By Jasna in travel —

Packing List: 11 days in Greece (Spring)

How I packed for a trip centered on casual/fine dining, city exploring, and archaeological+religious site and forest hiking.

This spring, I went to Greece for 11 days with my partner. We had direct flights with free checked luggage and stayed in 5 different hotels, commuting to 3 of them by car and 2 of them by public transportation. We did not do island hopping; just stayed on the mainland. Our activities centered around city and archaeological and religious site walking, forest hiking, and casual and fine dining. The archaeological and religious sites we would visit would require modest clothing.

Thankfully I just had my menstrual period the week before! 🎉 So I could forego bringing any menstrual products.

Why this post: I find a strange enjoyment in bags and optimizing travel packing. I've tried minimalist packing in the past but struggled in finding a balance in comfort and fun.

This trip, given I wasn't going to be solo, I wasn't going to be working at all, we would be going out to nice restaurants often, and we'd have a rental car much of the time, I decided to splurge a bit on how many bags and clothes I'd bring – and still with plenty of room for souvenirs.

Packing list

  • Bags
    • Checked: 70L Helly Hanson duffel bag + backpack straps
    • Carry-on: 35L Doraemon roller bag
      • I also have a trusty 44L Topo Designs roller bag, but wanted to test out my new Doraemon impulse buy from my last Japan trip. The wheels are soooo smooth! And the bag is sooo cute.
    • Personal item: 22L master-piece backpack
    • In my carry-on: 5L As2ov drawstring purse
  • Clothes
    • 6 pairs merino wool underwear
    • 4 pairs merino wool socks
    • pajama wear
      • 1 cotton t-shirt
      • 1 pair shorts
    • 2 one-piece dresses
    • 1 skirt
    • 2 pairs pants (1 Aviator, 1 climbing/athleisure)
    • 4 shirts (2 dress shirts, 2 solid color, sweat-wicking shirts)
    • 1 light shawl
    • 1 jean jacket
    • Garmin watch
  • Shoes
    • 1 pair indoor orthotic sandals
    • 1 pair orthotic Clarks walking shoes
    • 1 pair light Columbia hiking boots
    • 1 pair dressy Keen sandals
  • Tech
    • 1 power outlet converter
    • 1 small fast charging power outlet
      • powerful enough to charge my MacBook Air
      • useable in flight
    • 1 long USB-C power cord
    • 1 short USB-C power cord with USB-A converter
    • 2 pairs noise-cancelling earbuds
      • I always bring 1 backup after I lost my only pair during a grueling flight
    • 1 portable power charger
    • 1 Garmin watch charging converter
    • 1 bluetooth audio adapter for flights
    • 1 16-inch MacBook Air
    • Galaxy S24 Ultra phone
    • 1 cell phone clip for flights
  • Toiletries
    • eBags toiletry bag (for my partner and me)
    • eye drops, prescription, pain killers, allergy pills, bandaid, alcohol wipe
    • 3 small toothpaste tubes (for both of us)
    • Minimal makeup: foundation and glimmer
    • Perfume, sunscreen
    • Small liquid lotion, lotion bar, shampoo bar, conditioner bar
    • bug repellent
    • charger for electric toothbrush
      • partner carried our electric toothbrush
  • Misc.
    • 2 small books
    • 2 necklaces, 1 pair earrings
    • 1 small bottle hand sanitizer
    • 2.5 laundry sheets
    • 1 Scrubba bag
    • 1 Lifestraw 22-ounce water bottle with filter
    • little Snorlax plush
    • small towel for drying hands in bathroom
    • Passport holder with passport, credit cards, cash
    • 1 small bed pillow
    • 1 inflatable travel pillow

What I wore on flights: 1 jean jacket, 1 sweat-wicking (merino wool) shirt, 1 pair underwear, 1 pair socks, hiking boots, 1 necklace, 1 pair earrings, watch, 1 pair (Aviator) pants.

What I could've left behind

MacBook Air (never used it), shampoo bar, 1 dress shirt, 1 dress, perfume, 1 necklace, 1 pair of underwear, 1 book

Souvenirs

2 nice tops, 1 nice pant, 13 magnets, bookmark, 2 pins, 2 children's books, 1 necklace, 1 bracelet, 1 small jug of olive oil, 1 small jar of honey, 2 ornaments, 2 postcards, 1 large olive wood fruit bowl, 1 small drawstring bag, 1 tea towel, 1 bag, 1 small thick wooden block, 1 silver-plated block, 1 3-paneled wooden block, 1 bronze statue

Also: 1 bottle of wine (though we drank it at a hotel!)

Note: some of the souvenirs are gifts, not for us 🙂

And I still had some room left on my bags! On top of that, my partner just had his 54L carry-on backpack (not full), so technically we still had room for him to have a separate personal item and a checked bag.

Reflection

I'm generally pleased with my results. I overpacked by a little bit and still had a lot of room for souvenirs. I felt comfortable and happy with the variety of clothes I had available. I needed to do laundry twice with my Scrubba: at the 4-day mark and at the 8-day mark. The Lifestraw water bottle worked great for drinking tap water from the hotel bathroom or airport water dispenser.

Commute

Carrying bags from the rental car to our hotel room and back was totally fine. We used the metro train in Athens to get from the airport (for flights and the rental car agency) to our hotels and back, and that was also a generally smooth experience. We easily found escalators, and the times we used the trains, they weren't so uncomfortably full for long (or at all). The airport train line also has ground-level racks for luggage. There weren't really times we had trouble with my roller bag on cobblestone or gravel. We were lucky our hotel rooms were all on the main floor or had elevator access. Except for the last hotel (when we had accumulated several souvenirs at this point), I was able to compress my backpack into my duffel bag during commute.

On the new day trip backpack and water bottle carrying

One thing that was a little annoying was how to carry our water bottle during day trips. The backpack was fine, but there were times I wanted to avoid using it and just have my purse. It is a little heavier in material than a couple of other similarly-sized backpacks I own, but it's also less common (Japanese brand; something I find cool), a bit more fashionable, has a luggage pass-through, and has a nice hidden pocket on the back panel that worked really well for my larger-than-a-wallet-or-smartphone passport holder. So, tradeoffs...

On the new travel pillow

I bought an inflatable Sea to Summit travel pillow that my coworker really liked to try on my 10-hour flights. Honestly it didn't work well for me compared to my Travelbo (my partner used that one).

On the hiking boots

The light Columbia hiking boots may be too light for supporting my feet. I used them in Japan as well and probably felt the same way... In the future, I'll probably retire these boots (or just keep them for garden work) and resign to bringing my heavier Keen hiking boots for trips with hiking.

On the new roller bag

The Doraemon roller bag was overall great. The wheels are so smooth, and the bag being a 4-wheeler (as opposed to 2) made it stable to stand. It's also super cute.

A few things that aren't as good as the Topo designs bag: it's smaller capacity (a tradeoff with being a 4-wheeler), it opens in half so the storage space is divided between the top and bottom (as opposed to having a single large opening), and there's a bit of wasted weight on the dividers themselves.

Upgrade considerations

Merino wool pants, water bottle sling, potentially buy a 2nd Travelbo