Please note that the title of this is “Women’s Packing Tips”. It is not “How to live out of a backpack for a year with one pair of whiffy jeans and a T-shirt” or “How to pack for Tahiti with only a bikini and a sarong if you’re a supermodel”. This is for grown up women who want to pack the right things to have what they need when they travel on sea and/or land. We will even – shocker alert– tell you it’s OK to have two bags and check one! This is iconoclastic journalism at its finest!
The photo above is Blonde’s “first cut” of clothing for a trip that involved a 7 night cruise in Fiji and 5 nights at a resort. The cruise isn’t some giant floating city with Kathy Lee Gifford singing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”. It’s a smallish (130 people) ship with Captain Cook Cruises going around the Yasawa Islands and having two snorkel stops a day. You don’t need a gown for dinner with the captain, thank God.
The resorts are 5 star properties, not hostels, so you’ll only feel comfortable if you have resort-appropriate clothing. We just lost every reader under 35. Bye!
Here are the things we think are critical for women packing to go on a trip such as this.
This is an inexpensive dress (maybe $69) from Athleta and it’s been in Blonde’s sartorial repertoire for several years. It’s a quick-dry fabric, doesn’t wrinkle and can be put over a bathing suit or worn on a hot day or for drinks. In other words it’s multi-purpose so if you find yourself needing an extra dress or cover-up this sort of thing is very handy to have in your bag. (Whether you should have a less-weird right shoulder or have sucked your stomach in is for you to decide.)
We throw in thin waterproof (or at least resistant) nylon windbreakers with hoods. The best ones can be zipped into their own little pouch pocket and hardly take up any room at all. They can be great on a boat – sometimes even on a nice day when the wind is making you cold. Of course they’re also useful if the weather is uncooperative.
Brunette doesn’t always heed the advice to pack multi-function clothing as this is her number one choice of outfit for all of our trips. Warning: Not everyone can rock this look the way she can!
In terms of packing tips we really know our stuff when it comes to water and snorkeling. Always take water shoes. When you read that the property has a beach it may have forgotten to add the words “very rocky”. You may need to walk somewhere rough to get in or out of where you want to snorkel. These shoes will protect your tootsies from all manner of fun-ending surprises.
Be sure to also bring some Rash Guard (or any other brand that protects you from coral and sun) and wear it when you’re in the water. When you’re snorkeling it’s easy to lose track of time and emerge with a red back and a head start on skin cancer.
We always take our own masks and snorkel tubes. Yes, you can probably get them from the trip provider and they do clean them (sometimes by swishing them in a bucket) but we’re past the age of putting things that we don’t know intimately in our mouths. (Feel free to take that comment and run with it.) And if your mask leaks when you’re snorkeling it just isn’t fun so know ahead of time that you have a mask that fits.
We suggest two things for those of you who may be afflicted with motion sickness. Brunette is a sufferer and she discovered years ago that the best thing is these little stretchy wristbands that have a plastic bead on them that you put over a pressure point on your wrist. A lot of people like to dismiss them as tomfoolery but they work. You won’t be made sleepy or get other side effects like you might from medicine. The other little box is ginger chewing gum which you can get in a lot of marina stores and it helps with nausea (not only motion-induced).
Take some gel ear plugs so you don’t spend half of your trip jumping on one foot thwacking the other side of your head to try to get water out.
The little blue towel is a super-absorbent, quick drying one and we’re hoping you understand the importance of waterproof sunscreen.
Imagine our surprise when we – devoted Fiji Water drinkers – began to plan the trip to Fiji and found out they have terrible water quality! (The country, not the people who produce Fiji Water the product.) Problem solved – get two Steri-pens! The pens are small (the packaging not so much) and can be recharged in a USB port as well as in wall outlets. They make it possible to drink tap water anywhere. We’re being extra virtuous and bringing glass water bottles so we can keep using the same bottles and not create a lot of plastic waste. Steri-pens don’t seem cheap at first blush but as soon as you realize you don’t have to buy bottled water ever again you realize they’re a major bargain.
Blonde, in addition to traveling with enough clothing to not have to repeat an outfit if she ends up staying in a country for 6 months, also takes a major assortment of electronics. On a ship, or even in many hotel rooms, electrical outlets may be limited. A device like the one on the left helps as you can charge three items at once. You will not have to be constantly seeing what’s charged and what’s not and getting up in the middle of the night to do switcheroos. It also protects against power surges which can wreak havoc on your electronics and which are common in many parts of the world.
The underwater camera is a spare point and click if something happens to your more photographically robust camera. But it’s intended use is for getting pictures of the coral and fish you will see. Most likely it will frustrate the hell out of you as you try to snap pictures of fish as they swim out of the frame before you can push the button.
The Bose noise-cancellation headphones are teeny tiny and phenomenally comfortable and effective. They are also expensive – almost $300 – so if you get them be very careful to keep track of them. They make Coach class (oxymoron) at least bearable from a noise perspective and we think they really help prevent jet lag.
Any trip that includes water activities can benefit from a stretchable clothesline for the shower and a few plastic clothespins. The orange case has laundry soap papers if you don’t want to carry liquid soap. However, you have to use a lot of the papers to get much result. Also, a plastic stopper is often the only thing between you and all of that expensive soapy water flowing right out of the basin!
If you keep your sunglasses in the car at home get them out of there and into your suitcase a day or so before you leave. Or, like an unnamed Blonde we know, you may end up having to buy junky glasses with lenses that fall out.
Now that you have what you need to take you need to decide what goes where. We put liquids that are too large for the TSA and very expensive to buy at our destination into our checked bags. We first put them in multiple locked plastic bags to prevent clothing damage and profuse swearing. Do not ever put prescription meds, jewelry or electronics in your checked luggage and use a TSA-compliant lock to at least slow down any evildoers.
We put all of our clothes in the checked bag except for a one day supply of clean stuff in case our bags don’t get there when we do. Our emergency clothes, stashed in our carry-ons, tend to be bathing suits, undies, a change of outer-wear and a nightgown.
Before your bag goes down the checkout belt be sure to take a photo of it in case it doesn’t turn up at the end of your flight.
For your carry-on you should also keep safety in mind. Some countries have bad problems with theft from hotel rooms so we love the Pacsafe line of bags. They have slash-proof fabric and puncture proof, lockable zippers. So even on a cruise ship without a safe you can secure your belongings. They are also very cleverly designed, hold a deceptive amount of stuff and have the right number of compartments to strike the balance between too confusing and inadequate. This is Blonde’s favorite model (of suitcases, not for models in general. Have you seen some of those guys in high-end watch ads??).
No matter what you pack you’ll wish you’d brought something you didn’t and take something you don’t end up using. If those are your worst problems you were very successful!