Packing Light, Living Light

How a last-minute Lisbon trip—and a dose of Patti Smith—helped me rethink control, spontaneity, and the tyranny of “should”

I didn’t expect a short break in Lisbon to change the way I think about travel, spontaneity, or—let’s be honest—packing. But it did. This is a story for anyone who’s ever spiralled over how many socks to bring, second-guessed their holiday reading list, or packed as if the destination had no shops. It’s also about letting go of control, living in the moment, and trying (imperfectly) to channel Patti Smith. You can read it in full below—but if you enjoy pieces like this and want to support more of them, you might consider upgrading to a paid subscription. It's for everyone, but your support helps me keep writing.

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I visited Lisbon earlier this year and it was a revelatory experience. Not because of the city itself, or not so much anyway. I've visited before. Last year, in fact. But this wasn't about the place I visited. It was more about the person I was when I visited it.

I've always been a nervous traveller. Not a nervous flyer. I love flying, in fact, but there's something about the whole travelling experience that makes me anxious. I stress about which clothes to take, how many pairs of underwear, how many pairs of socks, which t-shirts, which shirts, which shoes, whether I need a jacket, a cardigan. Because of this, I delay packing until the last possible moment, and then usually end up doing it in a hurry. Will I remember my toiletries, sunscreen, do I need an umbrella? My medication. What are the rules on liquid again? Will my toothbrush last the duration, or should I buy another one just in case? How about my trousers? They're looking pretty thin at the crotch. Jeans? Or something more smart casual? Will I need shorts? What will the weather be like? Will it rain? Flip-flops, trainers, of course, but will I need smart shoes?

And books! How many novels will I need for the duration of the holiday? Aren't I better off doubling that just in case? What happens if I start one and don't like it? What happens if I start more than one and don't like them? Maybe I should buy one at the airport, just in case.

I also take a spare of almost everything and often a spare spare too. It's become a running joke (to me, anyway — half the reason for all this anxiety is that I travel alone, more often than not) that I almost always come home with at least one of everything unworn. One t-shirt, one pair of pants, one pair of socks, one sweatshirt. It's like I pack thinking I'm going to shit myself on a daily basis and be unable to find a laundrette, even though, fairly often at least, I'm usually staying in hotels that have laundry facilities. It's like I pack as if I'm travelling to a country where there are no shops. Where buying a toothbrush — or lip-balm, or face wash, or a jumper because I packed too lightly — will be impossible.

Do you overpack too, or are you one of those effortlessly chill travellers I’ve always envied? I’d love to hear how you approach holidays—share your rituals (or meltdowns) in the comments.

I know how crazy this sounds, but I think I do it because of all the things involved in travelling that I can't control. I'm actually worried about the plane dropping out of the sky, or being mugged and having my passport stolen, or being arrested for trying to smuggle cocaine over the border (even though I'm not). But there's nothing I can do about any of those anxieties (apart from not smuggling cocaine over the border) and so I project all of my anxiety onto whether I've got the right pair of socks.

But this time, travelling to Lisbon, that didn't happen. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that a good friend of mine decided I needed a holiday and bullied me into it. He planned an entire trip and presented me with an itinerary, and then, when I said, 'Oh yes, that's nice,' he encouraged me (quite forcibly) to actually book it.

He does this fairly often. Normally, I say no and tell him I'll think about it and plan it myself at some point in the future. Something which I then fail to do. But this time? He was right. I did need a holiday, badly. And here he was, presenting me with one. He'd put the flights in the basket and found a hotel in a decent location that was reasonably priced. All I had to do was give him my credit card details. So I did.

‘But I've got speedy boarding,’ I said to him. ‘Right?’

He said no, I didn't need it. I was travelling alone, so why did I want to pay extra to be sitting on a plane waiting for takeoff when I could be sitting in the departure lounge waiting for takeoff, having spent much less money?

‘Okay,' I said, reluctantly, already planning to add it later when he'd gone. ‘ I'm going to definitely need a cabin bag though.’

‘Nope,’ he said. He held up the bag he uses, a fairly sizeable North Face rucksack, but one which is just small enough to count as a personal, under-the-seat-in-front-of-you bag. ‘I take this,' he said. 'It's plenty big enough.'

