What's in my Bag: Travel Edition

Leaving for France is sneaking up on me, something I clearly wasn’t anticipating as I decided to stay at work until two days before my flight. TWO. DAYS. And while giving my parents and sister most of my belongings has proved helpful in the grand scheme of packing, there is still a lot to do and a lot to figure out in the next week–EEK.

With the help of lovely Lauren, who has helped me triple and quadruple distill my belongings, I am now almost at a point where everything I need to survive for seven months will fit in two suitcases.

Almost.

My voyage to France will take nothing short of a miracle–for economic and wishful reasons, I bought a flight with an 18-hour layover in Reykavik, Iceland ($381 dollars INCLUDING flight insurance). I leave DC at 8 p.m., land in Reykavik at 6 a.m., and already have a tour scheduled for noon that day with Auδur of I Heart Reykavik (which is an awesome blog if you are ever planning a trip/long layover to Iceland). Then, maybe after a dip in the Blue Lagoon, I hop on my flight to Paris at 1 a.m., land at 6 a.m., then take a train to Aix-en-Provence–where my Airbnb bed will be a great comfort I am sure. I got exhausted just writing all that.

So, for my long, long journey overseas I have scoured websites like Her Packing List and have put my Amazon Prime to good use. Here is (most of) what I plan to take with me to ease the trip:

Corkscrew/iPhone 5S/Pop Physique DVDs/Tide Pen/Yes to Cucumbers Make Up Removing Wipes/Passport/iPad Mini/Burts Bees Chapstick/Melatonin/Emergen-C/32GB Flash Drive/Luna Bar/Eye Pillow/Ear Plugs

Not pictured: compression socks, iPhone tripod, selfie remote, iPhone portable charger (any cheap recs??)

I’ve also been brainstorming what American necessities to take with me, preferably those that aren’t big and/or heavy. Necessities obviously include chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter with an American flag for good measure. Suggestions are welcome 🙂

In other preparation news, I bought travel insurance through World Nomads (because I am 150 years old and buy supplemental insurance now). My work contract does include the French social security healthcare, but I have heard that it takes a while to get into the system and even then it is only valid in France. My other insurance is my flash drive, labeled as my life line. It holds digital copies of every single form, piece of paperwork, vaccination record or birth certificate you can ever imagine needing. I’m not kidding when I call it a life line.

I still have a few things left to get, but for the most part this hurdle is almost crossed–but I doubt the peanut butter will last very long.