If I had known my solo Eurotrip would look nothing like Dua Lipa’s Instagram, I wouldn’t have absconded to foreign lands in search of the perfect Aperol spritz and a new personality in the first place. But until the hot girl time machine is invented, all I can do is update my packing list so I only bring the real necessities next time.
Sturdy but chic black backpack for the airport and inside it, trusty black purse for walking around during the day. Black is easiest to clean.
Updated: A plastic bag and inside it, a roll of more plastic bags. Twenty minutes into a turbulent take-off, your seat mate will projectile vomit all over you and your Emily In Paris airport outfit. The smell of vomit caking your hair will make you gag and before you can reach for the paper bag in the seat pocket, you’ll vomit on your backpack lying open at your feet and therefore your purse as well. Your meticulously packed system of inner compartments like space-saving Matryoshka dolls will not be remotely easy to clean. The international hottie in 32B you thought was your meet-cute during boarding will avert their eyes, and nose, as you hobble to the back to ask for napkins.
1 pair of underwear per day plus sexy underwear for changing into before going out. You’ll want to be fresh after sweating all day. And who knows, you might go home with someone!
Updated: Costco pack of 50 pairs plus period underwear to use as diarrhea diapers. Sweat? That’s cute. You’ll be famished when you get in to Berlin and eat at the closest kebab place to your AirBnb. You’ll wake up with raging food poisoning. You will not go home with anyone. Doing so would require being more than a few feet, sorry, a meter, from a toilet. Instead, you will get rejected in more than one language before literally sprinting home to shit some more. You’ll sleep with a towel under you in an attempt to avoid getting charged a cleaning fee and eventually make an appointment at an urgent care, using Google Translate to look up the words nonstop, pooping, and situation.
Emergency cash (for buying edibles).
Updated: Emergency Xanax (for panic attacks from both the logistics of buying weed where it’s illegal and the bad weed itself).
Cleavage-forward dress option for the classic Euro clubbing experience.
Updated: Electric toothbrush charger. Why did you forget this? What is wrong with you? What is the point of having an electric toothbrush if you have to use it like a regular toothbrush? Clubbing? Are you serious? Your train will get into Prague at dawn and you’ll find yourself in a drugstore with intimidating Czech teenagers who were actually out all night. A week later, outside a church in Vienna, you will discover yourself in a viral TikTok from that drugstore that the teens posted. In it, you can be seen sitting down and taking off your shoes to put BandAids on the blisters taking over your ankles like volcanic craters. The caption will be in Czech except for “#streetwoman.”
A novel, a short stories collection, and a memoir. I’m gonna get so much reading done on vacation.
Updated: A printed map of directions to a prepaid SIM store in Paris. When your suitcase gets stolen off a Ryan Air baggage carousel, when they decided it was too big for the overhead bin even though you measured it at least ten times, you will be forced to buy some new clothes. Your spirits won’t be completely defeated because you’re in the fashion capital of the world — until your low limit credit card triggers a fraud charge and you can’t get through to your bank before your debit card gets eaten by an ATM. When you finally get your credit card back online, it will get declined. By the time you reach Italy, your bank will lift the fraud charge and your phone will run out of data.
Collapsible umbrella, just in case. Better safe than sorry!
Updated: Collapsible crutches. I’d rather not divulge the specifics of the incident in the stairwell of Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House that necessitated this. Frankly, it would further disrespect her memory. But I can say that it led to a five hour-long call with United Airlines because I would be skipping Copenhagen, straight for hell.
Revlon blow dry brush and plug adapter so that even if all goes wrong, I can look and feel my best.
Updated: Knowing the difference between a plug adapter and a voltage converter. And a portable fire hydrant. And the good sense to not attempt a hot girl summer, let alone abroad.
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Caitie Karasik is a writer, regrettably, from Los Angeles, regrettably.
