Ciao campers! As anyone who follows me on IG or Twitter knows, I spent this Thanksgiving in Tuscany with my family. The trip was a complete dream and I can’t wait to share more about it in the coming weeks, but for now I’ve gotta share two quick checks on the 101 in 1001!
First up: #14, send postcards from a vacation.
I had the best intentions of actually doing this properly on our trip, but I sort of failed epically. I purchased a slew of postcards in Florence on Wednesday, the fourth day of our trip, but the store I bought them at didn’t sell stamps. I assumed I would stop at a “sali e tabacchi” (“salt and tobacco,” so named because back in the day the only two staple goods that weren’t taxed in Italy were salt and tobacco) to pick up stamps, but completely forgot to do so until the last day of our trip, in Cortona. The woman at the sali e tabacchi sold me a specific kind of stamp that can only go in a yellow post box (versus the standard-in-Italy red ones), but I couldn’t find a yellow post box and - topping it off - hadn’t written the cards yet.
So the end of our trip found me sitting in Fiumicino Airport in Rome, running on three hours of sleep in the last 24-hour period, writing postcards on a four-hour layover to the group of friends whose addresses I had handy in my phone. THEN I couldn’t find a post drop box in the airport - which for some reason blew my mind, as all American airports have spots to send mail - so I ended up just taking them home with me…
…where I slapped on some American stamps (apparently upside down, oops?) and mailed them from the “Outgoing Mail” slot in my building’s lobby. And that, my friends, is the story of how I basically checked this one off the list but actually pretty much failed, and failed hilariously, in classic Lizzie fashion. Allora!
Fortunately, the other item I checked off was a much bigger success - #80, "upgrade my luggage!”
I’ve had hand-me-down suitcases from my parents legitimately since college - two-wheel fixed-wheelie soft-sided cases that were mismatched and, in the case of my smaller bag, missing a zipper pull. This fall, with international and domestic travel coming up, I decided it was time to make the leap to grown-up girl suitcases. I’ve lusted after Away bags for awhile now, and pulled the trigger upon the release of their beautiful “sky” color:
This fall, my parents gifted each of the kids a “Bigger Carry-on,” which I love for its hard sides, internal compression and organization system, included laundry bag, and four-wheel 360-degree spin. My favorite feature, though? The built-in USB charger - I’m notorious for never having my phone fully charged, oops, and this was a godsend for me on a recent Colorado trip when I landed and needed to get an Uber with 3% battery left. Plus, that color - ugh, it makes me so happy, and nobody ever tries to take my bag!
Before Italy, I purchased the “Medium” size - it was perfectly roomy for ten days of clothes and had ample space for souvenirs (including wine - the hard sides made me so much less paranoid about bottles breaking in rough transit!). I also bought Away’s packing cube system, which has completely revolutionized how I pack - truly unbelievable to see how much can fit in the cubes and how well-organized my suitcase was (and stayed throughout the trip).
Perhaps most exciting of all is knowing I’m going to get to check another travel item off the list - while in Cortona, my family decided (over several bottles of Barolo!) that our next trip is going to be to London…which means I get to check off #9, Plan a trip to the UK for my family, soon!!