Today is packing day for my Carnival Breeze cruise to the Western Caribbean! I really love travel, but I really hate packing; this is an annoying dichotomy because of course I need to pack for every trip.  I’m not one of those people who pack a week in advance for a trip, but I”m also not one of those people who pack the morning of the plane flight (Mr. Travelholic; I’m looking at you; I wonder if most men pack at the last minute like my husband does?).

My Delsey and Travel Pro Bags

In any event, I usually like to pack two days out which gives me enough time to make any purchases of last-minute needed items. However, today is not the first day I’ve THOUGHT about packing; there are a few preliminary things I do about a week prior to a  trip:

1. Figure out what size I am for the trip.  My closet has a full wardrobe in sizes 8, 10 and 12 thanks to fluctuations from age, dieting,  medications (prednisone, get back ye devil med) and such. For this trip, 10 it is.

2. Figure out if there are any camera-related or other items I need to order off of Amazon.com, and then order those items via Amazon Prime in time to arrive for the journey.  For this trip I needed a case for my DxO One (I lost my case  on a recent trip) and a couple of SD cards. And I bought a new carry-on that I’ll discuss below.

3. Figure out if I need to do any shopping out of town (which I did for this trip; see my post on my San Francisco trip).

4. Take in any dry cleaning for clothes that I want to pack.

5. Make a list of anything I need to buy locally (good DEET bug spray–don’t want Zika for this trip–and a gentle SPF sunscreen for faces); I usually make a drug store run for such things right before the trip.

So, with all my pre-packing chores done, I’m ready to pack today.  One of the things I’ve learned from years of travel is Continue reading →