Somewhere along the way, packing for a weekend away turned into a military operation. That's the honest confession at the heart of a funny new column from NZ Herald lifestyle writer Kim Knight, who dismantles the internet's favourite packing fantasy: the capsule travel wardrobe.
You know the formula. Five neutral pieces, a silk scarf, a 'simple camisole dress'. Knight's verdict is blunt and refreshingly relatable: if your shoulders were cold on that sunset cruise, it's because your capsule started with camis and went downhill from there. Sleeves, she suggests, were invented for a reason.
Her argument isn't really about clothes — it's about accumulation. Decades of living mean decades of leg shapes, waist heights and hemlines, plus skinny jeans in bulk and a garage bin holding orange tartan pants 'for when you're zany'. By the time you own a house, the spare room exists purely for coats. The result: a long weekend now demands a fortnight of planning, laundry and ironing of everything, and a suitcase that has grown monstrous.
Then there's the medical and practical cargo that comes with age. Hotel shampoo makes her hair fall out, the air conditioning wrecks her eyelids, and the luggage is padded with prescription medication, toiletries, a sewing kit, cashews, a torch, bed socks and a cushioned LED magnifying makeup mirror — zero shame about any of it. The kicker is the dinner scene: she forgets lipstick entirely, while her friend produces four shades plus a neutral gloss from a second handbag. Everyone's carrying too much; nobody's carrying the right things.
There's a genuinely useful travel takeaway buried in the comedy. Knight's Christmas trip to New Zealand's South Island is booked on a fully flexible fare — supposedly for spontaneity, actually for the extra baggage allowance. Which raises a fair question for any traveller: pay for flexibility and a second bag, or actually edit the wardrobe down?
Why it matters: this piece speaks directly to travellers over 50 who've watched packing checklists written by 25-year-olds fail them in real life. If hotel toiletries no longer agree with you, if you need your own mirror and your own medication within reach, the honest answer is a bigger bag booked with an airline that allows it. Sometimes the smartest packing strategy is admitting the capsule doesn't exist and paying for the extra kilos. The rest of us can take the middle path: pack the torch and the scarf, skip the tartan pants.