Weighing and packing and spread-sheeting, oh my!

Funny you should post this. For the first time ever I have a packing spread sheet! Fortunately weight is not a huge issue - just what I want to lug around but no airline restrictions. My needs are very complex - this trip will be 90 days with the last 15 a cruise. Fortunately the cruise does not require formal wear.

The real challenge is 90 days of medicine and other medical supplies my husband needs, packing for the climate changes from August to crossing the north Atlantic in late October, Boston & NYC in November, a small supply of things for the cat to get us started and enough of the liquids that I need to last 90 days! All the while keeping the weight reasonable for moving!

I have decided this trip I will check an extra bag to carry the additional items then divide things into three batches - carry the 1st 5 weeks with me, send the next 4 weeks supplies ahead to our hotel at that time, and store the last 4 weeks and other things with a company in Paris and pick them up on our way to London. It will mean an extra bag for our time in the UK but that's only two hotel changes - I can manage that! On the upside a checked bag will allow me to bring a bottle of local whiskey to a friend we will be visiting

I will definitely be doing several trial packings!

i did a spreadsheet starting 2 trips ago, when i was able to get down to 14lbs (including the weight of my 2.5 backpack)

An upside of having the spreadsheet is that if you always bring certain things along, like your specific liquids or favorite jeans, you can calculate easily what your starting weight is. It's a little neurotic, but, for example, I have the individual weights for all of my liquids in their bottles *, so that depending on the kind of trip i take, if i might only take part of the list, i can do a total in the spreadsheet to know where i am with those.

For those trips, I wear the heaviest shoes on traveling days, which happened to be my sneakers, because they were warm weather trips and aside from that i just brought some cute flats and good walking sandals - so be sure not to count your heavy travel day outfit.

I would say that your new shirt is probably worth the 9oz if you'll feel like wearing it more often/it goes with more things than a couple of other shirts. And if it washable/quick dry, you can get way more wears out of it too - for example, my icebreaker L/S shirt is 4oz heavier than my cotton jersey L/S which is equally warm, but the icebreaker shirt can take several wears before getting stinky and can wash/dry overnight so it's possible to even wear it everyday if necessary (which I found out when I went to Naples and it was unseasonably cool). and since it's a black v-neck, it goes with everything.

i also brought a heavyish dress with me 2 trips ago because i could both go out to dinner with it and wear it as a swimsuit coverup due to the material.

Christi, you're taking your cat?

Christi, you're taking your cat?

Yes Jane - she is a seizure alert cat - she travels very well.

Christi, before taking your cat overseas, you should know that some countries have a long quarantine period for pets coming into the country. The UK is one that used to have a 30-day quarantine period, in which the animal is kept in a holding area or veterinary facility for observation. Apparently, even though you produce papers that show the animal has had proper vaccinations, they are just very cautious.
There was a story on the news about three or four years ago about a woman and her husband from the U.S.A. who took their Maine Coon cat to England, and it was put into the quarantine facility for 30 days. The cat would not eat and died. Maine Coons are very attached to their owners and are very emotional beings, so I was not surprised that the cat reacted this way to being separated from her people. Please check carefully about what the quarantine rules are for whatever country you are going to.

I assume the rules will be different for you because your cat is a seizure alert cat. What have you been told by the authorities, or read online about the procedure for them allowing the cat to stay with you, and to not be quarantined?

I like the challenge of packing light. My approach is to consider the absolute minimum to take and work from there. One change of clothing and something to sleep in for starters; and I add a few more things according to season. For the 3-1-1 I take a tiny supply of toothpaste, hand lotion, and shampoo. My pills amount to about 8 oz for a 3 week trip. My must-take heavy item is a battery-operated toothbrush. I try to keep my travel stuff in my carry-on so I don't have to look for everything when it's time to pack. I usually wait until the last day to pack. A weight-saving device I take is my mini iPad. All sorts of books are on it. I have my Kindle books on it.

@Rebecca - I am all set with the requirements for traveling in the EU & UK with her. Even the UK does not quarantine anymore. Actually the EU and the UK only recognize properly registered dogs as service animals. Once I land in Paris I will visit a vet there with all of her records and get an EU Pet Passport - that is recognized all over the EU and the UK.

Wow, Christi - your cat is a sevice animal? I've heard of dogs who help diabetics, etc.. I never knew about service cats. Is it a Maine coon? I ask about Maine Coons because they are relatively easy to train ... as far as cats go.

