Category Archives: travelbunny

Travel souvenir necklace (and travel wishlist bracelet)

Trying to go more minimal makes souvenirs a tough thing to reconcile. So I’m doing a charm for my bracelet to represent my trip. Some charms are literal, some are more representative. (Also, it would be a super bonus if I could find a charm that is from the place when I am there, but I’m not that high end of a person and jewelry stores tend to sneer at me in my hiking boots 😉 )

This necklace holds my “traveled to” charms…

From left to right:

  1. travel suitcase charm*
  2. Panama City (the dichroic looks like the embroidery the Kuna tribe does)
  3. Canada from when I went with my mom and my cousin to Victoria Island (I want to go more places in Canada, too)
  4. Passport charm* I try not to get dangly charms for my bracelet/necklace because I am fairly rough while traveling. So I don’t want to lose the item. But this one was a little too perfect to pass up.
  5. Blue bubbly bead for when we spread Mikey’s ashes in Hawaii as he requested
  6. Green snowflake for Green Bay, WI where I went once a year for the past 10 years… No I never expected that set of trips either 😉
  7. U.S. Flag bead- because U.S. Citizen, yo
  8. France charm from my study abroad
  9. The world*
  10. I need to get another Uruguay charm, the one I had didn’t stay where you could see the flag on the necklace. Irritating. But gotta wait on buying that one.

*purely decorate-y pretty beads

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My bracelet keeps my wishlist separate:

  1. Blue bubbly charm*
  2. Dragon for Bhutan
  3. Sea turtle for the Galapagos
  4. Dichroic bead for the northern lights
  5. Cruise ship for Alaskan cruise
  6. Blue bubbly bead*
  7. Several beads that look like my little alien who travels with me on my trips…

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I have a lot of charms that I like here…some travel, some not.

Packing constants

Aeronaut 30 (dyneema with ultraviolet lining): this is built to fit the specs of those cheapo bastard airlines in Europe. I may or may not use them especially since trains are nifty, but carrying less stuff is never a bad idea. I have a terrible tendency to shed things on the road that irritate me (such as umbrellas or the like) by giving them to street buskers or homeless folks so I’m more judicious now about what I take to begin with, conversely, I’m particular about what I wear so I can’t just replace my wardrobe on the road. Now I have a pretty good set of basics that don’t much leave the suitcase; they are easily washed, comfy and very neutral for mixing and matching.

Knitting bag and Travel Tray: I generally have a newer project that I just cast on that is smaller (I really should learn to knit socks soon, they are so nice and portable) as well as my knit kit. The travel tray I leave full of stuff I’m going to want to use in the plane. iPhone cable, iPhone battery, earphones, lip balm, travel alien, etc. I tend to drop things, because clumsy, and this makes it easy to pull out of my bag and keep corralled on the tray or the seat. I use it in the hotel as well as my bedside bag for my necklace or bracelet while I sleep. Very handy.
When empty it squooshes down flat to take up very little space.

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robe/kimono/drape-y black sweater: I can wear something like this over jeans, my jammies dress, as a robe sort of thing, as well as another layer

Black jammies dress:
pretty much if I see a packing list that shows an outfit with shorts and heels, I click away from it. However, I will wear jammies out and about. The thing is my jammies don’t look like jammies much…


Shoes: I wear

Rockport sandals:  happily I found a pair of sandals that are tidy looking AND are comfy.

Packing List: Panama City, Panama 


We spent about a week in Panama City, Panama in April. It was hot and humid, but we didn’t venture out of the city, so I didn’t have to worry about hiking boots or mosquitos. I brought several tshirts that wash and dry fairly easily in a hotel room that has a/c and a tidy outfit for a poolside party. 

BONUS: both pairs of shoes I can walk in for miles comfortably!

Clothes:

  • Khaki light pants (Columbia)
  • Columbia Tamiami shirt
  • Patterned orange tank
  • Black light floppy sweater 
  • Black jammies dress (also good for stealth comfort wearing during the poolside party with  a fancy necklace and the floppy sweater)
  • Stripy shirt 
  • White tank top
  • Black shirt
  • Ex Officio underwear
  • swimsuit
  • Keen H2 sandals
  • Rockport sandals (these are older, but here’s the detail page)

Bags:

Gadgets:

Uniform

Since I am an unemployed wastrel (with less free time on my hands than I expected what with not having to be across the bay 10 hours a day; sleep, yo… maker faire, yo…job search, yo…) I have been informed that my habillement choices are on the dark side.

I like black. Sure it shows some lint and cat hair, but it also doesn’t show drippings from my lunch or other clumsiness that I tend toward. Also, since I don’t have to be crawling around on the floor fixing network connections that IT should have gotten to in a more timely manner (I think in my previous job, they just assumed I was the IT mascot and I could just get this shite done without having to put in a ticket, so one more thing off their plate, thankyouverymuch.) I can wear skirts now without showing everyone my adorable undies from Target.

So, I have a few skirts (read:more than I have every owned in my life; i.e. more than 2) and I am wearing them.

I haven’t totally reconciled the travel aspect of it. I have some built in aversions to wearing too much of one fabric (jean jacket and jeans at the same time) or not having my shoes match my bag (no, I’m not certain where that came from) or mixing black with chocolate brown…. So I have a few requirements to meet when I travel.

Also, do you know how hard it is to find yoga pants in not black?

And my favorite, favorite shirt is black. So wearing comfy pants and my favorite shirt, and a fleece (which is normally black because wearing a color over black pants and black shirt seems wonky to me) leaves me with… all black. Sigh. Back to square one.

So traveling on a plane with my minimal carryon stuff can be a little restrictive, it helps that I have some stuff that packs down pretty well. Also I found some jeans that I love so they are easy to pair with color (though that rules out my bluejean jacket  for me. I can wear it with skirts though, so if I bite the bullet and wear a friggin’ dress, I’m ok. (I’m working on being ok with that.))

Anyhoo, so I am unreasonably excited by road trips now. Mostly because I can have my purse out with gadgety crap and a second bag that I can put an extra jacket in that I normally wouldn’t have room to have with me as carry on AND my little suitcase. (no I will not check a bag on the way to anywhere unless I am just too exhausted to deal with it and still, I will have my minimum requirements with me on the plane so if the other stuff gets lost, it was just gravy anyway.)

Here’s my current packing list for a car trip:

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Images from Closet (iphone app)

Oh the bounty of outfits! (No I won’t wear it all, but it gives me leeway for various activities, spillages, sweatiness and whatnot. Also some things are meant to be worn over each other… like the white tank and the white button down to keep me cool and not fried by the sun outside. Some is just in case, like the nice dress and heels if I go out to fancy-schmancy dinner. Hiking, beach, etc.)

I can fit this all in my little green shopper (also doubles as spare stuff to leave in the car trunk when we are out), the carry-on LeSportsac Abby and my “fits under the airplane seat… really” American Tourister wheely that is fast becoming my favorite bag ever.