it is Thursday afternoon my flight leaves at 6 p.m. on Sunday and for
once in my life I am NOT in a race against time to get my bags packed
I will be spending three months in Europe most likely i will stay in kind of the South West
region of it so I'm starting in Portugal for a few days and then I'm staying with a family for
a language exchange in Madrid I also have plans to visit Barcelona and then pretty much the entire
second half of the trip is kind of unplanned and I'll just see where it takes me I am going
carry-on only for this trip this means that I have to be very organized very thoughtful about what
I'm bringing so obviously the first thing that I did was I made a very detailed packing list I've
been testing out this tool called notion so I've been doing my gap year planning stuff in there
if you're interested in the list that I used I kind of depersonalized it and I made a PDF out
of it so if you want to download that just go to the description otherwise I'm just gonna take you
through literally everything that I'm bringing when I was planning this out I obviously had to
take weather into consideration and even though when I think of Southwest Europe I think of like
sunny Madrid and beachy Lisbon I realized that it's not gonna be like that it's probably not
gonna get above like mid 60's while I'm there because it is winter so for tops I'm bringing
to camis to of long-sleeve high-neck shirts and then these for short sleeve shirts then
I've got a light brown cardigan a tan coat and a yellow rain jacket that has yet to arrive so
just imagine that I'm wearing it for bottoms I've got some high-waisted jeans a pleated black skirt
crop denim pants and then black athletic pants and then these shorts take up so little space
that I pretty much always bring them whenever I'm traveling because they're great as pajamas
but also as a cover-up for swimming and if it does somehow miraculously end up being warm then I have
an option and then in the full body category I guess I bring this long blue dress and then jean
overalls overall I try to choose pretty neutral colors that can mix and match well and layer well
I think the wildest thing in this wardrobe is the splash of yellow that we have but otherwise it's
like brown and tan and gray finally for shoes I'm bringing flip-flops mainly for showering but also
in case I go to a pool or a beach or something and then black and white sneakers so the white
ones are definitely my go-to s but the black ones are much better if I'm walking long distances I'm
also braiding my inserts because my feet have like no arches other miscellaneous clothing things I
spend most of my life in t-shirts I use them as pajamas as loungewear as workout wear they are
so versatile so I'm bringing three t-shirts I try to choose ones that could reasonably also be worn
just like with a pair of jeans or something for going out just add more versatility you
know so yeah three t-shirts I've got a swimsuit a pair of pajama pants a belt this scarf accessory
thing one pair of earrings a couple of rings a bucket hat sports bra two other bras seven
pairs of underwear and seven pairs of socks when it comes to the clothing category I also figured
that if I do forget something or realize that I need something I didn't in pack I'm not gonna
be in the mountains or the wilderness or anything like that I'm pretty much gonna be spending all of
my time in cities so there definitely should be places to obtain clothing the next fun category
is documents there's a lot okay like a lot so it is a very important to have multiple copies
of all your documents cuz like if you lose your passport and you don't have a copy of it you're
kind of screwed I mean it's still bad even if you do have a copy it's just gonna be a lot
easier to get things sorted out and actually get home to your home country if you have a copy so
let me tell you how many copies I've got I've got paper copies in a ziplock bag that is going in my
backpack I've got digital copies on a laptop digital copies on Google Drive and a folder
that is shared with my family paper copies at home with my family oh and for the health
information I also printed extras for my money belt and for my medical kit if you're wondering
exactly what kinds of documents I'm talking about I definitely recommend going online and finding a
trustworthy list of important documents to have while traveling but for a quick summary of what
I'm bringing I've got passport green card travel insurance policy driver's license bank information
and credit card numbers with the number switched around and a pattern only I know my flight and
accommodation confirmations health information like my physician and travel doctors names phone
numbers and emails the company name ID number and phone number for my health insurance and travel
insurance immunization record and addresses and phone numbers for hospitals and the places I'll be
traveling the next category is toiletries so I am bringing a toothbrush a small toothpaste because
that's easy to buy anywhere floss deodorant a few hair ties and bobby pins in a headband a
small bottle of face wash and moisturizer again just last me until I get settled in Madrid and
can go to a store and buy like actual bigger bottles face exfoliant and tinted lip balm in
my makeup bag I've got tweezers nail clipper eyelash curler and mascara foundation eye
shadow blush highlighter an eyebrow pencil clear lip gloss a foundation brush and two eyeshadow
brushes I also bought this because I'm getting my hair dyed on Friday and when I went in for
the consultation a couple of days ago the person was like your hair's pretty damaged like when she
pulled it like this she pointed out the little pieces that like spring out so I found this on
Amazon because it had really good reviews and people said it's a great alternative to olaplex
which is kind of expensive and I've used it once and I think it's already making my hair
look better but anyways that is unrelated to this video in a related category I've got some things
for my eyes because if I don't bring a few very important things I won't be able to see so I'm
bringing extra contacts a small bottle of contact solution again because I'm gonna buy a bigger one
once I get there but you can't bring big bottles of liquid on planes and then my backup glasses
