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so, today what i'm going to bedemonstrating is sort of a philosophy of mine, and i think it's a philosophy thatrick would share as well, about how to pack, and pack light, and pack the thingsonly that you really, truly need. so what we're going to do is, i'mgoing to go through all of the bag options, i'm gonna go through clothes,

American Eagle Credit Card Login, i'm going to go through electronics, all ofthe things you might consider bringing with you on your trip. one thing i would like to say, first ofall though, is that, as a tour guide, i've been working for rick for about 15 years,and packing has become something of an

obsession for me. i know it sounds a little bit strange,i've even started to blog about it, and a lot of things today that i'm going to talkabout you can see on my website, its adventureswithsarah.net. i'vewritten in-depth articles on all of the different topics i'm going to talk abouttoday, so. also a packing list, you'll be able to find on that website. you canfind on rick's website at ricksteves.com, his version of the packing list, as well. we have slightly different views, but ithink that it's nice to compare the two and come up with your own list of thingsthat you want to do.

so this is my, almost, 16th year oftour guiding for rick steves all over europe, working on guidebooks, working onblogs. i'm an architect as well, and a mom, and i think the mom part is the mostimportant, because i know how to be prepared for almost every occasion, and ihope that in the packing today, you're going to learn a thing or two so thatyou can always be prepared in your packing. so this is the bag that i'm going toshow you today, and we'll talk about bags briefly in just a minute, but what i want to start with is philosophy.

first of all, the philosophy for thistalk today is packing light. pack light, pack light, pack light. tattoo that onyour eyelids, please. remember, pack light. and the one thing, if you take only onesentence away from the next hour, what i want you to take away is, "nobody eversaid 'i wish i had brought more.'" that is not a thing that has everhappened, nobody has ever said that. so, what you should do, is pack to theabsolute least that you can possibly manage. what i am packing to here today is 16pounds. 16 pounds total, and the reason that that is the number, the magic number, for me is that a lot of airlines in europe choose that astheir target number. 8 kilo is the most

that you can carry on. so carry-on is the other main importanttopic we're going to talk about today. everything we're talking about today isnot about check bags, we're talking about carry-on items. the reason you want to carry on ispretty easy, people lose their bags. and this happenedto me recently, i had three or four people just in the fall season on mytours lose their bags. and the problem with that, is that they spent two orthree days wrangling with airlines, and debatingwith airlines, and trying to figure

things out. and in in one case, at great expense, they hadtheir bags delivered to them at a later point on on the tour. so what i would think is better foreveryone is just bring only what you can carry on. don't look at the restrictionsfrom the airline as being something negative, think about it as something positive,something that's helping you to actually restrict what you bring. now, the first time i went to europe iwas 11 years old. i went with my parents, it

was in the eighties, and my bag wasbigger than my own body. it was, i would say, about this big, it hada leash like a dog, and i could actually have ridden it had i wanted to, it wasso huge. and of course, because i had a bag that big, i filled it. i filled itwith everything an 11 year old could possibly need. i put in stuffed animals, and books, andeverything like this, not thinking, "oh well i don't really need all that stuff,"and probably half of it i never even used, because i was too busy traveling.but that was kind of the way of things back in the eighties, if you traveledback then you probably have the same bag.

and in fact, bags have changed even justin the past 15 years since i've been doing this job for rick steves. the bagthat i started out with, it was a rick steves bag, i just took on a trip with melast week and it was too big to get on the carry-on of the airplane. so, even just in the last few years, theairlines have gotten more and more strict about the size. but that's great,because that means that you don't need to carry as much with you. so look at the restrictions as beingyour friend, not your enemy. so that's what we're going to reallytalk about today, is how to get the most

that you can out of the small amount ofspace and weight that you have allotted. a lot of people who are on my tours, andthere's a few in the audience today, think of me as mary poppins. now you knowmary poppins, right? the reason they think of me as marypoppins, is that my bag has so much in it that they never seen me in the sameoutfit twice, even on a 15 or 20 date tour, i have a newoutfit on every day, and that may seem impossible, but it's absolutely possible.and that's what i want to show you today, because what i'm going to tell you, isthat you don't need to bring less things necessarily, it's just you need to packsmart. less is always better, of course, as

i said you can never bring too little ina certain sense, but i think that if you want to bring a variety of things, youcan maximize your space and your weight, by paying attention to the size and theweight of the things that you bring. so let's get started with some of our tools,shall we. first of all, my most important tool inthis endeavor is going to be my scale. this is a little product you can get ata bunch of different places, i think amazon carries it, and this is something that you take, andafter you've packed your bag fully, you take it and you strap it to the tophandle, you latch it on like so, and then

you pick it up, and then that's going totell you exactly how much it weighs. and like i said, most airlines, they saythe max is eight kilo or more or less sixteen pounds, okay. that may not be the weight that youneed to pack to, because here is my personal suggestion for you, don't payattention to that 16 pounds, make that your maximum, but every person in thisaudience can lift a different amount. i'm six foot two and not a small girl, ican easily live 16 pounds without a problem. a lot of you in this audience may not beable to do that. consider the fact that

when you get on the airplane, what's the first thing you have to dowith your carry-on? you have to do this. can all of you do that? can you hold itlike this for five minutes while somebody jockeys around all theother luggage in the overhead compartment? can you do that? that's the question. sothat is the number one question you need to ask yourself. don't wait and say, "oh it's 16 pounds, ican manage it." pack it, pack everything that you need, and then lift it over yourhead and see if that's even a

possibility. if it's not a possibility tolift it over your head, then you know you need to reduce. one ofthe tactics i like to do, is to pack my bag about, oh i don't know, two or three weeks aheadof time, this is how specific i am, and then i have my best girlfriend comeover a few days later, and we go through everything. we take out every piece ofclothing, every toiletry item, everything. and she critiques it, and shesays, "you don't need that, you don't need that, you don't need that." so, that means that even somebody who'sbeen doing this professionally for half

of their life, still can take stuff outof the bag. so that's a tip for you, that there'salways room for you to take things out of your bag and keep the weight light. so that's going to be the philosophywe're going to employ. now, to kind of make it all work, i suggest you use this. this is a packing--or a kitchen scale. this is just something i found in mykitchen, it's for flour. i think it's a wonderful little thing that you can useto be sure that everything that goes in your bag doesn't weigh much.

if you've ever been into hiking, orcamping, backpacking with exterior frame backpacks, you probably know how to do this already.you weigh everything, because every single thing you put in there counts. so this is how specific i am. i weigheverything that goes in my bag, and i write the weight on it in a sharpie. all of my clothes, all of my everythingthat goes in there. and what that does, is it helps me make some really easydecisions. if i have a range of things set out that i'm trying to thin, i canjust check the weight on each of them

and the heaviest things go. it sort of, like, takes the, the decisionout of your hands. you don't have to be the one who decides what to take out, it'sthe weight that's deciding for you. so this is a really handy dandy thing,you probably already have one in your own home, a little kitchen scale likethis, that you can use, that you can get started with. so that's a little bit about myphilosophy, pack light pack light, pack light, carry-on only, bringonly what you absolutely positively need, and remember that nobody ever said thatthey wish they would have brought more.

