Friday, July 29, 2016

Book Chat - Deciding which books to pack for vacation

The worst part of packing for vacation is choosing which books to take. What if I don't like it? What if I'm in the mood for something else? What about all the other books I'm leaving behind? Should I pack another book if I finish all these? Overall its a bit stressful and something, I think, everyone struggles with if they are a book lover.

Two weeks ago when I went on a week long trip to my favorite place ever, the beach, I took four books and read three. I was really really happy with that. This weekend I'm going beach camping, which is slightly more stressful, and cannot narrow it down to less than three books. That's probably too many, but my brain will not let me take just two. Update: I left the house with half a dozen books in my car. This is absolutely not feasible.


Although I'm not the only one thinking about this. (Since it is summer that's not very exciting. Sarah had a lot of good responses to her tweet about this yesterday! I highly recommend checking that out as well. 


But how to decide which books are the ones that will fit this vacation? I have just a couple of tips. 

1) Your Eyes are Bigger than Your Stomach - This is true for large meals and for vacations. When I'm packing I imagine I will spend all my time reading. However, this isn't often the case. There are always distractions and unplanned adventures during a vacation. Try to narrow it down to what you think you could feasibly read with what time you have. 

2) Bring an E-Reader - I always bring my Kindle with me when I travel. If I run out of physical books, I'll have many more books to choose from on there! 

3) Download an audiobook - If you are driving to your vacation destination, you can always listen while you drive or ditch one of your physical books for an audio one instead to save space.

4) Pick a variety of subjects - This is super important for me. If I pick three fantasy books for vacation, I'm more likely to put myself in a rut rather than start a reading streak. Instead I try to pick several different genres to spice things up. 

5) Keep Trying - I usually pick a set of books about a week in advance then subsititue or add to that pile as I actually pack for the trip. This year I finished a book just before we left for the beach so I threw in the sequel instead of one of the other books I was planning on taking. Keep your options open as long as you can! 

That's it! I hope this helped some of you pick out what you'll be taking on vacation. I'm packed, like I said with too many books this time, but things are a little hectic right now so I'm not going to be too hard on myself about it today. Hopefully I just read really fast and finish them all! 

Happy Reading!

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