Pack like a German
for the creative on the move
Packing doesn’t come naturally
My parents divorced when I was 11. Therefore, I have been a student of packing ever since. The draconian joint-custody arrangement in the late 80s had me moving about every three days and for six years, until I went to university, I was constantly leaving or arriving, realizing I had forgotten the very thing I needed most.
The first attempt at a solution appeared when I was 16: a car. Divorced parents know that giving the oldest child a car reduces taxi duties immediately. Nearly the moment I got my license, I had a motorized suitcase. Not the sort you see moving through airports, but one with a key and an ignition.
My system of packing at this point transformed into a similar system to the one I use when cooking: throw it all in. After all, the car in question was the largest one my father could get, thinking that I would be safer in a tank on wheels. This led me to look like I was living out of said car, which I essentially was.
This continued until college, when I moved into a single dorm room, some magical gift of the housing lottery. There I lived by transporting everything to school at the beginning of the year, and then doing the same in reverse when summer came.
Cue decades of inefficient panicked packing throughout my twenties and thirties, complete with hugely heavy bags and a constant feeling that I had nothing to wear.
It wasn't until I moved to Europe that I learned how to pack properly.
The ease of travel between so many countries plus work opportunities meant VASTLY more trips per year. I packed a lot. After years of monthly and even weekly trips, I had a realization: it’s time to pack like a German.
How Germans Pack
Since 2018, I’ve lived in Berlin, and with the exception of the lockdown period of the pandemic, I’ve made a careful study of Germans as they move about Europe with their tiny suitcases. I thought I had a small suitcase when I arrived in Berlin. Not so, compared to these geniuses. Their suitcases look small enough to hold a paperback and some toothpaste. How do they do it?
Given that I don’t have the guts to march up to anyone in Berlin Central Station or BER airport and demand they open their suitcase to reveal the logic within, I’ve had to reverse engineer my current system. It has saved my sanity — and my back — countless times since.
The principles:
Pick a limited color palette
Create sets of essentials
Make lists and check them twice
Check the weather OFTEN
Reduce, reduce, reduce
Now, let’s get into each one of these in turn. I’ll also share my personal examples, but please know that all of this is up to your own interpretation: you can be your own German, so to speak.
That said, the lists I’ve included are battle tested for many many types of trips. You can add or adjust as needed, but I do recommend starting there.
Let’s pack!