nobody has ever said that. and rememberthat you can also buy things that you've forgotten when you arrive at yourdestination. all over the world, you can buy clothes, underwear, shampoo, sothese are the things you can just remember, don't take any more than youabsolutely, possibly need, okay? so that's my philosophy. next thing that we're going to talk about, is we'regoing to talk about bags, and what bag you should take. the bags, i think, areimportant in terms of size because of the changing restrictions with airlines.so the most important thing you're going

to need to do, is to be sure to choosesomething that is up to the current standards of the airline you're going tofly on. now don't just look at the american airlines, let's say you'reflying on delta and you're going to amsterdam. if you look at theirrestrictions, they're going to tell you that you can carry on something like 25pounds. now who in this audience can carry 25 pounds and put it over theirhead? that's actually quite a lot. some people can, some people can't. so, whatyou have to do is look at the restrictions for your particular airline,especially the size and the dimension. a lot of the airlines in europe, the budgetone such as ryanair, have kind of a

little scam that they do. they sell you aticket for 10 euros you can fly from rome to stockholm for 10 euros, which isa ridiculous price. but the way they get you, is that you in the fine print, itsays you can only bring a bag of a certain dimension. when you look at thatcertain dimension, you probably don't own a bag of that dimension, and when youget there you're gonna find that they're gonna slap you with the 60 or 70 eurofee, because your bag is too big. so these are the things you have to be verycareful about. look at all of the airlines you plan to fly with, look attheir baggage restrictions before you even start packing, and take themeasurements of your bag. the other

tricky thing is, that after you pack it,you need to take the dimensions again. because, in this particular case, when ipacked this bag it was much smaller, and now that it has things in it, it's gone upthis way, it's gotten fatter this direction. so now i have to take thedimensions again, and make sure that it's still staying within the restrictions ofthe airline i'm flying on. so that's the main thing that you need to consider, isit going to work for the airline you're flying on as a carry-on bag. thesepockets are pretty deadly, but here's a little trick. if you get to the airlineand you're about to get on, and they measure and they say, "oh it's too heavy,oh it's too fat,"

here's what i do. i take my bag to thebathroom, i open it up, and i take out all of myclothes and put them all on, because they don't worry me personally, they don'thave a scale before i get on and say, "oh you're too heavy". and what i tech-- typically will do, is when i go into thebathroom and i try to make my bag skinnier or lighter, i'll take out thethings that weigh the most. and the things that weigh the most are pretty simple; its shoesand toiletries. i'll take those out and stick em' into the pockets of my coat, i've evenbeen known to stick them down the back of my pants, and they can't tell thedifference, maybe i do have a bottom that

big, i don't know, it's possible. so that'swhat i do when i--to kind of make that that trick work. so if you happen to bejust slightly over dimension or weight for any of these tricky airlines, i think ofthose airlines are going to be tricky with us you just need to be tricky rightback at them, and you can play their game and better than they can play it. so fiveshirts, three pairs of pants, four pairs of socks, you can stick shoes down theback of your pants, wear three coats, wear something as a hat, whatever youneed to do, two or three bras, you know, just put it all on and then you havenothing left in your bag, okay. so that's my tip. i really, really would like tosuggest when you're shopping for your

bag, not only look at dimension, but typeof bag is very important. and i have, for demonstration purposes today, this typewhich is our rolling carry-on bag. this is the one that most of you will buy.most of you will buy a rolling bag with wheels. i personally travel with abackpack, that is just a style thing and it's something that i think is important,and i'll tell you why. this bag is our backpack, and when you pick it up beforeyou put anything in it, it weighs nothing. it weighs about a pound, maybe a littlebit more. this bag, without anything in it, weighs three or four pounds right offthe bat. so that's three or four pounds worth of things i can't add in here,because of the fact that the bag weighs

a lot. also consider this, if you packthis to its full weight, 16 pounds, and you put it on your back and you walkaround, your back might hurt, and that's actually going to be sort of "bad mommy"sitting there in your ear saying, "uh-uh, you need to take things out of your bag. itkeeps you honest with weight. the problem with these rolling bags, is that peoplejust fill them up because you don't have to actually carry it, except for whenyou're getting on an airplane, or going up stairs, or getting on trains, somethingsomething like this. so it's very easy to over-pack a bag with wheels. so if you do want the bag with wheelslike most people do, just really be

careful about the weight. if you are sobold as to choose a backpack, as i would like to suggest you do, here's thebenefit. think about this; you're late for your plane, the plane doors about to shut,you're running through the airport in paris yelling to them, "i'm coming, i'mcoming," you want them to stop. with this, are you gonna make it? or are you gonna makeit with this? you're gonna make it with this more likely, and that's why i lovethis. this is so much easier for going up and down stairs, i will tell you thatalmost all of my groups in venice come up to me at the end of the day and say,"finally i understand why you carry a backpack." and it makes sense, because venice has about 5,000 bridges going from

island to island, and when you're goingup and down stairs all the time, dragging something with wheels is muchmore difficult than just being footloose and fancy free with a backpack. so if youcan deal with a backpack, i would highly suggest giving it a try. here at our showroom, you can put one onyour back and you can walk around with it and test it to see if that would workfor you. even just try a backpack in your own home thatyou have, put 16 pounds in, and walk around the block and see if that's evenan option for you to carry on. so that's going to be your first decision, whatkind of a bag are you going to choose.

at rick steves we have three differentkinds, actually, we have a third one i don't have here today ,which might be theperfect for the undecided. if you can't decide based on things i just told you,we have another one that is a rolling backpack, so it has all of the benefitsof the rolling bag, but it also has backpack straps so you can carry it as abackpack in the moments that you need it. it's also slightly lighter, so that'ssomething to consider for those people who can't quite be in one camp or theother, you can choose the one that is thehybrid between the two, okay. so that's kind of the big bag choice that i would make.the next bag choice that you're going to need

to make, is your day bag. your day bagis the one you're going to actually have on your body more often, this is the oneyou're going to be dragging behind you a few days, every few days, you know. thisbag is the one that you're going to have with you constantly, all the time. thisparticular one that i like to use is called the velocã© for ipad. and this is anice small bag, it doesn't take up much space. it has a wonderful little zipperthat unzips along the side here to give you extra space if you happen topurchase things, not that you would, but if you did you have a little bit ofextra room to put things in there. i also like this because this is a bagthat is a messenger style bag. now men are

looking at this going, "that's a purse." no,it's not a purse, it is also a man bag, and i want you to love the man bag,so please love the man bag. here is how you carry this bag when you are ineurope. you carry it across yourself like this, and the reason you carry it acrossyourself like this is that this is the most comfortable position, first of all, looki can just kind of chill and put my hand like this, so it's a nice place to restmy hand. but i'm also holding onto my bag so that anybody who might want to stealfrom me will think twice. okay, i know i'm a verylarge woman and kind of scary looking, but it is also nice that i have my hand righthere, because i'm keeping anybody from

approaching my bag and trying to puttheir hand in, 'cause my arm is already over the top, okay. that's one reason i really lovemessenger style bags, they're really nice for security purposes i also like thembecause they're always right in front of you, and the other reason is somethingyou may not know. a lot of museums these days will not allow backpacks in, and itdoesn't matter the size of backpack that you have, it could be a big backpacksuch as the carry on one, or it could be a small one, the one like rick carrieshere, which is just a tiny backpack. these are the same size, but at museums throughouteurope, they look at this one and they go,

"oh that's a backpack, go put that intothe depository, oh no that's a purse, that can stay on you." so this is why isuggest for all travelers, men and women, to think about a bag like this, amessenger style bag, because you don't need to check them when you go intomuseums, or churches, st. mark's basilica in venice for instance is another situationlike that. what's the logic? now you may think, "well seems like a very silly sortof rule because this is the same size as this, why would museums care?" the reasonthey care is that, think about this, you're in the louvre, and you're standing aroundmichelangelo's slaves, and you're enjoying looking at them. when i'mlooking at them like this, with my hand

on my bag, i know where my bag is. if i'mlooking at them and i have a backpack on that's extended out, oh i don't know,probably this far, and i turn around to talk to the person i'm traveling with,that backpack could very well whack that piece of art and knock it over. there have been alot of things in the news recently about people who have scratched paintings with the same thing, with a backpack or some other item they didn't notice, theyaccidentally scratched a painting. so a lot of museums are very cautious now about backpacks, because youare not aware of where they are on your back--on your body. also with this, thinkabout this, if you have a backpack on

your back, it's very easy for somebody tocome and open it up and take things out, and you might not have ever noticed. if you arereally, really concerned about the idea of a bag like this, if it's not going towork for you at all, get yourself a backpack, but please thinkabout the ways you can carry it. you can also do some trickery, like i was talkingabout before. here's a little trick i teach to alot of my tour members, my male tour members. if you're going into a museum and youwant it to be considered a purse, and not a backpack, you can make the strap as longas possible and then carry it like a purse, like this, and carry in front ofyou. because that's all they really want

