How To Pack by Hitha Palepu is a nifty little handbook that gives you the ins and outs of packing with ease and confidence for your next travel destination. The author squeezes in a mini autobio which talks of her jetsetting ways as an accomplished entrepreneur whose work necessitated her to travel 3 weeks within a month! All that experience has equipped her to hone her packing skills hence the conception of this book.
Without any doubt, I have come to identify myself as “the anxious overpacker” in the four packing personalities she laid out, the other three namely the forever forgetful, the jumbled traveler and lastly, the impractical dreamer. I am looking forward to apply the tips this book has to offer for an upcoming trip to Seattle. I don’t intend to stay there long but I’m the type who felt the need to bring 3 different winter coats and a few pairs of shoes to rotate within a week’s travel on one occasion. It was a pain in the butt to deal with, my stuff finding its way into my husband’s duffel bag simply because I ran out of space in my own carry on. I had to get creative to cram my stuff with such limited space using a space bag. I literally had to borrow our hotel’s vacuum to fit my stuff back in there the night before we left. I made sure not to put anything that warranted the TSA to ask me to open the vacuum-packed space bag otherwise, that would have been greatly catastrophic.
I travel with a wheeled duffel bag, just the right size to avoid having to check in my luggage which I have come to hate having to wait for it at the baggage carousel during my international trips to Asia and I have been traumatized at seeing checked-in luggages opened and taped up from being mishandled and for this reason, I try to cram everything in a bag that fits the overhead compartment.
This also eliminates the possibility of having your luggage misrouted and lost. There’s four members in my family and none of them overpack so I tend to be the beneficiary of their carry on allowance.
It has six short chapters covering luggage preference basics showing you different types of luggage, preparing clothes for the trip and tips to outfits that would be weather-appropriate to your destination, bringing the right accessories that can polish your look, toiletry basics, how to pack for maximum space (see pic below) and other travel related tips.
It also has sample packing lists for various trip durations and 8 blank packing lists on the back for you to use. It is presented in a cute suitcase-like hardcover, with thick matte pages and the book title placed on a luggage hangtag. I can’t say anything else but “cute.” Overall, I really enjoyed this book and its engaging format, not much reading really as it is simply written along with infographics that are self explanatory. I am hoping this book will help straighten my overpacking ways and I highly recommend it to anyone who could use some help in this arena.
[I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from Blogging for Books]
