Like the New Year resolutions we know we’ll never keep, every summer I swear a solemn oath that this will be the last time I’ll overpack.
Never again, I repeat, will the charge for my excess baggage equal the price of my return flight. No more will I have used up my holiday spending budget before I’ve even stepped onto the plane.
In future, I tell myself, I’ll master the art of the capsule wardrobe, with a few well-chosen pieces that mix and match and mark me out as a seasoned, sophisticated traveller. The kind of woman who swans elegantly and unencumbered through airports rather than resembling a beast of burden about to collapse under the weight of its load.
I’ll choose a pared-down palette of, say, navy and white (nicely nautical and suitable for a beach holiday), with accents of pink or red. That way, I can limit my accessories to a couple of pairs of flip-flops, two pairs of shoes for the evening, a beach bag and a stylish clutch for nights on the town.
But that kind of approach to my holiday wardrobe would take a lot of planning. Deciding what I need in advance and working out what I’m going to wear on any given day. And I don’t do planning, or lists, I leave packing until the last possible minute because without an imminent deadline I simply procrastinate ad infinitum.
Midnight is usually when I begin, which - after I’ve finished - gives me about two hours’ sleep before I have to get up at 4am for a 7am flight out of Luton Airport. My method never changes. I just open a large suitcase and lob things at it ferociously, feeling a wave of strength surge through me, like Petra Kvitova must have felt beating Maria Sharapova in the Wimbledon final.
Even if I end up having to trampoline on my case in order to close it, I’m confident of finishing victorious. When I counted up what I’d actually packed for my latest trip, it read as follows.
Sarongs, seven - that should be enough. Bras, ten - three strapless in black, white and neutral; three colourful ones and three comfy white ones, and then one more just in case. In case of what, I have no idea. Knickers, too many to count. Dresses, 13. Yes, I know, but they’re barely more than slips, and they hardly weigh a thing, and they do include cover-ups for lunch by the pool.
Except I don’t eat lunch by the pool, I eat it on the terrace of my apartment, wearing the bikini I’ve been wearing all morning, one of eight, which is, to my credit, three fewer than last year.
Shoes? I refuse to tell you. Though it’s never enough - on day two of my most recent holiday I happened to pass by the Spanish department store El Corte Ingles and it had these huge banners in the window displaying my favourite Spanish word, Rebajas. For those who don’t speak Spanish, Rebajas means Sale. And the two pairs of wedges I bought were exactly what I needed.
According to a recent survey, female holidaymakers pack almost double what they need, leaving half the contents of their suitcase untouched. Seventy two percent admit always to overpacking, while 42 percent still plan to shop for clothes while on their break.
The average woman will pack 19 tops for her holiday but will wear only ten, and will take 16 “bottoms” - such as trousers, shorts and leggings - but will wear just eight.
According to the same survey, women also come home with one pair of shoes which never made it out of the suitcase, a spare bikini and a couple of pieces of underwear. Is that all? It strikes me these women are amateurs when it comes to overpacking.
In an interesting paradox, while a fifth of women admit to having incurred excess baggage costs, another new study suggests that one in five passengers is travelling light and sharing a suitcase with the rest of the family in order to avoid the astronomical baggage costs, such as those charged by Ryanair, of £30 (about R350) per hold bag each way in peak season, plus an exorbitant £20 for each extra kilogram above your luggage allowance.
Suntan lotions are another weighty problem since we’ve become terrified of getting skin cancer and barely dare walk from the bathroom to the bedroom without slavering ourselves first, for fear of catching a dangerous ray through the open window while unprotected.
My spray says each bottle contains enough for six applications for an average body and should be reapplied every 1-2 hours. At that rate, and if I took any notice, it would require a bottle a day, totalling 14 bottles a person for a two-week, sun-lover’s holiday. Don’t those luggage allowances seem more meagre by the minute?
Of the many misunderstandings between the sexes, packing for a holiday has to be one of the biggest. A man sees a holiday as an opportunity to forget about clothes - no suit, no stiff shirts, no ties or proper shoes. Bung in a pair of tatty shorts and a pair of sandals and he’s in holiday heaven. But for a woman, a holiday is the perfect time to indulge in dressing up, and dressing to kill.
At home, I can get ready to go out after a long day’s work in ten minutes flat. On holiday, I might spend two hours exfoliating, creaming, washing and blow-drying my hair, applying make-up and putting on the holiday bling.
I thrill to the thought of trying on different dresses to see which one I’m most in the mood for. And even if we end up having fish and chips at a pavement cafe, I love the feeling of having primped and pampered myself without having to race against the clock. It’s a luxury that only a holiday can afford me.
And so I have decided to ditch my original resolution to travel light and vow to pack as much as I damn well like.
My secret holiday weapon is the new man in my life, who comes almost free of baggage. He once suggested he could fit his holiday gear into a carrier bag.
At first I thought I might encourage him to smarten up and expand his holiday wardrobe, but I’ve discovered that the joy of a dishevelled other half is that you can balance your overweight suitcase with his half-empty one.
The less he packs, the more room for me! Thirty-two whopping, irresistible kilos, mine all mine, and eight feather-light ones for him, make us an almost perfect match. - Daily Mail