to know is that you're looking at whereyour bag is, and your bag is not in a place where you can scratch things. you cankind of argue also that it's a man bag, don't you suppose, does that look like a man bag,i think it does little bit, right? one thing i've had a lot of men do on my tours, isthat they have gotten into europe and they have a big backpack, they're gettingreally annoyed with the fact that they keep being asked to check their bags.they'll go and they'll buy one of those cloth shopping sacks, have you seen those? ithink people from seattle know what those are. a little cloth shopping sack,you can buy them for a couple of euros from any grocery store in europe, andthen put your things in that and carry

that. they will allow that in any museumor church. so it's a little game, i know that sounds funny, but that's an easy wayto solve that problem. if you really like backpacks and this works well for you, great, just put a little, kind of, fold-upsack in here that you can put this into, and you can put on your shoulder, okay. little trick that will work for you,it works for my tour members and i think it'll work for you as well. so that'ssort of the idea behind bags. i would say choose one back--bag that is yourcarry-on, and choose one day bag. and try the things you already have, before youjust go into your closet say, "oh i'll

take ones that i bought 20 years ago,"just keep in mind that all those regulations for carry-ons have changed,and make sure that the one you have is up to date for the travel, whenever it isyou plan to go. so that's a little bit about our bags. the next thing we're going to talk about is what is inside of my day bag. the day bag, i think, is one of the most interesting things that i have here to show you today, because this is all the stuff you need as your survival gear. and we're going to go through a little bit of what i have in here, so you can understand what a guide needs to be prepared. so i'm gonna move this bag over a little bit.

i like to think of the guide bag as sort of thegirl guide bag. i think some of you might have been in girl scouts, so you know what i'm talking about - "be prepared for anything." and this bag truly keeps me prepared for just about anything. it's not very big, but the thing about today is thatelectronics are making it very easy to be prepared for just about anything, in a very small space. so this is a bag that keeps me prepared for anything that might happen with my tour members, anything that might happen onthe road. and i'll just go through and show you all of the wonderful things thatkeep me on my feet, sometimes for 12 or 13 hours a day, no problem at all. so thefirst thing i wanted to show you is how

this bag sort of works. we have a nicelittle flap, an organizer for all of my pens and notebooks, a place to put myglasses, and then i have sort of a little pocket back here for miscellaneousthings. i like to put a little sheet in here that tells you who this bag belongs to, with my phone number on it in case it gets lost or stolen, i can eventuallyget it back, even if i just get the backpack. that worked by the way, i putthis in here and my son used this when we went to disneyland and somebodystole the bag and they took the money out, but then they returned it with thecontents, everything else was in there, we just wanted his stuffed animals. so besure to put something in your bag like

that, that just basically says, "here's my name,my phone number, and my email, if this bag is lost or stolen, please, this is whereyou return it to." if you lose your money it's okay, as long as you get the day bag back.so that's the most important thing is having a little tag there, and then yourthings that you need just to grab whenever you need them quickly. i like toput a little bit of change in some of these pockets too, and my money, just for the day. i thinkrick showed you a little bit earlier about the money belts, which is this littledoo-dad here. we all love the money belt, right? yes? oh come on, you love the moneybelt, it's so sexy, you know. couple things

about the money belts. this is whereyou're going to keep your most important documents, so this is where you keep yourpassport, your credit cards, the bulk of your money, your reservations.now, it is not worn like so, right, is this how you wear it? it's a lovely accessory,like a fanny pack, right? no, this is not something you're supposed to wear on thetop of your clothing, you're supposed to wear it underneath your clothing, thatway nobody will see it. i've seen people wear these in all different ways, somepeople like the ones that go around their necks, but those ones you caneasily see because you can see the strap. and the idea is, you wanna fool people whomight want to steal from you into

thinking you don't have anything on you.so this is the best way to keep things safe. you can wear it like this, which ishow it's intended to be, because think about it, what's the most sensitive part ofyour body? it's your tummy, if somebody touches your tummy, you're gonna feelthat, and that's why we want you to keep it here. if you don't like it here, youcan also put it so it's behind you, back here. now on a dress like this, iwould put this on and it wear underneath my dress and i would just keep it there allday. i would take all of the money and the things i'm gonna need for my day out, andput them into the zippered part of my day bag, so i don't have to go and getinto this during the day. some people

will say, "oh i would never take mypassport with me," but you should know that in europe it is required that youhave id on you at all times. so it is, in theory, something you must have onyou so just do it, just keep your your money belt on you at all times. it'smuch safer than leaving it in a hotel room. i actually have people often leavethem in the safes accidentally, because they forget they put them there or theyforgot the code for the safe. so lot less hassle if you just keep your money belt onyour body at all times. the nice thing about the money belt though, if you getused to it and you have it here for, let's say, three weeks every day, you feellike you've grown a pot belly from all the

pasta and gelato, right. at the end of yourtrip you stop wearing it when you come home, and you go, "ooh i just lost 10 pounds." feels nice to have a little flatterbelly. so it's kind of a way of tricking yourself into thinking that you lost weight. so this is the major thing you have to remember, i think it's rick's toptip for travel, wear a money belt, always have it on you, keep only your mostimportant things in here. the things that are not in the money belt, a little bitof money for your day, maybe even a credit card, something like this, you canput into one of the pockets here for easy access throughout the day, so youdon't have to kind of unclothe yourself

to go ahead and pay for things, that'swhat i would recommend. so that's-- this little zippered pocket is the place i like tokeep all of that sort of stuff. in here i have my glasses, and my glasses come in anice little case, but inside here i also usually have my prescription. i highlyrecommend bringing your prescription with you. you don't have to have it inpaper form, just photograph it with your iphone, or whatever your camera you havewith you, and then you have the prescription in case you lose yourglasses. as a little tip for packing, i like to multitask with my glasses. these are the kind that turn intosunglasses in the light. not a lot of

people like these, i know, but i like themfor travel because then it's only one pair of glasses that i'm bringing. i don'tneed to bring a pair of sunglasses in addition. so just a little packing lighttip, if you're in the market for new glasses, get the kind that turn intosunglasses in the light, it really has improved my quality of life for surewhile i'm on the road. in this little pocket here, i have a few fun littlethings. i have a stick that is sunscreen, this is really nice to have around whensome days you wake up and it's cloudy and then in the afternoon it's reallysunny, so there's a way to be able to have your sunscreen with you.

also, this doesn't count toward yourliquids and gels on an airplane. i've never had anybody have a problem with astick like this. i have a little spot remover, it's like a tide stick, it'sthe same sort of idea. these are wonderful for people like me, who arevery sloppy, because i obviously love to eat pasta, and when i do i get it allover me, and this is a nice way to kind of scratch away all the problems. theother thing that's nice is you can be a hero to other travelers in restaurants. when yousee somebody who's slopped all over themselves, you can pull out yourstain stick and go make some new friends, so, i've made a lot of friends that way. ilove to carry a little notebook like

this, and i learned this from rick, thiswas a little rick thing that i learned while working on research with him, wasthese little moleskine books like this. these are an awful lot of fun. i just getthe kind that has nothing in them, and i keep them for sketches. if i have afew minutes, i'll sit down and i'll do a little sketching. uh, you can take gluedots, these are just these little kind of dots, and you can stick them in here toput tickets in, you can make it sort of a little small scrapbook. stick it in yourpocket, they're so tiny and lightweight you can put them pretty much anywhere.so they're just fun as a way to keep a little bit of a scrapbook as you're going, writedown the time that train departs, that

sort of thing. so a pen or pencil and alittle moleskine book are a nice thing to have. i love to carry a sharpie,because you never know when you need to permanently mark something. if you needto write your name on something, sharpie's are very indispensable. and then i alsolove to paint, and i found this recently at a shop in venice, it's apaintbrush that goes into its own little tube, like that. so i keep that with meand a little paint set, so if i have a few minutes, and i'm sitting around, and ineed to waste a little time, i can do a little sketching and painting. so that'sjust a specific thing to me that i enjoy doing. alright, so on the inside of this bag,we have some other basics that i like to

