As the cold, rainy weather begins to make an appearance in Vancouver, there’s no better time to start fantasizing about a vacation abroad in a hot, tropical, destination….South East Asia, perhaps?
Some popular travel destinations in this region halfway across the planet include, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.
In fact, in a mad dash to use up the rest of my vacation time for the year, I’ll be headed to all three of those countries in the next few weeks – so don’t be surprised if my Tweets are coming from a different geography and timezone.
Modern Mix Vancouver’s Top 10 Tips for Packing Light on Vacation
- Pick a hot destination – the warmer your destination, the less you have to pack. No winter coats or boots needed for South East Asia in November!
- Bring magazines rather than books for a long plane ride. Rather than having to lug around novels on your travels, magazines are easily disposable. Better yet, get an e-reader like a Kindle to help you pass the time in transit.
- Pack versatile clothing items which can be worn in multiple ways. One of my favourites is American Apparel’s Cotton Spandex Jersey Bandeau Dress (phew, that’s a mouthful) – better known as the dress which can be worn in 10+ different ways.
- Avoid heavy materials like denim. For example, pack leggings rather than jeans.
- Bring clothes which are easily roll-able to save space. Synthetic silk dresses are great – they fold up well, and, depending on the material, often don’t wrinkle either. Avoid structured items like blazers.
- Bring a light-weight, stuff-able down or synthetic jacket. BC-based Mountain Equipment Co-op has a great selection – I purchased the MEC Uplink Jacket for my travels, which condenses into a small pouch.
- Use a purse with as little unnecessary hardware (zips, buttons, straps, etc.) as possible.
- Use beauty and skincare samples, rather than full-sized products. Going on vacation is a great time to use up all the sample-sized foil-packs of creams and cleansers you have lying around.
- Pack travel-sized everything, from mini bottles of contact lens solution, and half-sized toothbrush and toothpaste.
- Use a high quality phone camera (iPhone 6, anyone?) rather than bringing a separate point & shoot camera.
Don’t worry if you can’t get away just yet – you can still enjoy a taste of South East Asia, while staying in the comforts of Vancouver, with Happy Planet’s newest flavour of fresh soup: gluten free, all-natural Thai Chicken.
Made with juicy organic white chicken meat, this fresh soup will keep you warm in the cold weather, while the fragrant, rich notes of green curry, Thai basil and lemongrass will leave you to daydream about your next tropical destination.
Click here for a $1-off coupon for any variety of Happy Planet fresh soups.
One Response
Perfect timing… I’m currently packing for Mexico and I’m bringing EVERYTHING with me. Mostly because I know it’s harder to buy something on the resort if I don’t have it with me, but still it’s hard to resist the temptation to bring like 3 suitcases between 2 people for a week trip.