packing

i have the notion that if I have just the right bag, packing and carting our stuff on a trip will be easy. I am always on the lookout for this elusive perfect bag. For our upcoming trip to Turkey, I am determined to not check anything while flying. Checking bags has so many problems. Longer waiting, lost bags, and so on. Plus, the more stuff we have, the more we have to cart around. When our Turkey plans were first being made, we were planning to have days and nights of hotel hopping.I had the brilliant idea that backpacks would be our answer, so I bought “big”, yet international carry-on sized, backpacks for me and the girls, convinced we could carry all we need on our backs.

This weekend is our trial run with the new backpacks. Unfortunately, I think I was being overly optimistic that we could handle living out of these backpacks for three weeks. For this five day trip, they have been great! We got off the plane at JFK, hopped on the subway to Manhattan and explored. No rolling bags to drive us nuts.

But there are things we didn’t bring for this five day trip to NYC that we will need for Turkey. And I don’t see how we can fit it all. Time to rethink the plan.