carry with me. an umbrella--i love red bythe way, when you have a choice of colors to buy, buy red and here's why-iforget stuff. i have left probably two thousand umbrellas all over europe. not aproblem, as it turns out, because what happens in europe, if you don't have anumbrella and it starts raining, these guys just sort of pop out of the stones,thecobblestones, and they have five euro umbrellas, and the people in the audience are nodding,they know, they've seen this before. if you travel through europe, all of asudden, in front of you there's somebody with with a five euro umbrella. so youcan either buy one ahead of time, or you can keep five euros in your pocket whenit looks cloudy, and as soon as it starts

to rain just buy yourself a littleumbrella and stick it into your bag. this is a nice one because it's red and it saysrick steves, which is kinda cute, and it will keep you dry and you will not loseit. and this is the main problem for me, is that i lose them all the time. sored is a great color for anything that you know you're going to lose easily. ilike to keep snacks in my bag, i go to costco before my trip and i grab afew different things, beef jerky, goldfish, things like this, because you just neverknow when you're going to be a little snacky. i have to tell you a little bitof a secret shame of mine. when i'm packing this for the airplane, before iget on the airplane, i usually have junk

food that i don't eat typically likewhoppers or something, and a people magazine, 'cause, you know, sometimes you have to kind of bea little bad, treat yourself on a plane. so any of the food or the, you know, readingmaterial that would be a little bit too fancy for normally just go for it. whenyou're on a plane you got 12 hours to kill, just have a good time, and bring yourself somesnacks and some junk food reading material. in my bag, i also like to keep apair of headphones. these are headphones that i absolutely adore. if you're gonnasplurge on a couple of items for your bag, i think headphones are well worth itbecause of the airplane, of course. these

ones have a lovely silicon gasket, andthat silicon gasket fits right into your ear and it just sort of cradles your ear so youdon't even feel them. these are really expensive, they're about a hundred bucks,but i've had them for about a year now and i've never had problems with them.the reason i love them for tours, if you're going on a tour, is that most tourcompanies these days have these transmitters that you wear, and you plugin headphones to them, and you listen to the guide speaking in your ear, which islovely, the problem is that the earbuds thatthey give you are really hard, and uncomfortable, and ugly, and they're just,they're awful, and the sound quality is

terrible. so if you bring your ownheadphones that you can't even feel in your ear, it's gonna really increase thequality of life on your trip. so something if you want to splurge alittle bit, these bose ones i think they're called soft comfort or somethinglike this, you can find them at target these were a wonderful purchase, and ireally have enjoyed those. so a lot of the products, by the way, that imentioning today, if you go to my website you'll be able to see there's a listthere, so it's adventueswithsarah.net, and you'll see that i have some ofthese things listed. so i love the headphones, you may have a pair ofheadphones you love at home already, some

people love the over-the-ear ones. justthink about that when you're going to museums, audio guides, guided tours,sitting on the airplane, you're gonna have headphones on a lot so be sure thatyou have a really comfortable pair before you leave home. in this bag, also, icarry my extra weight--or extra layer of warmth. and you're going to see one ofthe tips from my clothing, is that i really love to have clothes that you canlayer. i don't bring a lot of things, but i wear things that can kind ofcomplement each other, and things that can be layered to keep me extra warm. sothis is just something i got at costco, and you can get them at eddie bauer, ll bean, a lot of these same places, it's a

little down vest. really simple downvest, it has its own little sack that is attached to the back. and this is just my nicelittle extra layer of warmth if it happens to be cold. and i always keepthis in my bag, because you just never know when it's going to get a little bitchilly. this is the thing that can be at the bottom. it doesn't weigh anythingalso, so i just stuff it into the bottom of the bag and i forget that it'sentirely. in my bag i also have my phone, and i also have my ipad. this particularbag was designed for an ipad, and i really like the fact that it is has apocket in the back that is padded. if you

want to look here, you can see that it'sgot a pad here, and it's got a pad here, and it's got a little velcro strap thatgoes over the top to make sure it doesn't slide out very easily. so that'sa really nice feature of this bag, you can just pull your ipad out and you gotthat right there. red, do you notice, there's a theme here,because i lay my ipad on beds, and i go and i pack my things up, and i havealmost left it a few times. i got this beautiful blue color when i first bought it'cause i love blue, it's my favorite color, and the first hotel i stayed in, guesswhat color the bedspread was? it was blue, and i walked out of the hotel without myipad. so i bought this--once i realized

it i went and got my ipad and bought a newone in red, in the most obnoxious color possible, so that i would be sure neverto do that again. i'll talk about electronics in the next segment, so youcan i hear more specifically why these are the ones that i choose. but thesestay in my day bag with me all the time. you may notice i don't have a camera. nocamera in here. i used to carry a camera for many, many years. i would carry thebig one with all the lenses, i would carry little snapshot ones, i tried everycamera there was, i even chose a film camera to bring with me because i likearty shots, that was maybe about ten years ago i bought that with me. it was a lotof fun, but it weighed so much that i hated

to bring it anywhere. i didn't like bringingit to museums, or any place because it hurt my shoulders. i have completely doneaway with bringing a camera. if the camera is important to you, then be sureto bring it, but i find my phone shots are equal to any digital camera that ihave. the other thing i love is taking my phone and automatically uploading themto a cloud service such as icloud or the kindle cloud, and from there people athome can see what i'm doing. it's a really easy way to do it. you can also takethose photos, if you take them with an iphone, and share them with other people whohave iphones as well. you can do an air drop, so if you take a picture of somebodyjust met on the street, you can send them

that photo instantly, it's sortof a fun thing. so for me the versatility of a smartphone camera faroutweighs the sort of technical quality of a better camera. if photography isyour life and your passion, bring your camera, but just consider that you'reprobably gonna have a hard time checking-- going carry-on versus checking. you'll probablyhave to check your bag because most of those cameras weigh a couple of poundseach, so you'll have to take something major outof your bag to be able to fit that stuff. so i'll leave that up to you, butthis is more or less my kit. so that's what's in my day bag,the one thing that you might also not

see other than a camera, is a waterbottle. there are wonderful water bottles you can purchase, the last time ipurchased a beautiful water bottle i lost it within about 10 minutes ofgetting on the plane. so i don't do that anymore, i just buy a water bottle when iget to europe. i go to the store and buy the one that has the nicestshape that will fit in my bag, and i just pop it in there, and if i lose it it'sfine. i try to bring a water bottle to you fill up as i'm going, certain placeslike italy for instance, there's always a fountain out somewhere, so i just buya water bottle locally, one that will fit nicely in my bag, and that's how i workwith the water bottle. so that is what is

in my day bag, and i think that'sprobably about all that you would need in your day bag as well. alright, the next thing i wouldlike to talk about today is electronics. electronics are a lot of fun to playwith, and i think that we're all a little too fond of our electronics - what do youthink? i have two children at home and my children and i -- it's always this debateabout the electronics. i sit around and tell them, "get off your electronics!" asi'm texting on my phone -- you know, it's sort of one of these horrible, "do as isay and not as i do" sort of things. but i love the fact that electronics havetruly changed the way that we travel. the

way we travel today is so much easier. you might have noticed if you watched theearlier segment about a day bag that i didn't pull a book, a rick stevesbook, out of my bag. now, i probably should have because sometimes i do bring them.if i do bring a rick steves book with me, what i'll do is i'll cut it up intopieces. this is something rick taught me 15 yearsago: i cut out the chapters that i need, and i put them in this littlehandy-dandy binder so i only bring the piece of the book that i want. that's a really good way to go about it.however, the easier way to go about it is

to buy an e-book and to bring a tabletwith you. there are so many different electronics that you can bring with you,and the problem with them is that if we're packing light, that can become aproblem in and of its own self because of all the cords and things that youneed for all of your electronics. so this is what i actually bring -- this isabsolutely everything, and i keep it as simple as possible. what i have chosenafter doing a lot of different trial and error is: an ipad and an iphone. i have triedall different smartphones - samsung ones, androids. i have tried kindles. i havetried everything, and the reason that i've come to this particular combinationis that these two talk to each other, and

i really like that they talk to eachother. i like the size for me because i caneasily see things, and they both have a slightly different function. both ofthese have cell phone compatibility in them. this has a chip and this has a chip.they're both american chips, but i use them in europe. i have a plan witht-mobile that has a wonderful feature: in europe you can use your phone and it's free for data, and it's free fortexting, and it's $0.20/minute to call from anywhere to anywhere, which isa really really good deal. so if you plan to be in europe for more than a month, iwould consider switching your cellphone