Christi, glad to hear that they don't quarantine anymore! Glad to hear you are all set. Have a great trip!

To get back on the thread topic, we always travel with carry-on only. Not that there's a contest, or anything! LOL! We spent 3 1/2 weeks in England last spring, each person with only a carry-on. I find it to be more trouble than it's worth to take more than that. It is a freeing experience.

In the spirit of obsessive organization, I offer the free closet organization app called Stylicious. I have a written spreadsheet for each trip. And I used to do a table with pictures of the clothes I plan to take so I can see them all together. Yes, obsessive.

But recently I learned about this app. It's not really designed for travel planning, but with a few little adjustments you can use it for that. You save a picture of each item, create a listing for it and use a form to describe it. In the case of weight for each item, I chose to put that in the place for price on the form.

You can then create outfits in the "Lookbook" with the pictures of items from the closet, move them around on the page and save them with a name. There is very little information on how to use the app, so it requires some experimentation. It also requires that "close enough" be acceptable for the pictures which will likely not be in the same scale. My pictures are either from online vendors or ones that I took myself.

For the first time, I've been able to easily group pieces from head to toe, edit each group and see how things work together on my tablet as well as on my bed. Looking at my planned packing this way, in connection with adding up the weights of the options, is helping me to cut my packed items to the bare minimum. That's still a work in progress.

Off topic: I took my cat to Italy many years ago.

On topic: I have never weighed individual items before packing - just the packed carryon. My personal item weighs almost as much as the carryon when packed; now you all have got me thinking about weighing its contents beforehand.

Zoe: Next up, I need to do a practice pack for my Euro Flight Bag, which I'll carry as my personal item. It'll hold the CPAP, camera, Kindle and things I might need on the plane. I want to make sure it doesn't become too heavy. It attaches to my carry-on for rolling through airports and such, but there will be times I have to lug it separately.

I keep a master packing list that has served me well for the past 5 trips, and since I predictably go for 2 weeks in spring I haven't needed to vary it much--2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of shoes (boots that I wear for travel and an oxford in a fun color for variety), a few tops/sweaters and a jacket are the main items of clothing, and while it's hard to winnow my selections, I do keep track of the items that I ended up wearing the most. Last year I agonized over taking a dress, tights and heels along--they weighed just under 3 lbs--but I was going to the opera and a musical in Budapest and wanted to look nice, so it was worth it. This year I'm going to focus on lightening my toiletries and other incidentals, and I'll be taking my smallest & lightest suitcase because by the time I leave on 4/19 I will be 2 1/2 months post major abdominal surgery, a bit anxious about wrangling my suitcase and carry-on, particularly as I'll be taking the train from Vienna to Budapest.

Rebecca: I can confirm that Maine Coon cats are indeed very gentle beings and attached to their owners. Our big boy Billy hides in the closet any time someone he doesn't know (and even some people he's seen many times) comes into the house. I would be afraid for his well-being if he was quarantined in a strange place for 30 days. His favorite thing is to lie on the couch between us, gazing adoringly at my wife.

I had never heard of seizure alert cats until you wrote about yours in
this thread, Christi. Wow….God bless those cats and ALL animals who
save lives. I'm incredibly impressed and moved.

Same here. I hope I didn't sound snarky in my post; that was never my intention. I love cats, and agree with Ms EB about service animals in general. If anything, I was a little envious! We've never had a cat that was that good a traveler.

Stoutfella: Our Maine Coon was a female, so her favorite person was my husband. She gazed lovingly at him while he was sitting on the couch watching TV! I was just "the servant"!! Yes, she vanished if we had company. And she stopped eating when my husband went on a business trip to D.C. one time for 3 days. She would never have made it through a 30-day quarantine separated from him.

Rebecca: I wish this forum had a "like" button. :-)

@Jane - not snarky at all. We are very fortunate to have her - she is special indeed. It is a special sense that some cats seem to have. She travels very well - never makes a sound and is quite happy to pop her head out of her bag and look around in a busy airport, on a plane or train, and she doesn't panic and want to bolt as some cats do. Most people will say "I didn't even realize she was there". While there are a few logistical considerations (we've pretty much worked them out) she is pretty easy to travel with. She fortunately only weighs 7 lbs so even with her bag - which looks like a gym bag - she is easy to carry.