Each time I prepare for a trip abroad, things go something like this: I plan to pack sensibly, wait too long to really get organized, panic, and then throw basically my entire wardrobe into my suitcase (which I then have to sit on in order to zip up). Inevitably my bag—full of stuff I’ll never actually end up wearing—is too big to hide anywhere in my Airbnb, and I’m confronted with a visual reminder of just how bad I am at packing for the duration of my trip. Clearly an intervention is in order.
Luckily globe-trotting NYC-based blogger Jenny Cipoletti of Margo and Me is my total opposite on this matter; in fact, she’s unsurprisingly (and slightly annoyingly) hyper-skilled when it comes to packing. “I always plan all of my outfits to a T before leaving,” she tells me when I ask for her packing M.O. “I also document the looks in photos so I can quickly reference styled outfits.” You can imagine the look that flashed across my face when she told me this, but she swears it cuts down on overpacking (particularly important when traveling to Paris, as she recently did).
I went poking around for more of Cipoletti’s best tricks for being an efficient packer in an effort to get ahead of my problem before my holiday travels; see her top three travel tips below.