provider, because this is a really bigbenefit. consider that at&t, for instance, they offer, i think it's $100 just to have a little bit of data. and have you heard thosestories of people who go to europe and they turn their cell phone data on byaccident and they come home with a $1,000 cell phone bill? it'sserious, and it's a real thing, and it happens. so what you need to do beforeyou go and use your cell phone in europe is call your provider and check and seewhat it is that they have as far as policies abroad. i don't think i'veseen a policy as good as t-mobile in terms of a u.s.-based company. i keep mysame cell phone number when i go to

europe. people who are in seattle whowant to call me -- my phone will ring in europe as if i was down the street fromthem. however, that means that when i'm ineurope, people can call me whenever they feel like it... which sounds neat, but on the other hand,some people don't understand the whole nine-hour time difference thing. i wasin turkey last year and my dad called me i think three times at 2:00 inthe morning -- so just consider that if you keep your same phone number: that meansthat everybody can call you, and maybe that's not what you want. so i'll leavethat up to you. it is possible, if you

don't want to get a new plan fromsomeplace like t-mobile, you can get a chip when you get to your destination. ihave a plan through vodafone with an italian local chip. the reason i use thatone is if i'm in italy exclusively for a month or two, i like to have an italianphone number. people in italy don't like calling an american phone number. you can imagine it costs them €1/minute or something to call my phone, and costs them a couple of euros to text me. so it's much cheaper when i'm in the same country fora long time. so that's the caveat i would have: if you're going to do amulti-country trip, you're going to be gone for a month, think about changingyour u.s. provider to something more europe-friendly

if you're going to be in onecountry exclusively for a month or two, i would recommend getting a local chip, andmany of those local chips allow you to do a pay-as-you-go system. my t-mobilechip doesn't do pay-as-you-go but it's a month-to-month. the vodafone is, i think,€15/month for a basic service and the chip only cost me €50 to start. so for€20 -- 20 bucks, more or less -- you can have a local number, which mightwork well for you. my tablet also has a chip in it, and i canuse that in europe for free with my t-mobile plan. yeah, having a local provider has notworked out so well for me. the chip that

i had from vodafone cost me a fortune. itwas €20/month, and when i left europe - err, left italy, it was €6/day. that was a fortune, and so i stopped using it. so, think about that:you really have to research these plans carefully. so, i just have the same chip init. it's pretty slow, i have to tell you -- it's not really the best internet ever.but it's fine. i can check my email, i can upload pictures. it does kind of basic things for me, andthat's fine. and then i use it on the wi-fi at the hotel when i arrived and asrick has mentioned in some of his talks most of the hotels do offer free wi-fiservice these days. so that's what i try

to do, is to use the combination of thechip and a combination of the wi-fi. one other thing you can do -- not to get tootechnical on you -- is that you can use your phone to broadcast a wi-fi signalto your tablet. so, if you don't want to buy a tablet that has a wi-fi or cellphone connection, you can actually turn this into a hotspot. it's just a setting --you just hit "go" and it gives you a signal that you can broadcast over toyour tablet. so that means that when you're choosing a tablet, if you'rebuying one, you can buy a wi-fi-only version, which is significantly cheaperfor many people. so you might consider doing that. i do that all the time with mychildren with their tablets. if i'm

in the car and they want to checksomething on their email, i'll just broadcast a signal to their tablets, andthey only have it for as long as i want. so if you're taking kids on the road,that is a really good tip. get them tablets that don't have a cell phone signal,and then you cut off the signal when you think they should be done. so that's whati would like to suggest. what i have on each of these is this is my principalcamera. i use this as my camera, i use this as texting, phone calls. and then myipad i use mostly for reading books. this is a wonderful way to read books.you can get all of rick's books on here, and this weighs a heck of a lot lessthan a big stack of books this tall.

so, all of the books on here. you canaccess email. somebody on a tour of mine recently put together a whole slide showof our tour at the end of the tour. it was a lovely thing. they took photographsall through the tour, put it up on icloud, constructed a nice slideshow, and thelast night dinner had a tablet and set it on the table, and everybody got towatch a slideshow of our adventures together. so there's a lot of wonderfulthings you can do, so this is a great splurge if you don't have one already. you canget tablets as cheap as 50 bucks. a kindle - the cheapest is kindle hd -is $50. that's a really great

investment to save you a lot of weight,and also provide you with some convenience. some other things i wouldrecommend: i bring a backup battery now. this i learned the hard way. this was a very sad moment for me. myphone died last year. the battery died, and i was really stuck, especiallybecause i was running a tour, and responsible for 30 people, so what am igoing to do? i can't make phone calls! i ran into a technology store and i boughtthis, and i just plugged it in and kept it constantly plugged into my phone, andit gave my phone at least two more -- two more weeks of life, which was enough toget me by. this is great if you ever

forget to charge your electronics, or youhave multiple people in a hotel room and you have only one outlet. you can plugthis in -- somebody can plug in their electronic tothis, and they can charge both things at once. then you put this in your purse,then you can charge it whenever you need to. and these you can get in all differentcharges. this has one full charge of a cell phone. you can get ones that willcharge three times if you load it up. so, it doesn't weigh much, i would sayprobably weighs maybe three ounces -- two or three ounces, and that's well-worththe space in my bag, just as sort of an

emergency back-up. now, i'm talking aboutall these different electronics, and one thing you might wonder is, "well, how do iplug these things into the wall? what about the whole -- converter,or plugs, or all of these different strange things?" first of all, in europe,this is what a plug looks like, okay? it's these two round prongs. you've probablyseen this before. at home, of course, we have the little blades. so what you needto do, first of all, is convert the type of prong, alright? get a new one. don'trely on old ones. if somebody who went to europe in 1982 says, "i have one of thosei'll lend you!" don't take it from them, because the prongs are different sizenow. they're a little bit skinnier, so be

sure to get a brand new one. this is anipad charger that i just bought because i'm there so often i decided to get thelocal one instead of having the adapter. but if you just want to get somethingwith the adapter, we sell this for just a couple of bucks -- buy two or three of them.they're really useful. if you lose 'em, it's okay. if you want to be really niceand help somebody, you'll always see people desperate for these in europe, sohave a pocketful of them and make some friends while you're on the road, becauseeverybody wants these, and a lot of people leave them in hotel rooms. butyou just pop it on the end of your electronics, and there you go! you got thelocal type of prong.

this is not a current converter. this isa prong converter. a current converter is something that changes the americancurrent in your electronics to the european standard, which is different. asi understand it, any electronics that are being made now: this is not a problem. ican't guarantee that what you have and what you're going to take with you issomething that won't explode when you plug into the wall. and in fact, curlingirons, hair dryers -- even today -- i have people on tours who regularly blow thefuse at hotels because they brought the wrong one. so, if you're going to bring anyelectronics, be sure to read your labels

and manufacturer things first. but i have --my understanding is that current converters are something of the past. you should be able to plug yourelectronics directly into the wall, but please read your directions. google thatfor the particular product you have ahead of time and make sure. so this pretty much should be all youneed. rick sells a great little one that i love. this is the british adapter, andyou can plug in the american side here, and then if you're not in britain, youpop off the top and you can just pull out the bottom the adapter and now youcan plug it into the wall. and why i love

this is: we have a plug here -- you can plugin something with your regular american prongs, and it's got a usb port on thebottom. and that's what we're always fighting over, who gets to charge theirelectronics first. so this way you can -- somebody can be charging their laptop,and somebody can be charging their iphone or whatever else they have. noticei don't have a laptop with me. now this is a very personal thing. some peoplelove laptops. i think they're far too heavy. i've tried everything, i really have. andi've done it all for you so you don't have to do the same things that i did. itried netbooks, i tried laptops, i did all

of these different things. they just weightoo much. i don't want to have anything on my body that i can't carry for 12hours at a time, and that's why i've gone to this tablet-sized sort of thing. so iwould highly discourage laptops, unless you absolutely need it for work. it'sgoing to weigh you down, and it's going to be a lot of headache. and the otherproblem is, if you bring a laptop, what are you gonna do? you're gonna be on thatlaptop. are you supposed to be on that laptop when you're in europe? no, you'resupposed to be out enjoying the sights. so all of these electronics i'm showing you, i'm showing youas tools. please don't look at these as

