Packing for my Winter Adventure to Scotland

Tomorrow I get on a plane and head from the Bay Area to Scotland. It's a trip that first became a possibility a year ago. So now that it is finally time to leave, it feels like the culmination of the journey and not the beginning. However, I think that will all change tomorrow when I get on the plane and sit down.

For this trip I had to pack a little differently than I normally do because I have to prepare for the possibility of snow, rain and what will definitely be a cold couple weeks. This is also my first trip since I got my new camera, one that needs a tad more protection than I was giving my old one. That's why for this trip I bought a new backpack.

I travel under the one bag travel philosophy. I bring a single backpack that has everything I need. All my clothes, chargers, toiletries and even a secondary bag for going around town. For the past few years I had been using the Minaal bag. I bought the first version right when they released it and had been pretty happy with it throughout the years. I have a couple small bones to pick with it but it is a great bag.

With a new camera though meant I needed a section with padding specifically to protect it. That is why I purchased the Wandrd Hexad Access Duffel. It was through a Kickstarter and had a shipping date in December which meant that when I bought it in the middle of 2017 that I had no idea if I would get it in time for this trip. Luckily it arrived earlier this week and means I will be taking it with me tomorrow.

Packing for me begins and ends with quantity. One bag travel means taking less than you may want so that its compact and easy to move. This can be a problem for me at times because I am tall and clothes take up some space. My past travels have meant that I have a pretty set packing list down for every trip and can just modify individual items for each trip. For example I only had to add a beanie, scarf, puff jacket, rain jacket and wool socks in order to make my clothing fit this trip.

My first step for packing is modifying my list and pulling each item out and laying them out in piles. Once they are laid out it becomes easy to visualize how it will all fit into the bag. I use packing cubes in order to organize my clothing. I roll each shirt, short and whatever else will fit and snuggly put them into the cube. In this particular instance I was able to fit everything into the cube except a flannel shirt, one pair of socks and my jackets.

All clothes packed into the packing cube.

My original plan was to use a camera cube for my camera, lens and other electronics but I also got a camera sling bag which would be perfect for walking around Scotland so I decided to bring it as well. This means that within the camera cube is essentially a second camera cube holding the camera and extra lens.

With the camera and clothing settled into the two main compartments on one side of the bag all that was left were a pair of sandals, my jackets and my dopp kit. All of this easily fit in the last compartment with space to spare.

Everything placed into their compartment within the bag.

The bag is a little bigger than the Minaal but I would not be able to bring as much on this trip without it.