Attempt #1 to Pack the Bag...Not a COMPLETE Failure...

I was so excited to finally have my pack that when I was home tonight not really doing anything I decided to attempt to pack my bag with the packing list that Lauren and I had already devised.  Now, I'm not claiming to be traveling as a minimalist and I know that some of the items that I plan to (or would ideally like to) bring are controversial in some backpacking circles (like my memory foam travel pillow -- it's compactible I swear!) but I do want to try and be as minimalist as possible.

We made our list keeping in mind that we were only planning on bringing one backpack and we wanted to keep it as little and as light as possible but I knew that we were going to have to make changes to the list once we actually tried to pack.  I just didn't know if we were going to have to sacrifice some items or if we would have the luxury of maybe taking a few extra things...we definitely don't have that luxury.

Lauren is borrowing our friend Jane's backpack that she bought when they went to the 2012 London Olympics.  On that trip Lauren had borrowed her cousin's backpack which is apparently quite big though Chris has decided that he's going to bring it for his pack during his 4 weeks so I'm not concerned about his packing list hahah.  I don't know too much about Jane's bag except that it's 35L so it's even smaller than mine (good luck Lauren!!).

I already had purchased some packing cubes when I saw them on sale about a month ago and I have the majority of the items that I will be bringing with me so all I had to do was go through my drawers and closet and pick out what clothing items I would bring with me if I was forced to pack right now.  It was pretty easy to follow the list and put my clothes into the packing cubes but then it was like a game of intense Tetris to get my two packing cubes (one full-sized and one half-sized) along with all the other items I plan on bringing (my pillow, shoes, hat, toiletries, book, journal, day bag, rain cover, rain coat, you get the idea...) into my pack.  

I eventually got everything to fit BUT it was jam packed and there is absolutely not wiggle room.  I would basically have to pack my bag the exact same way every time just to get things to fit and I know there's going to be times that I'm just honestly going to be too lazy to do that.  PLUS I haven't bought everything I plan on bringing with me (I don't have my sunscreen or bugspray yet and I didn't include all of my toiletries either, among other things).  So, I'm definitely going to have to make some sacrifices.

I'm not going to include my entire packing list right now but I will when I have it more finalized.  However, the first things that I have decided to sacrifice are:

• My long sleeve shirt (I also have a lightweight sweater to serve the same purpose)
• My long pants (I packed yoga pants but their relatively heavy and bulky and I have yoga capris too)
• A pair of shorts (I packed 4; 2 regular and 2 sport shorts...not sure which one I'll ditch yet)
• A different book (my plan was to finish the 3rd Game of Thrones book this summer and bring the 4th one with me on the trip but it's a huge book and it's not one that I would want to leave behind once I'm finished...I may take a run into Value Village or a used bookstore and get a cheap book from there that I won't mind trading or giving to someone once I'm done reading it)

Those are the only things that I can commit to ditching right now...good thing I tried this now because it may take me the remaining 69 days to decide on what to bring (or not to bring)!

Below is a picture of everything that I got in the bag this time, it will be interesting to see how much this picture changes in the next 10 weeks!