How Nine Strategist Staffers Packed for Their Summer Vacations
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If you follow our monthly “Strategist Haul,” you’re familiar with the idiosyncrasies of our editors’ and writers’ shopping habits. While we think of those as the highlights, there are plenty of other, less glamorous things we buy — and love — on the regular, too. So whether you’ve wondered about thework bagswe tote around or theunderwearwe’re most loyal to, this is the Stuff We Buy Ourselves. In this edition, I quizzed my fellow staffers about how and what they packed for summer vacations of various kinds.
An Austrian honeymoon (Hilary Reid, senior editor)
I really like this packing advice from Hilary Reid, who honeymooned in Velden am Wörthersee and Vienna last month with her Quinceluggagein tow: “Basically, if I’m traveling to a city, I try to pack the same things that I wear frequently at home and know how to put together easily.” For this trip, that meant a black Agnès B. snap cardigan,Onitsuka Tiger sneakers, and cotton Nili Lotan blouses sourced from Poshmark and the Real Real, which “take up no space, are easy to wash, and are comfortable to wear for a range of temperatures and levels of dressing.” Other home wardrobe staples she packed included Brooke Callahan side-tie pants, her favorite headbands from 45R and Zitomer, and French Sole x Nicky Hilton flats.
A peak-summer Disney resort stay (Jen Trolio, senior editor)
Jen Trolio has just returned from an 11-person (including five kids aged 3 to 10) extended family trip to Disney World Orlando that required packing skills of steel. The group used mostly Away and Quince suitcases (Trolio says she’s coming to prefer Away’s flexibleSoftside Carry-onover the classic hardshell), and checked one of them to bypass TSA liquid limits onsunscreen— smart. Temperature control was definitely a theme: They also packed several cat-shaped cooling neck tubes, loud but ultimately necessary turbo mini-fans, water bottles for everybody, and carabiners to externally attach those bottles to bags. Baggu’s reusable totes and pouches proved useful, especially when separating items during security procedures at the entrance to the park, as did a couple of clear zip pouches from Target. And Trolio gave her kids a Camp Snap digital camera to avoid handing them her phone (and draining its battery — much of the park experience relies on apps, which is why an external power bank also made it into her bag).
An Outer Banks beach trip (Amelia Jerden, sleep writer)
Amelia Jerden was road-tripping to the beach, but she packed using the same luggage she normally takes to the airport: Baggu’s Cloud Carry-On tote and packing cubes (“I’m Baggu-pilled when it comes to travel”) coupled with Calpak’s Hue Carry-on suitcase. Both had plenty of room for her clothing and essentials, but she also brought along the Target tote bag that was highly praised in ourstaff roundtable on beach setups. It’s structured and stays upright, but with a shallower depth and wider opening than a Bogg Bag, making it easy to find items quickly. Also crucial for beach days was her Tarpestry water-resistant outdoor blanket, which she says she’s been lying on all spring and summer.
An Alaskan cruise (Lauren Ro, senior writer)
Lauren Ro just took an Alaskan cruise with her husband and two kids, tacking a few days at her parents’ place in Los Angeles onto both ends of the trip. This presented a weather-appropriate-clothing conundrum, and she admits that they definitely should have packed more waterproof footwear for the cruise portion: “It rained, like, two of the days, and all our shoes got soaked.” She did remember to bring her Arc’teryx raincoat, which she says kept her top half perfectly dry while also being extremely lightweight and scrunchable for easy packing, plus a cute, fluffy Aritzia fleece. Her son Augie wore a Reima waterproof jacket. My eye was immediately drawn to those colorful mesh packing cubes, which Ro says are from Posh Peanut.
A vacation rental in Kerhonkson (Winnie Yang, senior editor)
Winnie Yang is in the midst of packing for a trip upstate with her family, and she shared this photo of the developing situation. Both suitcases are Briggs & Riley; the larger green one is 14 years old and still going strong, while the black carry-on was purchased five years ago — impressive. To keep things organized, she likes Eagle Creek and Thule packing cubes, which she says are well worth the upgrade from Amazon cheapies. And because the trip will involve lots of swimming in pools and water holes, she’s bringing her preferred Patagonia swim bottoms and Calomel bikini top.
A tour of Barcelona and Basque Country (Dominique Pariso, writer)
Those are, of course, sandal-of-the-summerKeen Newportsthat Dominique Pariso took with her to northern Spain last month, and she says they were “perfect,” minus the expected blister or two. She paired them with Leset’s Margo tee, which is anotherStrategist staffer favorite. Other good packing decisions she made included a portable fan, “which didn’t leave my hand all trip and helped me survive all the un-air-conditioned restaurants,” Monos sling bag,vacation-friendly vibe, and Calpak’s clear cosmetics bag (which she calls “the only toiletry case worth buying”).
A week on the Amalfi Coast (Najwa Jamal, updates coordinator)
Najwa Jamal takes the prize for most elegant and organized Strategist suitcase, and it’s the multiple instances of monogramming that take her over the line. You’re seeing not only an L.L. Bean Boat and Tote (size large), which she used as her carry-on, but also a set of personalized toiletry bags that she ordered from Etsy with her initials on them. The dust bags from Chanel and Diptyque “are a result of many a purchase” from the two brands, “and they were very useful to hold undies, socks, swimsuits, and the like,” Jamal says. She also used a set of Bagail packing cubes that were an Amazon Prime Day purchase this year and “did what they needed to do,” and wore a silk Clementine Sleepwear mask on the plane. Her checked luggage was a discontinued version of Samsonite’s Freeform medium.
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A jaunt to the United Kingdom and Germany (Michael Zhao, senior writer)
Michael Zhao is, like Yang, a Briggs & Riley fan; he’s also loyal to Patagonia’s travel bags, including the brand’s Terravia Hip Pack, which has handy elastic water-bottle pockets. Sea to Summit’s Hanging Toiletry Bag, which he’s owned for more than a decade but has never grown to trulylove,is still “less flawed than every other toiletry bag I’ve tried and also very light, which is important when you’re trying not to hit the weight limit for international carry-ons.” Another weight saver is Arc’teryx’s Atom Vest, which packs smaller than a jacket but still keeps him just as warm, and a pair of Outlier Futurecorps pants (“I’m typically against synthetic fabrics in slacks, but I make an exception for these when traveling because they are just so much lighter and faster-drying”). Zhao’s travel tech setup is enviably nimble, consisting of a Mystery Ranch organizer for keeping cables and adapters organized, as well as a Minix wall charger that he describes as possibly “the single best purchase” he made last year. It is strong enough to power a MacBook and includes plug adapters for various countries that “slide on as solidly as if they were built in.”
A Peruvian expedition (Katherine Gillespie, writer)
I’m heading to Peru this week, where I’ll be trekking at 5,000 meters in the Cordillera Blanca, catching waves with an old friend who lives in the northern surf town of Huanchaco, then hitting the Inca tourist trail with my mom, who is flying to Lima all the way from Western Australia. I’ll be packing my Merrells (trendy in the city, practical in the Andes), the same Arc’teryx Beta that Lauren took to Alaska (wildly expensive jacket, but it weighs almost nothing and is totally water- and windproof), and Icebreaker base layers (it’s winter down there) into my new favorite backpack, the Salkan Mainpack. Kindle, camera, phone, and passport will all be kept in a Baggu Crescent Bag for easy access. My Mystery Ranch packable backpack will emerge for hiking days. And the most essential item will be my Grayl bottle, which purifies non-potable tap water using a clever coffee-press-like mechanism.
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