Sarah Hromack: I embarked upon my first major independent excursion — a semester of art school in Florence, Italy — as part of the last cohort of American students to study abroad before 9/11. I packed for several seasons in a single black, soft-sided suitcase and refused to rent a European cell phone, use a map, or carry an umbrella, a commitment to minimalism and Situationist-inspired exploration of the city that hardwired me favorably for the ways travel was to change in the years that followed. I remain a very flexible, lightweight, rather improvisational traveler, one who generally eschews guidebooks and blogs for personal recommendations and literary interpretation.
Yet, twenty-odd years later and countless trips in between, I find myself caught at a personal crossroads of sorts: I recently booked cheap tickets to Iceland for April, an island whose obsessively documented geography and astronomical prices at once demand careful planning — camper vans are already booked, folks — and inspires a dreamy sense of wild adventure. And so, I find myself crafting a real itinerary for once. What should I pack?
Cue the onslaught of algorithmic recommendations.
I am particularly fascinated by the “Pack With Me” content that now dominates my Instagram, in particular, following several afternoons’ worth of travel-related research. Pack With Me videos (here, PWM) feature an individual — usually a young, often white woman, possibly a travel influencer or an aspiring one, at least — demonstrating how much fashionable, but basic clothing she can fit into a given piece of luggage. PWM content is most definitely aspirational: It serves to push the agenda of late capitalism not only by selling products directly through platforms but by suggesting that the products you already own aren’t good enough. PWM reinforces the soothing, neutral aesthetic banality and pervasive sense of coziness that one spots in any airport.
PWM content feels like the antithesis of my younger self — the self that fetishized single-suitcase self-reliance in a travel uniform consisting of a Sisley denim jacket whose breast pocket fits a passport perfectly, topped by a Diesel puffer vest for extra protection and a pair of Chloé sunglasses purchased at a suburban TJ Maxx. (These were my Eurotrash days, mind you.) And yet, PWM content is so insidious that, for as independently minded as I’d like to believe I am, I honestly can’t quite discern whether I own — and incidentally, mostly love — Monos luggage because my best friend, a Shopify designer, raves over hers, or whether I simply saw a reel or TikTok of someone jamming 35 cashmere t-shirts into a single compressible packing cube and thought “Wow.”
This is how we pack now. We can do better. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube might tell us how we should pack or what we should look like while traveling, but part of the allure of travel, to me, is working with what’s on hand and following your innate sense of taste.
Here is my own version of a PWM list:
The lowly zip-lock freezer bag, a travel panacea of unmatched versatility despite its ecological bad rap. (Eagle Creek Pack-It compression sacks are a viable non-plastic alternative.) It’s a packing cube! A waterproof lifesaver! An organizational tool par excellence.
Resist the leather jewelry organizer: You want a colorful array of penco Nühe hard shell cases, a once-rarity I used to order from Japan and can now find at the Container Store.
Accessorize! I tend to wear all black when I travel but I just bought this red beret from GANNI because, well, Iceland. It’s a little jaunty for the outdoors, but at least the rescue helicopters will be able to spot me.
I’ve become a person who travels with her own instant coffee: Ritual is my favorite in a Carter Wide mug, if only because I once spent my days editing from its first Valencia Street location. Given what that coffee shop has done for so many San Franciscan writers’ careers the least I can do is buy these new, $3.99 individual packs of its coffee.
Finally, I’d take a cue from my boyfriend, the most widely traveled house cat I know, and tie a small red or yellow plastic grocery bag around my suitcase’s handle for ease of identification. He refuses to replace his decade-old Travelpro, and yet, in a sea of color-matched beige, terracotta, and moss-hued polycarbonate sets, his soft-sided suitcase always stands out. I respect that.
Sarah Hromack is a digital cultural strategist and writer who lives in Brooklyn. She publishes Soft Labor, an occasional newsletter about trends in visual culture.
I just got back from a year and some change on the road in only a 35L backpack. I also review a bunch of "travel gear," but I always have a few lowly ziplock bags with me. Enjoy Iceland! I was there in early May a few years back for a van trip and the wind was bone chilling. Also some campsites might not quite be open so call ahead! Cheers.