What to Take on a Trip Anywhere

It’s nice to feel at home even when you aren’t-but unless your luggage is much, much larger than the suitcase I travel with, you can’t take much of your home with you when you travel.

There are some things that you can do to feel at home where you are, wherever that may be:

• Keep the same smells. The scents we smell are processed in such a primordial part of our brain that they have a direct route to our emotional core.  No sensory experience effects our emotional state as quickly as the odours we smell.  After our discussions of smellscaping your home (for example here), you’ve likely started to add scents to parts of your home.  Bring the one you use in your bedroom with you, to a hotel room, a dormitory room, wherever you might be going.  You’ll feel at home fast.  The same goes for using the same lotions and potions on your skin, to wash, etc., when you’re at home and away, that way YOU’LL always smell the same.
• Manage the sounds. If you start to listen to a specific soundtrack as you relax or fall asleep, and store that track on your phone, you’ll always have it with you and sound continuity helps us feel very comfortable very fast.  A nature soundscape, the sounds of burbling brooks, rustling leaves and grasses, peacefully singing song birds, is a great de-stressor, whether you find yourself at home or away.
• See what’s adjustable. There may be more ways than you think to tune the space you’re in to the conditions that you like.  In many hotel rooms thermostats can be adjusted or windows opened, for example.  Lights can be repositioned or their intensity changed.  Even if you don’t have a nature view, you may be able to turn the television to an all-nature-video-all-the-time channel.  Customizing your space to the conditions you prefer, will make you feel both more comfortable and more at home.
• If you’ll be somewhere for more than just a few days, make sure that you customize the space to you. It helps if you start out in a place whose design aligns with your values.  For example, if you live green at home, you’ll do better living green away.  Is your home style shabby chic?  Then try to stay in shabby chic on the road.  Also, and this is where the personalization comes in, make sure that your suitcase includes a few things that remind you about what you value about yourself and want others to know about you.  See yourself as a craftsperson?  Bring the cool and complicated sweater you knit for yourself and leave it out where you can see it.  Feel you’re an athlete?  Make sure you’ve packed your sneakers and take them out of your suitcase—even if you don’t actually have time to go for a run.  Setting up your phone to play a loop of photos of you and the people you care about doing the sorts of things that you feel define you and leaning your phone against the ubiquitous (and always incorrect) in room alarm clock also helps you keep track of what’s really important in your life.