Packing List

Passport, wallet, ticket, etc.

Unlike most women, I used to travel light whenever I go on trip, either day trip, overnight business trip or backpacking with friends/sister. Here is my packing list for those travels:

1. ESSENTIAL: passport, tickets, address book, mobile phone (in the old days, we don’t use mobile, but we rely on public telephone booth), credit card, and international ATM card, in exchange to cash.
2. CLOTHING: one pair of trousers that I use and an extra pair if I travel more than 3 nights. Disposable underwear, that will reduce space along the way, and I don’t need to do any washing for this things.
3. CLOTHING ACCESSORIES: none. I don’t need any hat or scarf or anything alike.
4. ACCESSORIES/JEWELRIES: none. As I am a messy person, I tent to loose things, this is only to reduce to probability of loosing my accessories.
5. COSMETICS AND TOILETRIES: only the basic one… nothing very special and I don’t really wear makeup. Bear in mind that most of my destinations were not in the middle of a jungle where I could not find any daily supplies.
6. OTHER THINGS: pocket camera, map (just to prepare myself not to get lost), travel alarm clock, a pair of very comfortable shoes which I wore it day in, day out.

As I am not a fussy person, and I don’t need a special treatment nor health problem, thus I don’t really need much. One tote bag was enough for a 3 night business trip or a dirty weekend abroad.

Now things changed, as an expat, my home is away from my home country. Whenever I go back to my home country, I could not stay at my Mom’s place, as she has no room for me anymore, and I still need to pack my cloth and other things, which means going ‘home’ is similar to going for holiday, and this could last not only a few days but a fortnights or maybe a month by itself. Another thing that add to my travel preparation is the fact that I am not traveling solo anymore. I have to pack for two persons, my husband and I, and yet, I still like to travel light…. thus, what I did is try to pack for the both of us in one medium suitcase…. yes, only one

However, as we live on the funny part of the world from our loved ones, I need to consider:

1. Local climate/weather, as out here (that is in Doha) 9 months of the year the temperature is HOT, HOT and HOT. Clothing wise maybe not so different from Indonesia, but it’s totally different from UK (where Keith got his relatives) or Australia (where our kids currently resides).
2. The occasion of the trip, such as attending business trip, family wedding, normal holidaying/sight seeing or attending traditional/religious activity or even a combination of all of them.
3. Activities of the trip, whether we will just visiting family and stay low keys, or involving different activities together.
4. The length of the trip, whether 2 or 3 days, or a months or more.

As much as the excitement of going for holiday, this time this is what i ends up packing for only a 5 days trip back to UK, attending my husband’s relative:

1. ESSENTIALS: passports, tickets (and other paper works in a folder, mobile phone, and travel wallet, where I will put all other cards, (International ATM, Credit Cards, and maybe cash.
2. CLOTHING: a couple pairs of trousers/jeans (in case one is soak wet of British weather), a couple of cocktail dress, (as we are attending a couple of formal parties), sets of undies as no disposable panties available in the place I live.
3. CLOTHING ACCESSORIES: I need to pack all these things, hat, belts to go with each attires, and scarfs to match with the shirts
4. ACCESSORIES/JEWELRIES: it’s a must now, to go with all the pretty dresses that I will wear to different parties. Being a wife of a Brit’s expat I need to look fashionable, trendy and all that jazz.
   

   cosmetics & toiletries

5. COSMETIC & TOILETRIES: also required now, just to make sure that inside the nice dress is also equally as nice. Because I am not use to wear make up, I ends up taking my whole collection of cosmetics, regardless, as i don’t really know what to do.
   

   camera gear

6. CAMERA: what was a pocket camera now has grown into a proper photography gear, which each time I travel, I got confuse which lens I should take and which camera bag should I carry. Not to mention other external stuff:  charger, memory cards, tripod, filters, etc.
   

   shoes and sandals

7. SHOES: now this is a new excess that I have to carry in my suitcase: I need to take a few pair off shoes apart of the pair that I will wear during the trip: party shoes, comfortable shoe for walking as well as trainers for other sporty activity.
8. OTHER STUFF: the good news, maybe I don’t need to take map, nor I need to take alarm clock. But I do need the modern gadget: Sat Nav and iPad to have us navigate around and do other things.

