Updated March 7 / Marisol Ferrante
Reader swaps
A swap is one line you cut, one line you added, and why. These are the ones that changed a list.
I publish first name and city only, with permission, and I say plainly when I disagreed and lost. Four of these are now permanent lines.
"Cut the travel towel, add a shower cap. The cap goes over the soles of your dirty shoes so they can sit against your clean clothes. Weighs two grams and hotels give them away."
Priya, Leeds — adopted, eventually. I argued against it for about a year on the grounds that it was silly. It is silly and it works.
"Photograph the hob and the front door before you leave. I have never once left the hob on. I have spent a hundred hours of train journeys wondering if I did."
Tomas, Bristol — adopted. Now on the weekend list and the master list.
"Freeze the water bottles instead of buying ice blocks. When they melt you have cold drinking water instead of a wet cooler."
Denise, Galway — adopted, straight away, and I am mildly annoyed I did not think of it.
"Spare socks in the day bag, not the main bag. The main bag is at the accommodation. Your wet feet are not."
Rob, Sheffield — adopted. Possibly the highest ratio of usefulness to grams on the whole site.
"Drop the paper map. Download the offline region in your maps app instead, it is lighter and it has your saved pins on it."
Ana, Porto — not adopted. Offline maps are genuinely good and I use them. But a paper map works with a dead phone, and I have had a dead phone on a mountain road.
"Two pairs of shoes on every trip, no exceptions. One wet pair ends a holiday."
Kenji, Manchester — partly adopted. It is now conditional on the first pair being the wet pair, which is on the shoulder season list. For a summer city break, one pair, still.
"Cut the second card. Cutting things is the point of your site and two cards is two things to lose."
Hilde, Rotterdam — not adopted, and this is the one I have thought about most. Losing a card is annoying. Having no way to pay for anything is a different category of problem.
"Add a small folding kettle-safe cup. Hotel rooms with a kettle and no clean mug are more common than you would believe."
Sam, Norwich — testing. Three trips in, used it twice. Not enough to earn a line yet.
"Your lists assume a sink wash. Half of us are travelling with a toddler and there is no sink wash, there is only more clothes."
Fionn, Cork — fair, and unfixed. I do not travel with small children and I am not going to write a list about something I have not done. If someone wants to write that one, I will publish it under their name.
The format is one cut, one add, one sentence of why. I collect them in batches and publish two or three times a year. I do not publish anything without asking first, and I never publish a surname or anything more precise than a city.
My Escape Planner. Lists are written from trips actually taken. Nothing here is sponsored and no gear is sent to me.