in case something happens with my contact for the technology category I've got quite a bit of stuff
and this was after I decided not to bring my DSLR camera I honestly don't know what I was thinking
when I wanted to bring two cameras but anyways in this category I've got my phone phone charger
phone charging case and a portable power bank my parents are very worried about me running out of
full battery wireless earbuds and their charger my laptop laptop case and laptop charger canon
camera with two batteries a charger and one 64 gigabyte SD card my external hard drive external
solid-state drive travel adapter international SIM cards and blue light glasses for a few comfort I
I've got a journal my Korean notebooks some pens and highlighters earplugs mint gum some snacks
for the trip and uno because Uno is a game that crosses cultural boundaries and language
barriers and just really brings people together finally for safety items I've got a lock to use
for luggage or for hostel lockers sound alarm to carry with me and a medical kit oh and then
my money belt I'll be wearing around me pretty much from the start of the trip and that has
my passport green card credit and debit cards as well as some health insurance information
the backpack that I'm using is the TLS motherlode weekend convertible from eBags.com it's exactly a
carry-on size so it's basically like a suitcase except it's not a suitcase it's a backpack I've
been getting to know like all the little pockets and features of it and I really really like it so
far the only thing I have to figure out is like how to make it actually fit my height
and my body proportions I also got some packing cubes at Walmart I literally walked through the
entire store because I was too shy to ask for help but I finally found them and I just got a
set of three these really hope to make the most of your limited space and they also make it easier to
retrieve certain things from your luggage without messing everything else up I actually like test
packed everything already so I know that it all fits which is good now I'm gonna unpack it and
pack it again to show you how I'm packing and then I'm gonna unpack again because I need to
wash them clothes and pack it again one final last time my outfit for the day that I'm leaving I try
to like consolidate all of my bulkiest items so I'm wearing sneakers overalls a turtleneck
and then a cardigan the overalls are kind of annoying when you go to the bathroom because it
has like buttons on the sides that you have to unbutton every frickin time that you take them
off a gap year is all about challenging yourself right so I'm going to grin and bear it and wear
these overalls I also realized I forgot to mention just a few quick things so I also have sunglasses
gloves wet wipes and hand sanitizer before you start it I had to clean up my room a little bit
because I made a gigantic mess of my room trying to shoot it flat lay for Instagram oh the things
that we do for the aesthetic but anyways once I finally got started I grabbed my Walmart packing
cubes and I first started with the biggest one which has two compartments one on the front and
one on the back so this was most of my shirts on one side and then the pants on the other side and
somehow I actually managed to do it inside out so then I had to take everything out and redo it
protip if you realize that the zipper is on the wrong side your bag is probably inside out next
up I use the second largest packing cube and I put all of my t-shirts and pants in there I
also have a little bit of extra space so I put my camis and my hat the last and the smallest packing
cube I'm using for bras underwear and socks and as you can see it's not full because I need to
do a bunch of laundry but just imagine that it's full once those packing cubes are ready I grab my
backpack and the two biggest compartments very conveniently fit exactly the size of a carry-on
size bag so I put one on one side and the other on the other I added the smaller compartment on
top of that and then my black sneakers wrapped in plastic bags so they don't get other things
dirty my blue dress did not fit in any of the compartments so I just added that in there my
crude sized bag of liquids makeup bag this bag that's currently mostly empty but I'm gonna be
using for organizing toiletries once I'm there and that's it for the inside of it then I moved on to
sorting out the pockets on the outside of the bag so that one small one at the very top I decided I
would dedicate to eye equipment so that's holding my contacts my backup glasses and my sunglasses I
figured it'd be nice to have them in easy reach in case I'm like on a plane or a train or something
I just want to take my contacts out and put my glasses on or if it's really sunny and I want
to grab my sunglasses quickly the bigger front pocket I used for flat items like my journal my
Korean notebooks pencil case my game of uno and my three international SIM cards I'm gonna have
a smaller backpack with me as my personal item normally and my family travels with like super
bulky backpacks as their personal items but I don't really want to risk it so all I'm putting
in here is my laptop in its case and luckily the case like exactly fits the size of the backpack
I'm also including my phone charging case and the portable power bank the adapter my hard drives and
then my laptop case also has these convenient little pockets where I like to store my laptop
charger and my phone charger I'm also including the wet wipes because I want to have those near
me on the plane and also my wireless earbuds and then as I mentioned before my money belt I'm gonna
be wearing right away so that's gonna hold my passport probably some flight information green
card and other important documents I feel like if we can just figure out a way to get farther up my
bath that it'll be more comfortable this in the front or however i manage to carry it and I'm all
set so thank you so much for watching this video packing made it feel more real and just made me
feel so so excited so I hope this helped you and again if you want the packing list that I use you
can download it from the link in the description and I will see you next week in freakin madrid bye
you