Well, here it is. The last of my Impressions from Germany series and the thing I get asked about the most. The low down on how and what we packed to move to Germany for six months last year. And because I like you guys, I have all, and I mean ALL the details for you. Seriously, this a two-parter and includes tons of pics and a spreadsheet.
Before I really dive in to this beast, let me preface this by giving you some background. We secured housing in Germany that had all of the big ticket items for us. We had furniture, kitchenware, pillows, linens, and appliances included. All of this obviously saved us a lot of headache and even more in shipping and checked bag fees.
That being said, we had gotten pictures and a layout and knew the apartment was small (about 450 square feet with one bedroom) with an equally small amount of storage. So I had to be ruthless when it came to what was going to make the cut and what was going to stay. Lucky for me, I like lists. And boy did I have them. I think my lists had sublists, actually. So that’s how I’ll roll here, too.
LUGGAGE
It seems funny to start a post about packing without acknowledging the pieces used to haul it all. My husband and I have a set of green soft sided luggage that we received as a wedding gift way back when. The set comprises three pieces that store like Russian nesting dolls. The largest one is 28 inches, the medium is 24, and the smallest is a 21 inch standard carry on size. We took an ancient carry on sized blue Reebok duffel bag and an equally well loved JanSport backpack. We purchased a red hard shell carry on suitcase (this was used for a lot of our side trips) and laptop bags for myself and my husband. You can see what each piece held in the spreadsheet file.
CLOTHING
Ironically, when you are talking about moving your family to another country, clothing is probably the least important thing you’ll be packing. But this still took up the bulk of space in our luggage. I approached packing for myself and my husband differently than for our toddler as well. The lead image for this post is a collage of my entire German wardrobe, btw.
Joe and I
I started with research because I am me. The very first thing I did was to head to YouTube and search out packing vids from kids doing a semester abroad (it was the closest approximate to our situation). I also tried to narrow these down by either location or common weather. This helped me get an idea of roughly what types of things to pack and how much luggage we’d need.
Next up was looking in to capsule wardrobes. Now, I am lucky because my mom taught me the idea of mixable, matchable pieces long before capsules were cool, but I wanted help on putting together color palettes. My intuition told me that having a solid color palette for myself and my husband would be useful. Turned out, I was very right.
I also follow Audrey at Putting Me Together. (If you miss Stacey and Clinton on What Not To Wear, run to her blog.) She specializes in remixing wardrobe pieces and used to do seasonal capsule challenges. Lucky for me, Audrey had all of the capsules posted. I looked through every single one and made a list of all the pieces she had, broken down by season. Things that were listed multiple times (like a striped t-shirt) got starred. I used that starred list to hack a Master Packing list.
Armed with the master list and color ideas, I started going through my and my husband’s wardrobe to fit pieces in. I made some concessions for style preferences (I don’t wear dresses and skirts that much) and for maybes (we were unsure how formal/casual Joe’s work environment would be). I also needed to add pieces like bathing suits and winter coats. But our clothing lists actually took shape pretty quickly.
The Little Guy
As I mentioned, my son was three during our move last year. Guess what, three year olds grow. A lot. My son is a very active kid and so I don’t typically dress him “up.” I did pack a few dressier pieces for him, just in case, but the bulk of his wardrobe was the mix and match, comfortable staples he wears at home. I was careful to keep clothing free of English wording (which is hard to do with kids clothing nowadays) as that is a dead giveaway that you are foreign.
But, like I said, kids have this pesky tendency to grow. So I actually planned for that, in a pretty useful way. My son typically starts to transition into the next size right around the time we would be coming back to the States. So, I left about 1/3 of his current sized clothing at home and made sure we had a supply in the next size up washed and ready to go. I packed his stuff… And then donated almost all of it before we came back home. Yup, about 80% of his clothing did not make the return trip back across the Atlantic. Turns out that left plenty of luggage space for gifts and souvenirs.
SHOES
We took 12 pair of shoes with us. You read that correctly; 12 pairs, for three of us, for six months. My husband had three pair, my son had four, and I had five. One of which barely counted as they were completely flat sandals. My son grew so quickly, we bought him a waterproof sneaker/boot hybrid while we were there, which brings our grand total to 13. Each and every pair was super practical (no heels for me) and went with our clothing color palettes so we could mix and match (sense a theme here?) Five pairs came home with us. Because doing a lot of walking on brick and cobblestones is murder on your footwear.
TOILETRIES AND FIRST AID
Our day to day needs were not the huge deal here. Everybody knows you need shampoo. And I know what you are thinking: Melissa, Germany is a developed country, shampoo is easy to find there. I had two very good reasons to pack some of these things. First, my son and I both have extremely sensitive skin and I didn’t want to spend half our time trying to find body wash and the like that wouldn’t irritate. Second, my son had two sets of grandparents that were gonna miss him. I put together boxes for both my parents and my in-laws that had a set of daily toiletries in it. Each box had room so that his grandparents could send him a few goodies, too.
The bigger deal with packing our toiletries was actually all those just-in-case items that any parent of a toddler needs. And that you don’t want to have to search for. In a different language. Things like children’s ibuprofen. If your kid gets sick in another country, you want to be giving them medicine that you know they will take and works. Period. At least a small supply of basic first aid and sick care is a must.
GEAR
There was a bunch of random stuff we packed that I lumped in to this category. But it was almost all stuff we needed and used. Stuff like umbrellas. It rains in Germany, too. A bunch of things in this category were also toddler necessities. Our son has always slept with a white noise machine. And we were about to live in what amounted to dorm housing for six months. Yeah, that bad boy was coming with us. I also knew that Germany had banned single use plastic bags so my set of Envirosax bags came with us. Check out the spreadsheet for the full list of gear.
ENTERTAINMENT
For just my husband and myself, there wasn’t much. Both of us brought our laptops and cell phones. We had a Kindle Paperwhite which I used to read. Joe really got into podcasts in his downtime. There are also some obvious things (like a deck of cards) that every traveler needs. But, as I’ve said, we had our three year old with us. We loaded his Kindle Fire with some of his favorite movies and had signed up with a digital lending service through our library. I made him a busy binder full of worksheets with wipe off surfaces and some dry erase markers. This binder was heaven sent for long train rides and rainy days. But toddlers need toys.
As with everything packing, I had requirements if I was going to lug something across an ocean. I wanted to bring open ended toys that he could use in multiple different ways. Toys also had to pack fairly flat and be able to survive in checked luggage. Bonus points if the toy in question could double as a learning activity. We knew we would buy him some Legos, a football (soccer to us Americans), and another outside toy (ended up being sand trucks for the playgrounds) when we got there. And, again, letting grandparents pick a few things to send him helped immensely. We certainly had to get creative, but I think I did okay, because I don’t remember any complaints of boredom.
Whew. So that’s the basic rundown. And because I know you guys want more details (I would if I was reading this on another blog), I’ve got them. Linked below you will find the granddaddy of all packing lists. This spreadsheet has everything. From the master packing list I hacked from Putting Me Together, to our individual lists, and all of our gear. You can also see exactly what was in each of our suitcases for both the outgoing and homecoming trips. In addition, I also included a sheet that details what we packed for our side trips. And a sheet detailing purchases we made. Anything in italics in this file did not come back to the States with us.
While packing lists are great, for an adventure like this, it’s also good to know what worked and what I would leave at home next time. So if you are in to that, stay tuned for part 2.
And since my fingers are now about to fall off, I think I’ll call this post finished. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments, or email me!
Until next time, be well friends!