being the entertainment, because you'repaying $10,000 to go to europe, and if you're paying that much,please go and enjoy europe, rather than sitting around blogging about it -- or youknow, organizing your photos, or what have you. you can do that stuff on the plane or whenyou get home. so that's one of the reasons i really discourage laptop use,is that most people who bring them end up working, and a lot of times they'llwork at their jobs when they didn't really need to. so leave the laptop homeif you can, and just go with a tablet or a phone, or some combination of the two.my last little electronic i wanted to show you is something -- completely youdon't need it -- but it's a nice little

luxury. i have a lot of fun with this. this is a bluetooth speaker. it weighsalmost nothing -- weighs, i don't know, maybe two ounces, three ounces? and this is theloudest speaker you will find. i love music, and it's one of the little thingsi like to do. it's a trick for making hotels feel like home. because, consider: i'm in a hotelroom three months a year. sometimes only two nights at a go. so when i get into a hotel room, thefirst thing i want to do is to make it as homey and comfortable as possible. soi like to put on a little bit of music at night. i'll just turn this on and ithas a really good quality of sound and

somehow just having the music that youlove the most playing in your room, sometimes i'll buy flowers of a scentthat i really like -- something like that to make it feel a little bit more likehome, because that is my home on the road. so for me, music is my thing. if you likemusic as well, this is a great one. this is from a company called lon. there'sanother one made by, i think, panasonic. it's a little one that clips on your bag. sothis is a fun extra. you don't need it, but consider it if you're really intomusic. it definitely helps to make things feel a little bit more comfortable. andto wrangle all of these electronics, i recommend finding little sacks like this.

rick has a couple in the bag -- if youget one of these bags, they're just little mesh sacks that you can stuff. ilike this one because it has a little zipper on it, and it's got a clip at thetop, so i can clip it inside of my bag, and i have all my electronics in oneplace, and i can just grab the end of this and pull it out and find mycharging cords and all this kind of stuff. so, find some sort of sack thatworks for you, for all of your electronic cords and chargers, and keep them in oneplace, because that is a sadness that i don't think i see in any other way: istour members leave the hotel and go, "i left all my chargers and chords! whatare we going to do?!"

and i just want to assure you, if you dothat -- if you leave your chargers and your cords accidentally in a hotel room, whichyou very well may -- consider that there are electronic stores in europe. they'reall over the world. in fact, you can find apple stores just about anywhere. you canreplace all of these things. because we think we love our cell phones?! you ain't seen nothing. you should go toeurope. they love their cell phones even more. so i recommend doing that to beable to wrangle through things. so that's my recommendation as far as electronicsgoes. next we're going to talk aboutclothes -- this is kind of the fun thing -- and

toiletries. i'm gonna start off withtoiletries, and i'm going to kind of go through those quickly, and show you alittle bit of what to bring. toiletries are very personal, and toiletries cantake up a lot of your space and time so i'm going to show you just my idea ofwhat you should bring. men, of course, this is my where you might want to drift off. i'm sure you won't want to bring thesame toiletries that i'm bringing, but i have to tell you once i get to clothesand things, honestly, men and women have very similar things as far as what theyneed in their bag. so this is where i get to the big bag, and the first thing iwant you to notice about the big bag

when i open it up is how it looks prettyorganized. this is something that i have really become a devotee of, and it's thepacking cube idea, okay? so, rick sells these. a bunch ofdifferent companies do, too. these are nice because they're sized to fit inside of ourluggage. and what i do is: i choose a cube for each type of thing that i want tohave. so my shoes go into this pocket, my tops are in here, my underwear and otherkinds of things go in here, and then in here i have my toiletries kit -- and itall is like a puzzle, it just fits in there. and if you look at that and think, "icould never be that organized," let me tell you that my eleven-year-old sondoes it all the time, and he's a pro at

this. so if an eleven-year-old can do it,i think you can do it too. so this is how we're going to getorganized. toiletries kits come in a variety of different sizes. this one iskind of a nice size because it has lots of space and it has a little hook thatyou can hook up and hang onto any kind of shower rod or anything like that, and ithas a nice mirror in case there's not a very good mirror in your hotel room. inthe pockets i have all the basic things. now remember that with the toiletrieskit, you cannot carry it like this on the airplane. you have to take all theliquids and put them into a ziploc bag, so just remember that when you'regetting on the plane: separate your

liquids out, put them into a ziploc, putthem into your carry-on bag in an easy place to reach. you can separate thoseout. once you're rolling in europe you can just organize it like this. what i have in here is: i have shampooand conditioner, three ounces. i have searched everywhere for the perfectcontainers -- still haven't found the perfect containers. i love the ones thathad these suction cups you could stick to things, they were so cool, but then ileft them places because i stuck them to things and then i forgot them. so yeah, thesewere just cheap ones from target. i just look in the travelsection and see if i can find the

coolest-looking container, and i reusethem. three ounces is your maximum -- bring the maximum amount. don'tbring the whole bottle, though, because consider you don't need it, because the wholebottle is going to take up too much space in your bag anyway, and you can'tcarry it on. so, three ounce maximum, refill as you go. i often use hotel shampoo. it'sfine. i use hotel shampoo also for washing clothes. if i need to wash myunderwear or my bras or my socks i'll just do a little bit of washingwith the hotel shampoo and the sink does just fine. you don't need to bring aseparate travel wash if you don't want to do that. also in here i have mypills in a little altoids container. i

don't know if that's technically legal. iknow you're supposed to keep them in their original pill bottles, but what ido is i photograph my prescriptions with my phone, so i do have aprescription with me, and then i just keep my my medication in this little tin,and keep it in my bag. it's just handy and quick. i carry a comb and sometimes i'lljust crack the comb in half i only need half of it, that's how specific i amabout packing light. i don't need this part. i'm just gonnabreak it off and take the other half. so that's something you can decide if youneed that. i carry contacts that are dailies. this is a really nice tip if youwear contacts. the dailies are wonderful

because you don't need to bring any ofthe liquid -- the solution -- with you. you pop them in and then you take them out andthrow away the end of the day. they're so comfortable, i love them. this was thebest solution that my optometrist came up with, knowing what my lifestyle islike, and it's really changed the way i do tours, so i highly recommend that. facecream -- i recommend face cream for men and for women. i know that sounds funny, butif men can get in the habit of doing this it's really good for you, because inthe morning get out of the shower just get in the habit of putting on facecream. you're going to be in the sun a lot more than you're used to, and youwon't even realize it, and i see so many

men out there with red faces at the endof the day, and i see some women in the audience nodding. get in the habit ofgetting a sunscreen to put on when you get out of the shower, and that way, you're not going to have that problem atthe end of the day. put a little bit of face cream on. it's not a beautytreatment. it's to keep you from getting a nice sunburn or red lobster look at theend of your trip. so i like to choose a container that is really flat, so i'malmost more concerned about the container than the type of lotion. it hasto have some sunscreen protection in it, but a nice, flat, easy container that'sunder 3 ounces -- 'cause that's your maximum.