Now, can I still travel light? are those 8 items a necessity for a just 5 days holiday? I think the answer is yes and no. Yes if you

11 Comments

11 May 2012

Gadget Packing

For normal people and normal times, packing for travelling is already an art by itself, but how about packing for a gadget freak like me? Well, I am not really a gadget freak , but yes, I am a bit mad about it, and I always want all the “necessary” gadgets to go with me whenever I go; and that drives my husband crazy.

iPhone: it’s good because it has a lot of applications that are handy for travelling. It’s MAP application is very useful for finding addresses and helpful as well when you need to find a place while you are walking.  The question now is what to go with that:

1. Charger and its synch cable
2. Earphone whenever I want to listen to iTunes services

iPad: do I need this? The question that I still can’t answer. Yes iPad is cute and trendy, but the question is whether iPad is a working device. That is what I need to find out, there are a lot of reviews about how good an iPad is, but I think I still need to prove it as I like to use it as a working device. Currently my thoughts are that it is only a fancy kindle, where you can browse.  With 3G ability, it becomes a big mobile phone; however, without a sim card, it looses it’s independent accessibility and becomes an invalid computer.

The beauty of iPad is that there are no other extra accessories to go with it, everything else is similar to iPhone:

1. Charger and its synch cable
2. Earphone when ever I want to listen to iTunes services

However, I read a good article on iPad for traveler that says that it could function better by using this camera connection kit like this. I think i am going to try it on my next trip.

Laptop: I am still confused what is the ideal notebook to carry with me: a netbook, or a notebook. What I hate from netbook is because it’s very small, and unfortunately the one I’ve bought has no cd/dvd driver, which could be essential if I needed to store things on CD or the other way around. I do have an external DVD/CD writer, but that means it’s an extra gadget to carry.

Other things that go with it are:

1. Mouse – I hate using the built in track pad, I need a mouse to operate a computer properly
2. Charger – comes with 2 cable, one is the adapter and the other one is the cable that connect the adapter with the power supply.

In my case, even though I can still utilize my old netbook, which only being used several times. I decided to start saving and buy myself a nice Mac Book. The reason behind it was only for synchronization purposes as it is easier to sync between the same devises ( I have iMac at home).

Sat Nav.  System:  we need this when we hire a car in a foreign places; normally we use when we are visiting UK and Australia, as Sat-Nav is optional when we hire a car. However, mobile sat-nav, depends on it’s map application built in the gadget. Thus I need to ensure that I’ve downloaded the updated map of the place we are going to visit. The things to remember before we go on Road Trip Holiday.

Things to go with this gadget:

1. Car charger
2. Plastic clip on to stick the Sat-Nav Device with the car’s windshield.
3. The pouch

Camera: this is a big issue, I cannot leave without it. Yes, taking your camera is essential while you are traveling; however, on the market, there are many types of cameras one can choose. Unfortunately I choose the complicated one. Well, I am not yet a professional photographer; but as I said earlier, I am a gadget person, I like all types of gadgets, including cameras and accessories. Worse of all, this is also the biggest gadget of all the toys I have to carry daily.

This is the list of additional accessories other than the camera:

1. Some extra lenses to go with the camera body:
2. Battery charger and it’s cable connection to power for downloading and storing all pictures into computer
3. Cable to connect to the computer
4. Wallets of filters – landscape photographer use a lot of filters, and my interest on photography is more on landscape photography.
5. Ring adapters to hold the gelatin filters to different sizes of camera lenses
6. Tripod, the biggest equipment I have to carry as I would never know if there’s an interesting object to take along the way. I carry this just to “be prepared”.
7. Flash gun. Normally I don’t shoot with flash gun, but again, this is being prepared.
8. Extra battery, just in case the main battery is dead and there’s no way I can recharge it quickly.
9. Last but not least, GPS widget. A widget that connect with my camera, and gives information to it’s EXIF metadata of the location the photograph taken. For some this is not important, it is for me, as sometimes I forget where the heck I took that picture, but with this widget, I can identify the location I took the picture during the post production process or 2 years later.

