The Travel Life

I’m home from Spain, and my body still hasn’t figured out which time zone it lives in!
The trip over was surprisingly easy. Coming home has been something else entirely.
I’m wide awake at 2 a.m. and fading by dinnertime.
I partly blame our bonus daughter. She challenged us to live on a true Spanish schedule while we were there. Late lunches, dinner at 10, and strolling the streets well past our bedtime.
We loved every minute, but my internal clock is still somewhere over the Atlantic.

One of my favorite parts of traveling is studying the architecture.
I love seeing what a home looks like in a different place and how everyday life is shaped around it. Spain did not disappoint!
Nearly 7 million people call the Madrid area home, yet 99% live in apartments, most without a yard.
I can’t imagine life without a garden, or at least a few pots of flowers by the door.
But oh, those buildings they call home!
The ironwork balconies and the carved doors were downright breathtaking.

Could you trade your yard for a balcony in a beautiful old building?
Hit reply and tell me. I’m genuinely curious where you’d land!

And yes, we did it all in carryons! I was tired of adding about $90 in bag fees to every trip.
So The Hubs and I went carryon only for 10 days overseas.
I’ll never go back to checking luggage!
Two things made it work:

• A capsule wardrobe. I packed 3 black bottoms (knit pants, a skort, and a T-shirt dress) and 8 mostly black-and-white tops that all mix and match.
• Compression packing cubes. Be sure the label says compression. An extra zipper squeezes each cube down about 40–60% flatter. They’re genius! Yes there are more expensive ones, but we found these to work great.

I’m working on a full post covering how we picked our luggage (one was a winner, one… not so much), how I built my travel capsule, and exactly how I packed. Also a simple trick that made those compression bags really perform for us. Stay tuned!