For what I need, I thought, perhaps. But not for what I intend to take. Where will I put my spare jeans? I'll only be able to take one pair of trainers. How will I fit in the running gear for all the runs I have no intention of doing?

I didn't tell him any of that though, I just agreed that yes, that bag would be fine, already mentally adding another to the booking at a later date.

But something else happened in the three or four weeks between booking the holiday and going on it. I read (or re-read, in fact) Patti Smith's M-train. I found myself really admiring not only her writing, but the way she lives her life. As she tells it, she'll just decide, almost on a whim it seems, that she wants to go to visit a grave in Paris or a coffee shop in Prague. She'll book a flight and a hotel. And then, on the day itself ‘throw a few things in a bag, find her passport, grab her bag, her camera and her watch cap, and get herself to the airport.

Something to be admired, I thought. But it went deeper than that. Once there, she seemed to enjoy her time in a much more spontaneous way than I ever feel capable of. She struck me as someone who'd managed, more or less, to eradicate the word ‘should’ from her life, whereas whenever I'm visiting somewhere new, I almost do the opposite. Smith will spend whole days in her hotel room catching up on her favourite Scandinavian crime dramas, or reading novels or writing in cafés. She'll decide she fancies some noodles at 2am and — guess what? — more often than not, she'll be able to find them. Unlike me, she doesn't go and visit places or have experiences because she ‘should, because she feels she ‘ought to’. She does things because she wants to ( or seems to, anyway. This is all written with the proviso that I've never met Patti Smith and don't know her at all, other than through her writing). She lives in the moment, confident in her resourcefulness, Not anxious or panicking about any number of things which may (but probably won't) happen.

I felt so inspired by that, and with the new requirement to take hardly anything with me ( I only took one book! Though I confess I did buy one or two (okay three) out there), I decided I'd do my best to ‘Patti Smith the fuck’ out of my holiday. I packed lighter than I ever have. When I didn't have room for my camera I decided to dig out my old analogue Lomography camera and take that instead, and I’m so glad I did (but that's perhaps a post for another time). I didn't have room for a spare of anything. And you know what? I didn't need them.

When I was out there, I completely eradicated 'should'. Every time I found myself thinking I should do this, or I should go there, or even I should get out of bed, I asked myself whether I could replace the word ‘should’ with ‘have to’ or ‘want to’. And if I couldn't, I didn't do the thing I felt I should do.

Restaurants went unvisited. Tourist attractions, unphotographed. But that was okay. I was there on holiday, not to check off some tick list of sights to see and experiences to have. And actually, I got shitloads done. I revisited the places I went to and had enjoyed last time, this time with my 35mm film camera. A camera I spent almost all of the first morning trying to find film for, as there'd been nowhere in Gatwick that sold it. But I realised that was an adventure, not a disaster. It took me to places in the city I wouldn't have visited otherwise. I ended up having a lovely chat with a woman in the photography shop in LX Factory — a shop I'd have never even set foot in had I been ‘organised’ enough to get film before I went. On another day I went to visit a part of the city I'd originally had no intention of going to — and none of the guidebooks had told me I ought to see — simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time. On the way back, it started to rain, so I ducked into a bar, and ended up staying there for a happy hour or two. Not chatting to people. Not sightseeing. Not photographing cathedrals. Just me and a beer and my book.

On my penultimate night, in another bar, I met an American tourist. We chatted for a long time, sharing our experiences, both of Lisbon and of our respective homes. It wasn't sexual or flirtatious, but still we ended up going dancing together, in another bar — one I hadn't even known existed, and would never have gone to, certainly not alone. It was crap. I won't be going back. But still. I enjoyed the experience.

Maybe this sounds pathetic to you. Maybe all this is something I should have worked out decades ago. But you know what? Next time I go away, I'm taking the smallest bag I can manage. I'll pack a day or two in advance, but will resist the temptation to add an extra one of everything.

And more importantly, I'll go there without the word ‘should’ in my head. I'll trust myself to live in the moment and be free, to have experiences which are unpredictable, over which I don't have full control.

To live a life worth writing, in fact.