Wait, I have NOT finished! I have a second camera…. This time it’s only point to shoot and use as a back up. I don’t like this camera so much as I can’nt control the camera as easy as my DSLR camera, but this camera is handy, that means any problem, it always shoots a good picture. However, this camera also comes with it’s accessories:

1. Battery charger and cable of course
2. Cable to connect to the computer – but if there are cameras that use the same cable to sync with computer as well as charging.

GPS Tracking Logger: This is something I always wanted to have, just to track back where I have been on my trip. I still need to do some research on how it works and how should I use it.   One thing I know is that I need to track down where I’ve been on the map. I hope this is something that I could do with.

Do you think there are other things that I need to take for my travellong ‘visiting family’ in Sydney????

1 Comment

24 Oct 2011

Pertanyaan tentang ‘Packing’

Melakukan perjalanan keluar kota untuk keperluan bisnis atau sekedar berlibur bukanlah hal yang bisa di abaikan begitu saja. Beberapa kali saya melakukan perjalanan keluar kota masalah yang sama selalu saja timbul, yaitu mengepak perlengkapan dan pakaian apa saja yang harus di bawa.

Ada banyak hal yang harus dipertimbangkan sebelum mulai berkemas-kemas:

1. Dengan siapa perjalanan ini dilakukan? Apakah ini perjalan sendirian, dan ‘traveling light?’ atau

1 Comment

1 Apr 2011

Pindahan Lagi?

Seyogyanya saya menulis tentang perjalanan saya ke Inggris pada saat libur lebaran yang lalu, tapi kayaknya cerita yang ini lebih urgent, karena cerita yang ini sedikit berbeda dengan petualangan wisata biasa. Maklum ini kan pindahan saya sebagai expat yang ke sekian kalinya. Kali ini adalah dari Bahrain, kembali ke Qatar dengan segala komplikasinya.

Lebih dari dua bulan yang lalu saya direlokasi ke Qatar lagi, (baca Saatnya Untuk Pindah?), tapi proses pindahan yang saya pikir akan berlangsung dengan sangat cepat, kok jadi tersendat-sendat. Sekarang ini sudah lebih dari dua bulan saya menunggu proses tersebut, dan akhirnya datang juga saat yang ditunggu-tunggu.

Tadinya saya sempat panic, karena harus melakukan packing secara massif dalam waktu kurang dari dua minggu untuk barang-barang kami berdua. Dan menurut scenario awal, saya pindah lebih dahulu ke Qatar, baru kemudian Keith menyusul. Artinya, kepanikan ini Cuma pada saya saja, sementara Keith tidak panic! Tapi dengan berjalannya waktu, ternyata kontrak kerja tidak juga kunjung datang dalam waktu dua minggu itu… dan lebih dari dua bulan berlalu… akhirnya tiba juga saat yang ditunggu-tunggu.

Tapi diantara itu semua banyak hal terjadi, yaitu saya sempat ditugaskan ke Doha selama kurang lebih 10 hari, yang memberikan kesempatan pada saya untuk boyongan sebagian dari barang-barang saya…. Saya membawa satu kopor ke Doha berisi baju-baju terutama baju musim dingin, yang saat sekarang ini belum perlu dipakai sampai dengan akhir tahun nanti, sedikit peralatan elektronik saya. Kopor ini kemudian saya titipkan pada teman saya sebelum saya akan mengambilnya kembali pada saat saya benar-benar pindah ke Doha. Tujuannya adalah agar supaya beban barang-barang pada saat saya pindahan nanti tidak lagi terlalu banyak.

Keith juga kemudian mendapatkan tugas ke Doha, sehingga dia memiliki kesempatan yang sama untuk menitipkan barangnya di doha, dan mengurangi jumlah barang yang akan kami bawa nanti.

