we might actually be doing really well in terms of space. I'm sure we'll continue to refine what we need as we go.

Maybe we’ll even pick up a game of Bezzerwizzer at some point. You never know.

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What about you? If you were hitting the road for a year or more, what would be absolutely necessary for you to bring with you? Let me know in the comments.