and of course, i carry disposable razorswith me, and these are kind of a big problem because razors are veryexpensive. i don't like to bring one so i bring the cheap ones and just throw themaway as i go. you can also buy razors when you're ineurope, as well. something that is kind of an extra, if you want to have more of aparticular detergent: i found these at a travel store. they're little sheets oflaundry soap. it's about enough in each sheet to wash onepair of underwear, but it's nice and quick and it's an actual proper laundrysoap, so, kind of a little camping trick there. and then of course you're going tohave your toothbrush and toothpaste. look

at the drugstores for the biggest tubeof toothpaste you can, because toothpaste comes in mysteriously small quantities,and i don't understand this. have you noticed that? it's crazy, they come inlike, less than an ounce. it's 0.8 oz is the biggest container i'vebeen able to find. so look and see if you can find something that's closer tothree ounces, or bring a couple of different toothpaste tubes with you. you can buy exactly the same toothpastethat you use at home in europe, so that's the other trick: just bring a tiny oneand then to bring a full-size one, get one from a pharmacy when you get to europe. ibring my own floss from home. you can

also buy this in europe. so if you're out,you can certainly go and find the same product that you use at home, they haveit there. this is my toothbrush. i love this. it's a sonic toothbrush. cool, huh? yeah. i lovethis thing. i have really bad teeth and a regular little folding travel toothbrushhas just not done it for me, so i found this little one. i can't bring mysonicare, it weighs too much. it's a big beast. this is just a little one. it's notas good as a real sonicare but it's not bad, and it was only about 15 bucks.it's been running on the same aaa battery since february and it still works. so, i love itand i suggest something like that if you

have really sensitive teeth orparticular needs. that's a great -- a great find, and lots of travel stores carry that.as far as makeup goes -- now this is the part where the men can take asnooze, unless you're into this, i don't know. i love this base makeup. it's calledbareminerals and it's just a very, very simple powder, and a dermatologist who wason tour with me once gave me a good tip, which is that you can use this as asunscreen as well, because it's spf 30. so that's a great way to start. and then ialso have products that don't come off. i have waterproof mascara. i have "colorstay"lipstick that never comes off. it's 12-hour, it'll stay on your lips -- and thatis true. i have tested it. and then i also

have a little thing of perfume in alittle roller like this, and just a tiny little eyeshadow for when i'm feelingfrisky, if i wanna feel pretty. it's nice to take a little bit of makeup.i don't wear a lot of makeup typically, but when i'm in europe sometimes i liketo feel fancy, and if i want to feel fancy i like to have the equipment to doit. so that's pretty much the bare-bones thing. after traveling with a kitlike this for -- oh what? 15 years now? this is what i use at home, too. i don't use anything else. i actuallylive out of my little toiletries container in my own bathroom, becausei've gotten so used to the fact that you

just don't need as many things as youthink you do. you get used to this lifestyle after a while. we're gonna take a look now at clothes. clothes are very subjective, everybody here has a different opinion about what tobring, everybody's a different shape and size. the first thing i want you to knowis, do not buy new clothes. do not go out and buy a travelsmith whole wardrobe.you choose whatever it is that you want out of your own closet that works foryou, and that will be fine. the problem with these travel clothes isthat they're expensive, and they generally make you look like you'regoing on a safari in the gobi desert,

right? you do not need the vest with manypockets, or the spf 50 hat, you don't need that stuff, and you're gonna look prettysilly if you're going to europe wearing that stuff. so if you are going on asafari, please by all means, go buy that stuff, but generally most people don't. soplease dress the way you would dress at home. it works fine, you probably already havethings that'll work, but dress light, pack things that are light. i am such a nerdabout this that i actually sew my own clothes, this particular dress i mademyself, because i could not find material that was light enough. so you're gonnasee in here that there are some pretty light things. i weigh things in this scale,and i write on the tag in sharpie how

much it weighs, and it helps me make somedecisions. first thing to look at is what goes inthe little lingerie sack. pajamas, that's up to you, what you wanna do, a littlelight weight pajamas. pleased do bring pajamas, even if you don't wearpajamas normally, some people don't. just sayin,' you never know when you mighthave to leave your hotel room, share a bathroom, something like this. bringsomething to sleep in, just sayin.' you're gonna want to bring underwear. i bring--this is the sexy part of the show--i bring lightly underwear that are made ofmesh, and i don't do it to be sexy, i do it because they are made of mesh andthey dry really quickly. i can wash these

in the sink, and an hour or two later they'recompletely dry and ready to go. i buy these from the clearance rack atnordstrom rack, that's why they're crazy colors, becausei'm just going to use em' when i'm traveling, and they usually get so trashedwhen i'm traveling that i throw them away when i get home. so buy things thatare really lightweight like this, and don't take up any space. i take a minimumof seven pairs of underpants, because nothing will make you feel moredisgusting than disgusting underpants. and the way i like to do things is i'lltake my underpants in the shower and wash them while i wash my body. so that'sa good tip, to be able to keep up with

your underpants and your bras. i usuallybring about three bras and i like to bring a bikini with me, which a lot ofyou would disagree with me on this, but i bring a bikini because a bikini candouble as underwear and bra when you're washing everything else, right? also ifyou're going to europe this is what everybody is wearing, they're wearingbikinis. this particular one is made by a lingerie manufacturer, and is built like abra. so this is something to consider if you're in the market for a newbathing suit, get a bikini. and i know all you women are looking at me saying, "i'mnever wearing a bikini," yeah well you should try it 'cause if you have a onepiece on on the beaches of europe you

might look a little strange. people ineurope tend to wear bikinis rather than one pieces, so if you've everwanted to try a bikini in your life, now is your opportunity. and rememberthat the eighty five-year-old woman sitting next to you in a bikini is not at allself conscious, so neither should you be. so please, try the bikini if you're at allin the mood. socks, i bring with me, i love these onesfrom costco, i bet you half the audience is wearing these, you know thesesocks, merino wool socks. i bring one pair of very warm, soft socks so that i canwear them on the plane and anytime it's really cold, that really helps. and then ibring just really lightweight little

socks like this. three pairs that washand dry really quickly. i like black socks, because you can tuck them in and youcan make them kind of disappear underneath the rest of your clothes. sothat's what i like in my sack of lingerie. then, let's talk quickly about thetrickiest subject. and what's the subject you all want to know about? what shoes am i wearing. i know this is such a pain. here my shoes, and i'll even take off the onesi'm wearing. and these three just came off the plane, i'm not even kidding, and thepeople who went on tour with me this fall can testify to the fact that these areactually the shoes i wore when i was on tour with them. so these threepairs, this one here are called asics

metrolytes, i bought these all by weight. i searchedon the internet, and i looked for the weight. i know you're laughing at me, but this iswhere you're going to waste the most space and weight in your whole bag. someshoes weigh as much as a pound per shoe, and if you're up 16 pounds total,that's a big portion of your bag. these ones way about five ounces each. so igoogled them, i found them, i really like them, they're super lightweight and they'repretty supportive. to make them extra supportive, i purchased superfeet. which are these nice insolesthat have a hard arch. they're really helpful, and these ones are very lightand comfortable. i have been very happy

with these sandals, which are earthsandals. you don't need to get the same sandals, but the idea behind it is,black tennis shoes, brown sandals. when you have something like this, you havesomething to go with everything you own. i try to go with brown shoes and blackshoes, maybe two black shoes, one brown shoe, something like this, and that way itcoordinates with everything you buy. even men, i would like to really suggest youbring a lightweight pair of walking shoes and a pair of sandals of some kind. you never know what the temperatures are going to be. it's especially nice ifyou have sandals that can go in water. i don't love tevas, but a lot of people do,and those are a wonderful shoe to be able to

wear hiking, and wear in the water, andbe very versatile. these ones are new favorites of mine, and people all overeurope are wearing them right now. they're sketchers, and they're a memory foam sole,they're super comfortable, it's like walking on marshmallows, and thisparticular model looks pretty nice, it looks sort of dressy, i wear it withskirts and dresses. i hiked up to the top of a castle in sicily wearing these andthey had a better tread than my tennis shoes. so this is a really nice pair.skechers makes them in a whole bunch of different styles for men and for women,and everybody's wearing them in europe right now. they're super light, verycomfortable, and supportive, and they're

pretty inexpensive too, i think they runabout 50 bucks, so that's a good idea for shoes. now none of these shoes may workfor you guys, but all of them might work for you. the problem is, shoes are reallyspecific to you. try bunch of different things on, go to two different stores, andbe sure to buy your shoes at least two weeks ahead of time. you need to put themon, walk, and walk, and walk, do at least two or three miles in them to make surethat they're going to be perfect for you. i would wear them every day for at leasttwo weeks before you leave, because nothing is sadder than having reallyunfortunate sort of blisters on your feet, so be sure to do that.

