Most holiday packing advice is a list of garments, which is useless because it does not know where you are going. A method survives contact with any destination.
Start with the shoe count
Shoes decide the size of the bag. Everything else compresses; shoes do not.
Three pairs, maximum, and one of them is on your feet:
- Walking — whatever you can be upright in for a day
- Evening — a sandal, a loafer, something smarter
- Setting-specific — a swimming or beach shoe, or a boot for a cold destination
If you cannot justify a pair against one of those three, it stays at home. This single rule does more for the size of a bag than anything else.
Two neutrals, one metal
Same structure as any capsule wardrobe, and it matters more when travelling because everything has to combine with everything.
Pick your dark neutral and your light neutral from your own palette, and one metal. Every garment you pack has to work with both neutrals. Anything that only works with one is what turns a small bag into a large one.
The count
For a week, adjusted for climate:
- 3 bottoms — one that dresses up
- 5 tops — three plain, two better
- 1 dress or a second smart option
- 1 layer for cool evenings, which every destination has
- 1 outer layer if the forecast demands it
- Swimwear as relevant
That is roughly ten pieces and it produces far more outfits than ten, because they all agree with each other. Combinations are the point, not quantity.
The fabrics that travel
This decides how it looks when it arrives.
Pack: merino wool, which resists creasing and odour remarkably well and works hot or cold. Modal and lyocell jersey, which drape and recover. Knitted fabrics generally, which do not crease.
Be careful with: linen, which creases spectacularly — beautiful if you accept that, frustrating otherwise. Viscose, which is fine dry but loses strength wet and does not enjoy a hotel sink. Cotton poplin, which needs pressing to look right.
Reading a composition label covers how to check before buying, and viscose, modal and cupro covers the drapey ones in more detail.
Colour, because you will be photographed
Holiday is the most photographed week of most years, which makes it worth wearing colours that suit you.
Take your two neutrals plus two or three statement colours from your own season palette. Bright destinations and strong sunlight exaggerate colour, so a shade that is slightly wrong for you at home is more obviously wrong on a beach in July. The free quiz takes two questions.
Things that earn their space
- One large scarf. Blanket on the plane, cover-up, evening layer, bag filler.
- A dress that works with both a walking shoe and an evening one. Two outfits from one garment.
- A jumper you actually like. Every destination has a cold evening, and the emergency jumper bought abroad is never a good one.
Things that do not
- A second bag "for evenings"
- The dressy item for the meal that might happen
- More than one pair of jeans, which are heavy, slow to dry and rarely necessary twice
The short version
Three pairs of shoes, two neutrals, one metal, ten garments that all combine, and fabrics that do not crease. The list changes by destination; the method does not.