Sekarang setelah hari H ditentukan untuk pindah, saya jadi pusing. Kami ternyata tidak pindah pada waktu yang bersamaan. Surat kontrak saya yang baru disepakati lebih dahulu dari pada surat kontrak kerja Keith; saya akan berangkat lebih dahulu ke Doha, dan baru Keith menyusul. Satu hal lagi, didalam kontrak kami masing-masing menyebutkan bahwa perusahaan akan menanggung biaya pindahan “personal effect” kami masing-masing sebanyak 100kg. Artinya, total barang kami berdua yang ditanggung kantor “Cuma” 200 kg saja, dibandingkan dengan pindahan kami ke Bahrain setahun yang lalu.

Saya harus memutar otak, barang-barang apa saja yang harus dibawa, dan apa saja yang harus ditinggal (baca: Pindahan). Tinggal di satu tempat selama setahun mungkin tidak lama, tapi bukan berarti terus kami tidak membeli apa-apa untuk kebutuhan hidup kami selama setahun ini misalnya:

• Kami membeli rice cooker; kami menjual rice cooker kami di Doha, dan membeli baru di Bahrain… apa ini perlu saya jual dan membeli baru lagi di Doha? Disamping itu untuk menjual, kami tidak punya banyak teman yang mungkin mau membeli rice cooker bekas. Pertanyaan lain adalah: “masa iya sih saya harus membeli rice cooker setiap tahun…?”
• Saya terpaksa meninggalkan semua bumbu dapur yang masih banyak tersisa, tapi terus terang saya tidak ingin meninggalkan alat2 elektronik dan kitchen gadget lainnya. Yang ini terpaksa saya kemas diam-diam, karena Keith cenderung untuk meninggalkannya ditempat daripada pusing harus mengepaknya.
• Kami juga membeli perabotan rumah tangga yang lain, seperti lampu baca, yang mana saya berhasil meyakinkan Keith untuk beli yang murah saja, dari pada beli mahal-mahal, lalu ditinggal.
• Saya terpaksa setuju saja dengan kata-kata keith untuk memberikan cermin yang kami beli dari toko freedom pada orang lain, padahal cermin ini kami beli dengan harga yang tidak murah…. Tapi karena ukurannya yang agak sulit, maka saya setuju saja.
• Ketika kami datang ke Bahrain, kami membawa meja belajar yang besar, berat dan massif… ukurannya 2×1 m dan juga kursi kerja terbuat dengan caster dan dari bahan kulit…. Dengan sangat menyesal kami harus meninggalkan ini di Bahrain pada teman kami….tapi mungkin ini mengurangi beban cargo kami dari 500 kg ketika kami pindah dari Doha….
• Home Theatre…. Yang kami bawa dari Doha, dan akan kami bawa kembali ke Doha.
• Yang terakhir adalah yang paling pusing…. Kami membeli mobil baru, bulan Januari 2009 ini. Artinya mobil ini belum berusia satu tahun…. Haruskah kami jual? Saat resesi seperti ini pasti rugi Bandar menjual mobil dengan umur kurang dari setahun. Lebih parah lagi: meninggalkan mobil tersebut begitu saja, seperti yang dilakukan oleh banyak expat di Dubai, meninggalkan mobil mereka di Airport begitu saja…. Rasanya kami belum segila seperti mereka. Alternatif lain adalah mengirim mobil yang tidak murah ongkosnya, dan yang jelas ini di luar budget yang 200 kg itu, tapi mungkin pilihan yang terakhir ini yang paling baik, minimal kami tidak usah membeli mobil baru di Doha nanti.

Akhir cerita, saya semakin pusing, karena barang-barang kami jadi tersebar dimana-mana, sebagian dititipkan pada teman saya di Doha, sebagian lagi pada temannya Keith di Doha juga, tapi di tempat yang berbeda. Sebagian saya bawa sendiri, karena saya akan berangkat ke Doha lebih dahulu. Sebagian lagi dibawa oleh Keith seminggu setelah saya, sisanya bersama cargo yang mengirimkan barang-barang kami ke Doha, dan saya tidak tau kapan kami akan menerima/membutuhkan barang2 yang dikirim dengan cargo tersebut. Dan sekarang menjelang keberangkatan, saya bingung barang apa ada dimana…. Di kopor yang mana/di kardus yang mana….

5 Comments

8 Oct 2009