It’s hard to believe that it’s already August 24th, and that in 12 hours I’ll be on the way to Chicago to catch my flight to Germany! For the past year-and-a-half I’ve planned on spending this year in Tübingen. “A year’s not that long, it’ll go by quickly” and “The classes will be in German, but I’ll catch on,” I would explain nonchalantly when people asked me about my trip. Now that I’m leaving so soon, it’s really starting to hit me how long it will be before I’m back visiting my favorite places, and how much of a challenge university-level courses in German might be.

Underneath the pre-departure nervousness, however, I’m actually very excited. I have both my bags packed (and under the weight limit!), I’ve checked into my flight online, selected my seats, and I’ve enjoyed many goodbye lunches, dinners, coffee dates, and visits with friends and family. I’ve done all I could to gear up for my year abroad, and I’m looking forward to the experiences to come.

Here are some of my packing tips for anyone interested in traveling abroad:

 

1) Start preparing early. I started to slowly add things to my packing list about two months ago. This gave me plenty of time to think everything through, and avoid the last-minute stress of trying to figure out whether I had everything I needed.

2) Leave space for items you will bring home! Many people say, “If you forget anything, you can buy it over there!” I find it helpful to bring as many disposable and toiletry items with you instead of buying them there. That way, you can save money with the bad dollar-to-euro exchange rate, and ensure that you’ll have some space on the way back.

3) Space -saver bags work miracles! For bulky clothing items, such as winter coats, I would highly recommend purchasing some of these. I fit two winter coats into one bag and after squeezing all the air out, my coats took up only a fraction of the space they would have normally needed. Beware: even though objects take up less space, they still weigh the same!

4) Weigh your bags at home, and leave a couple pounds of leeway for scale inaccuracies! A few years ago, I spent a semester in Frankfurt and made the mistake of overpacking. Both of my bags were overweight, which led to a pretty stressful shuffling of items into my carry-on luggage. My scale at home said both suitcases were exactly 50 pounds, but the airport scale said otherwise. This time, I bought a luggage scale, and didn’t fill my suitcases past 47 pounds.

 

That’s all for this post! I’ll post an update from Germany in a couple days once I’m all settled in.

Bis Dann!

(Until then!)