alright so let's take a look at ourclothes inside here. and again, this is something that is very particular,everybody's going to have a different idea. in the top section, i have a cashmerecardigan. i love cashmere. if you're going to splurge on something, make it acashmere cardigan or something like this because this is a really wonderful weightfor keeping you warm. it doesn't weigh anything but it's extra super warm, so isuggest that, just a simple black cardigan, never goes out of style, you canwear it a bunch of different ways. i sometimes bring this one instead, this isa white one, depending on the time of year, with shorter sleeves. so something togo over the top of an outfit to change

it up. sometimes i'll bring somethingwith short sleeves if it's summertime, this has little pockets in it, and theidea here is layering. i'm gonna show you in a few minutes how you can layer things.as far as what's in here, i have two long sleeve shirts, i have two short sleeveshirts, i have a couple of a tank tops in here, and the point of this is that i canput things on underneath, and i can layer them in different ways, and get a lot ofdifferent looks out of my clothes, and i'll give you a sample in just a secondabout that. so that's kind of what i choose. if you notice, i choose a lot ofdifferent punchy colors too, and that's because after awhile you're gonna getreally sick of your clothes. your clothes

you're gonna be so boring to you.sometimes what i'll bring is, bring half of what i think i need, with the ideathat i'm gonna go buy something. you will buy something, won't you? i think you will.so prepare for that, just leave space in your bag, and assume you're gonna goshopping and buy something fun and take that home as a souvenir. so maybe takehalf of the amount of clothes i'm suggesting, with the intention of goingshopping when you get there. january and july are shopping months ineurope because that's when they have sales, so some people will bring atotally empty bag with them and come home with a totally full one, that's anotherway to go about it, so it's up to you how

you do that. this is a lovely packingfolder that you can get, eagle creek sells it, and this is for my flat folds, mypants, and my dresses. inside here, you're going to see that i have two or threepairs of pants. i have two crop pants, i have one skirt, i have a dress with akind of bright pattern that matches all the other things, has blacks and brownsin it. a pair of capri pants, jeans that are lightweight, now jeans you may besurprised to see in my bag. you love your jeans, do not tell me you don't love yourjeans, you love your jeans. i love my jeans, and i'm comfortable inthem, so don't leave them home, take them with you. i know they weigh a lot, but howmany times can you wear these without

having to wash them. be honest, c'mon, a lot, you can wear these a lot, and you can just kind of spot wash them, soreally it's not so bad. take them to the laundromat every coupleof weeks, but spot wash them otherwise. these ones have ankles with zippersthat you can roll up and you can turn them into capri pants. so something likethat is very versatile, even though it's heavy it's very versatile. and then justsome nice beige pants, linen. i like beige linen because it kind of goes witheverything. so these are just some basic ideas, you can dress this up however youwant to do. so you guys want a little fashion show? let's do a quick little fashion show, and then i'm gonna show you someluxuries. a couple of different ways to

make things look different, as i wasshowing you i have some nice short sleeve things such as this, you can take a short sleeve and put itover the top, and looks a little bit different. and then you can put on ascarf, and now it looks a little bit dressier, right? something a little bit dressier.i'm wearing a dress, a lot of people don't love dresses, i love dresses, andi'll tell you why. dresses can be worn in so many different ways. right now, if youcan see, i'm gonna come in front, you can see that i'm wearing leggings underneathmy dress because it's winter. in the summer, i can take these off. i was in the romanforum recently wearing this outfit, and

it got to be 80 when it started outfifty in the morning, so i actually took off my pants in the middle of the roman forum, because it was hot, and then i went and i had a little sundress on. so you canreally dress these things up in different ways when you wear a dress. here's another funny little trick, youcan take pants and you can turn your dress into a shirt. there you go. so now i'vetaken the same piece of clothing and i've turned into a few different outfits.you can take something like this, a little drapey top, and you can tie it thisway. you can take a cardigan and put it over the top and button it up, so that thislooks--you know you don't see this top at all,

you just have the skirt below. so thinkabout different ways that you can layer outfits, and you can turn a dress, orpants, or a shirt into several different outfits at once. that's kind of the mostimportant feature. like i said i love cardigans. cardigans are really nicebecause you can kind of wear them as a jacket, but like i was saying before, you can button this all the way up to the top with a neck like this, and suddenly this dress hasturned into a skirt. so different ways you can layer things. think about that and make a strategy beforeyou pack your things, that way you can

pack less. in terms of skirts, bring skirts.skirts are great, dresses are great. natural air conditioning, think of it that way. also shorts are not really great ineurope. you can bring them if you love them, bring them, but not a lot of peopleactually wear shorts in europe. women tend to wear dresses, so i wouldrecommend that, just because it's a lot of fun to look a little bit more local and alittle more fancy. europeans tend to dress up a little more than we do. sothat's what's in my bag, and i think in this bag you will find all of theclothes you might need, your own version you can make up, but it's to your own taste,this is a sample of what i like to bring.

now luxuries are something that you mightconsider. i have some luxuries in here i like to call "the bag of nope." don't bringthese with you, you don't need them, you don't need this. travel clothes. do you knowhow much these weigh? these weigh more than two pairs of jeans. they don't look likeit, they're travel clothes, but these things are made of such incredibly heavymaterials that they--don't bring them. there's no reason. sure theydon't wrinkle, but they weigh too much. what else should you not bring? don't bring this. i know you, the "ooh" and "ahh," you don't need it, it's because every hotel room has this in it, youdon't need it. don't bring this, ladies. oh i know, deep sigh. get a new haircut ifthis is really important to you. this is

a bad idea, you're gonna blow thecircuits in your hotel this way so much, and you don't have time for this. try todo your hair a different way and leave this at home, please give it a shot. you don't need this. this is old. pleasebring a current guidebook, don't check it out from the library, don't bring onethat's 23 years old, bring current information, that is much better. youdon't need this, you don't need any american money, theydon't take it in europe, you have to leave american dollars home. bring localcurrency. a lot of people don't know that, it's absolutely true. you don't needthis, even if it might look good on you,

because look, my tiara broke when itook it. don't bring expensive jewelery and fancy things with you, youdon't need it. do not bring this. you don't need a swissarmy knife, and it will get confiscated because we're carrying on, remember,you're carrying on. you don't need it, and you don't need this. a big fat book thatyou meant to read but you never got around to before you went to rome. leaveit at home, get books that are on the internet and read them on your tablets.you don't need any of these things, and look at all the weight thesethings are taking up it's just ridiculous.

camping gear, you don't need headlights,things like this. leave it at home. you're gonna findplenty of these things in europe. and also don't bring this, you don't needthis. leave the full size containers at homeand get the travel size. so that's something you don't need, but what ifthere is something that you would like to bring? i have a few ideas. let's sayyou pack to 15 pounds. what are you gonna do with that extra pound? i have an idea. ihave a bag full of fun things. you could bring flip flops, really great if you'regoing to the beach. you could bring a cup and a water heater if you like tohave tea in your room, which i do. you

could bring high heels, which are anawful lot of fun. you could bring, oh i don't know, if you had a couple of pounds, adirndl. i brought this one once, what you think? looks great, right? if make space i'm gonnabring this baby if i'm going to oktoberfest. it's about priorities, somake your priorities. if those are the things you want to bring, by golly youshould bring them, just make them a priority. but if you're gonna ask me whatis the one luxury item i don't leave without, i'm gonna show you now. iwill not leave without this one, and it increases my quality of life so much, andyou're not going to believe it's in my

bag, this is under sixteen pounds. this ismy luxury item here, full size pillow. nothing makes me sadder than hardpillows, and the pillows in europe are so hard, and in such strange shapes. if i canhave my down pillow that's nice and cozy with delightful drawings by my children on thepillow case. this is my security item, it makes me feel so cozy and happy that itcan turn any hotel room into a home for me. this may not be your cup of tea, youmay not want drawings by your kids on your pillow, you might want the picture ofsomebody on here, i don't know, but if you don't want this, there is probably some luxuryitem that will make you feel more comfortable as a traveler, and that's theimportant thing. save a little bit of

weight for yourself, save a little bit of weight forsomething that's going to make you feel good about the traveling that you'vebeen doing, okay. so this is how i live on the road, no joke, you can ask people inthis audience who toured with me. thank you for watching what's in my bag, and ihope you have a wonderful trip, and good luck, and remember what do we say nobodyever said? i should have brought more. happy travels everybody, thank you.

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