I am a planner. I love to anticipate every possibility of what could happen and what could go wrong. I think this may technically be considered anxiety, but I think anxiety is what I’d feel if I weren’t prepared! If I don’t have my alarm set to the loudest, most obnoxious sound option, then I haven’t done everything possible to ensure that I wake up. Anxiety isn’t what I feel waking up to a blasting siren; it’s what I’d feel going to sleep knowing that I’m taking a chance on softly chiming bells.

Many people find traveling stressful, but as an obsessive planner, I love everything about it–seeing the sights, trying new foods, getting to the airport four hours early. One of my favorite parts of traveling is having a perfect outfit already preplanned for each day. My greatest fantasy is looking stylish as hell in a foreign country, and I try to actualize this with a combination of Google Flights price notifications and a thoughtful packing process.

When I pack for a trip, I meticulously plan out my outfit for each day. I document the outfits with a written list and photos. As I’m packing, I have to try on every outfit, including the accessories. Even pajamas. Everything! Some might call this “having anxiety”, but I call it “being prepared and fabulous!”

Here’s a step-by-step of the packing method I follow, using examples from my recent trip to France:

  1. I take all of my most favorite clothing items and accessories out of my closet and drawers and lay them on my bed. I try not to overthink this. It’s the stuff that “sparks joy” or whatever. Stuff I L-O-V-E. Stuff that’s super cozy or super cool or super ME. These are the clothes that feel like the uniform for the cartoon character version of myself, and also the clothes that make me feel like the most aspirational Pinterest-but-cooler version of myself. And yes, I include belts, scarves, jewelry, pajamas, etc. Anything special to me that goes on my body.
  2. I look at the weather for my trip and eliminate options that are obviously seasonally inappropriate.
  3. I review the itinerary for my trip and my plans for each day. Most days have main activities with specific vibes: museum days, outdoorsy days, travel days, etc. Some days are split, for example, going to a spa during the day and a club at night. In these cases, when one outfit won’t work for the entire day, I’ll include a costume change in my plans.
  4. I assess my most favorite clothes and my itinerary. Outfits begin revealing themselves. For example, on my first day in Paris, I knew I’d be wandering around the hip neighborhood Canal Saint-Martin, so I wanted to wear an outfit that felt especially cool. I went with a black dress with a vintage metal belt, vintage silk scarf tied around my head, and sandals. This is also a good example of why it’s important to include accessories in this process—they’re often the key to making an outfit come together!
  5. I lay out these outfits and start fine-tuning them. Sometimes this means saying goodbye to favorites that just don’t work for the trip. Sometimes this means going to B-tier items that are necessary for the planned activities (e.g. t-shirts, athletic shorts, jeans). I try to pack relatively light, so I also try to whittle down my accessories to ones that can be shared across multiple outfits.
  6. AS I MAKE MY SELECTIONS, I TRY EVERYTHING ON. This part is so important to me. Clothes are worn on your body. How something looks on the hanger only provides a fantasy of what the outfit may look like. I like to know what I look like in the outfit. I like to know how it feels for this particular trip. The process of trying things on also allows me to get creative and try new things! For example, I only wanted to bring one purse on my trip to France–a very practical, roomy nylon bag. But the bag looked terrible with my beautiful flowy white dress, which I absolutely had to wear to fit in with the beautiful influencer women taking selfies in beautiful Èze! By trying on the full outfit, I realized I could jazz up this plain bag my mom bought me at Costco by tying a silk scarf on it. Voilà! Très chic!
  7. Once I feel good about my outfits, I take photos of them as documentation, either on my body or laid out on the bed.
  8. I also keep a written list of my outfit plan that I print and bring with me. Doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Here are examples of my lists from:

SOME HOT TIPS

I always considered it a random superstition that I wear my Lacan shirt whenever I travel, but I realize now that there’s a psychoanalytic aspect to all of this. I’m never quite sure where the lines between pleasure and pain are in my laborious packing process as I try to fulfill my insatiable desire for perfection.