On Packing Light

Everything you bring, you carry. Everything you leave behind, you find along the way.

I spent years arriving at airports weighed down by bags full of contingencies. An extra pair of shoes for the occasion that never arrived. A jacket for a cold snap that did not come. The camera gear I used twice in two weeks.

The shift happened slowly. First one bag became smaller, then a second bag became unnecessary. Now I travel with a single carry-on and have found that the things I thought I might need were almost never the things I actually needed.