Packing for a long trip..

One of the exciting things about going on a long trip only 6 months after you finished the previous one, is the opportunity of making smarter decisions so that you can make the trip a lot more enjoyable.

Here a short list of those:

1.  Going with a 10kg suitcase. It sounds hard to believe, but last year I traveled with a 23kg suitcase plus a backpack plus a piano and its stand that I bought on the road, a total of about 40 kg of stuff! A 4 wheels cabin suitcase is the way to go comfortably.. way better than 2 wheels and your back will also thank you are not carrying a huge backpack instead. You’ll never have to wait for your luggage, nor ever pay for extra luggage, and you can reach most places by walking without it being a hassle.
2.  Electronics: I’m taking a lightweight computer for work, a pair of good headphones to follow up Tangel Trio’s mixing sessions for our upcoming album,  and very important.. a mobile phone charger! In Russian trains, it is difficult to find AC plugs, and train trips can be as long as 30 hours. You really don’t want to arrive to a new city without maps or without how to contact locals or Ubber. For 20 euros I bought a charger that can fully charge my phone up to 2,5 times.
3.  Merchandise. Traveling with 300 cds when you expect to sell about 5 per concert doesn’t really make sense. I opted for a homemade packaging and cd look so that I can burn and build more cds at any time while on tour. Keeping the per-cd cost as low as only some cents makes it possible to sell them at a cheaper cost while even enlarging the benefit margin of a commercial copy. At the end, the goal is to rotate more cds, so more people listen to your music, avoiding a huge investment.
4.  Clothing. Avoid white colours, so you can wash all clothes together at once, unless you don’t care about wearing a pink ‘Tangel Trio’ t-shirt, I’ve got one… So when choosing what goes in, socks and underwear are prio 1, t-shirts are prio 2, pants are prio 3 and 1 jacket is prio 4, everything else, I’m leaving it home, well… except for my hat, and the shaver, and the comb, and the teeth brush, and the nail cutter!!