When I first traded my office desk in New York for a backpack, I spent hours scrolling through social media. I wanted to be ready. I wanted the perfect gear. I pinned beautiful photos of matching luggage sets and aesthetic tech organizers. I thought if I bought exactly what the algorithms suggested, I would magically…
I remember the exact moment I realized I had packed entirely wrong for my first solo trip. I was standing in a tiny, cramped hostel room in Prague, dumping the contents of a massive, heavy suitcase onto the floor, trying to find a single clean pair of socks. I had brought three pairs of heels,…
When I first started traveling, my suitcase was a disaster of heavy glass bottles, half-empty lotions, and a hair dryer that was basically a paperweight. I remember sitting on the floor of a hostel in Rome, frustrated because I couldn’t find my passport, only to realize it was buried under a stash of hair products…
I remember sitting in my small, cramped New York apartment back in 2017, staring at a giant, chaotic pile of clothes on my bed. I was about to head off to Australia for a study-abroad program that would ultimately change the entire trajectory of my life. I had no idea how to pack. I thought…
When I was living in New York and working as a sightseeing guide, I used to see travelers dragging massive, clunky suitcases over cobblestones and up subway stairs. I remember watching a woman struggle to lift her oversized bag onto a bus, looking stressed and exhausted before her day had even begun. Back then, I…
When I worked as a sightseeing guide in New York, I watched hundreds of travelers lugging massive, overstuffed suitcases down subway stairs. They looked stressed, sweaty, and overwhelmed. I felt for them, mostly because I used to be one of them. Back when I was tethered to a corporate 9-to-5, I thought that “preparedness” meant…
I remember sitting in my tiny, gray cubicle in New York, staring at my computer screen. Outside the window, the city was moving, but inside that office, everything felt frozen. I spent hours of my “lunch break”—which was really just fifteen minutes of eating a sad salad—scrolling through Pinterest. I was pinning photos of mountain…
When I was living in New York and working as a sightseeing guide, I spent my days watching tourists drag massive, rolling suitcases over cobblestones and up subway stairs. They looked exhausted before their day had even really begun. I remember thinking that if they only knew how much freedom they were losing to those…
When I was living in New York, grinding away at a desk job that felt more like a cage than a career, I used to stare at my suitcase in the corner of my closet. It was a dusty, oversized monster I only pulled out for the occasional weekend trip. I thought that to be…