The Things We Pack That Never Leave the Suitcase

Apparently, vacation me needs a lot more clothes than regular me.

Every vacation begins with optimism and an open suitcase.

When we think of packing for a vacation, we want to have multiple outfits for each day (just in case). We confidently fold outfits for every possible scenario—a fancy dinner, a casual lunch, a hot and humid day, a rainy day. We need a color-coordinated sweater for each outfit and five different pairs of shoes. And we download several books on our Kindle.

Maybe what we're really packing isn't just clothes. We're packing expectations — about what we'll do, how we'll look, how we'll feel, and even who we'll be while we're away.

Because we are traveling to distant shores and seeing a destination as different from our home, we somehow think that we will be different too – that somehow we are transformed by the new environment we are in.

At home, I put on a blue sweater that doesn’t at all match the black pants I’m wearing.

Yet, on vacation, suddenly, I need a coordinated outfit for breakfast, another for sightseeing, and something "casual but nice" for dinner.

Why do I suddenly believe I’m going to need more than one outfit a day on vacation than when I’m at home?

At home, I think "I really don't want dessert."  On vacation, I’m thinking, "We should try the local dessert. We may never be here again."  And somehow vacation calories don't count.

We say we're going on vacation to relax. Then we create an itinerary that would challenge a professional tour guide. We need to see the sights, take all the excursions, find the restaurant everyone recommended, visit the little town someone told us about, and perhaps squeeze in some shopping. We are going to relax. We just need to find a few hours to fit it in.

Why do we have such high expectations for our vacations in the first place? Maybe it's because of the money. We want to make sure we get our money's worth. Maybe it's because we don't know if we'll ever return and feel as though we have to see everything while we can. Or maybe we've simply convinced ourselves that a vacation isn't successful unless we come home with a story worthy of telling.

We put a lot of pressure on vacations to be wonderful.

We expect the weather to be nice. We expect the hotel to be good. We expect to see beautiful things.

When we spend all that money, take time off, travel a long distance, plan everything and anticipate the trip for months, there's this subtle feeling that the vacation has to deliver.

Maybe expectations aren't the problem. Maybe expecting a vacation to fulfill all of our expectations is.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having expectations for a vacation. In fact, half the fun is imagining it before we even leave.

Perhaps the best part is that the vacation doesn't have to live up to the picture we had in our heads. It just has to be the vacation we had.

And perhaps that's why we pack so much. We're not just preparing for the trip we're taking; we're preparing for all the possibilities we imagine.

Inevitably, when I get home and unpack, there are always those things that never left the suitcase. The extra shoes. The exercise clothes. The outfit I never wore.

Maybe that's okay.

It doesn't mean I was less efficient in my packing. It's simply evidence of all the possibilities I imagined before we left. I packed for the vacation I expected to have. And somewhere along the way, I had the vacation I actually enjoyed.

Maybe that's the trick. We can plan the vacation, imagine the vacation and have expectations for the vacation. But once we're there, we don't have to make every moment live up to the picture we had in our heads.

Sometimes a lovely week is enough. It doesn't have to be a "trip of a lifetime."

Although, all that said, maybe next time I'll pack fewer shoes.

But I'm not making any promises.