Four bags are better than five.

Tomorrow begins what They might call an “adventure of a lifetime”.

Contextual reference.

A couple of months back, I was having a bit of an emotional wobble over a guy and also feeling a bit overwhelmed by a lot of things going on – felt like I was spinning plates and dropping them all over the shop. Stop and reflect and decompress time DESPERATELY REQUIRED.

RATHER conveniently for me, it was around this time that a bloody marvellous opportunity came up to do a bit of work in San Jose for a bloody marvellous London creative agency I work a lot with.

An eight day gig for a client I love, with a team I love even more.  Return flights covered. Nothing scheduled with work after this job.

A window of opportunity.

The what.

And thus, The Great California-October-Campervan-Kershaw Tour (COCK Tour for short) came into being.  A small idea of doing some coach trips out here and there from a city base led to one of those professional Google oblivion spin outs we nocturnal types know so well, researching practically thousands of things I would quite fancy seeing and doing.

As a result, I’ve now fully committed to hiring some form of car from a company in San Francisco that has been converted into a home on wheels (including no less than a SINK and a SOLAR POWER SHOWER!), and I’ve also treated myself to a Costco membership and a card that universally unlocks all the Kirkland Signature delights I could possibly dream of during a three week traverse of what They call ‘The Golden State’.

Streamlining. 

And so, tomorrow, the adventure and the luggage carrying begins.  A month on the road with a precursory week of work where I need to look “profesh”, segueing into a road trip that takes me through a kaleidoscope of climates and terrains and leaves me with with quite literally No Fucking Clue what to expect has dictated A Wardrobe For All Seasons and informed an uncharacteristically streamlined attitude to packing.

TBF,  I’m a bit of a bag lady. Love a bag, love stuff. All the stuff.  In all the bags.

But bags weigh us down: if we want to move in the direction of travel freely and without pain, obstacle or challenge, or acquire value and worth and things from our journeys, we need to make sure there’s space for us to carry what we need, and discard what we don’t.

We need to streamline our baggage.

And when we do – when we realise how much better it feels to travel light – I think we realise that some baggage is very much better left behind.