Packing for France -- Summer Edition

Holy moly, packing for this most recent trip to France was a challenge for me because I have so few items in my wardrobe that are suitable for the heat of a proper summer. Truth be told, I did a fair amount of shopping here in San Francisco before I left, which is good because I also didn't buy much while traveling this time. Here's a quick rundown of what I took:

Three cardigans and 5 tops. I could've gotten away with taking only 2 cardigans, but I got good use out of all the tops. The 4 jersey ones on the right were all light enough to be able to easily wash in the sink.

One pair of jeans, one pair of shorts (which I had to buy specifically for the trip, since I didn't really own any shorts), one dress, and 2 skirts. The dress (from Athleta, along with the shorts) was also purchased for the trip, and was perfect. I could've worn it every single day.

To keep things stylish even with jeans and t-shirts, I brought along 3 lightweight scarves. Truth be told, at least one of these ended up doubling as a sweat rag. Good thing I brought laundry soap along. I'm a wimpy San Franciscan; I'm not cut out for heat.

Here are the 3 pairs of shoes I brought, along with my clothes all folded and ready to pack (minus my traveling outfit, which you saw in the last post). Note how little space everything takes up; this is a huge advantage of taking multiple lightweight layers instead of any one bulkier piece.

Finally, everything all packed up. The main compartment of the backpack was completely empty for the outward bound trip, which meant I could stuff my purse inside and thus have the allotted 2 carry-on pieces. For the trip back, when I had to check the red bag anyway because it was filled with delicious herbal liqueurs from the south of France, I put the overflow into the backpack and the blue purse became my second carry-on. This is a typical packing strategy for me, as I often bring back exotic liquors which force me to check a bag on the way home.

The purse is also new, and is the ideal travel bag. The fabric is water and stain resistant, the compartments are well organized but not so numerous that I spend 15 minutes zipping and unzipping pockets to find stuff, and the bag itself weighs next to nothing. The color looks very bright here but it's really more of a rich peacock color, which goes with so much of my wardrobe. The bag is by Tumi and was on the pricey side, but well worth it, especially for someone who travels a lot.

Below are a few different outfit combinations; some were worn for my work days in Strasbourg, and the most casual ones were worn in Aix-en-Provence.

 

Of course, I also wore several of the top/scarf combos with the pair of jeans I brought as well. This seems like an awful lot of outfits for a 10-day trip, but in the end it was good because there were several days where the heat forced me to return to the hotel in the afternoon and take a second shower and change. Which, considering the extreme heat wave that the eastern half of the country experienced last week, sounds incredibly foolish in retrospect (the hottest it got was 92F in Aix). Like I said, I'm a wimp when it comes to weather extremes. This is why I usually vacation in the fall.