I enjoy traveling but I know that I can be an over-packer. I tend to jump on Google the night before a trip, search for packing lists, print three or four and then randomly fill my suitcases and check things off the lists. Not exactly efficient. So when I saw this book available, complete with lists for various types of travel, I was eager to take a look.
I should mention that I am male.
That doesn’t seem like it should be important, but it is. Nowhere does this say “For the Savvy Woman Traveler” or “For Women” or any sort of gender-identifying terms. I read the introduction and thought only, “This woman seems to do a lot of traveling, she probably has some great insight.” And up through the first 30 pages (which is almost a quarter of the book) everything seemed really straight-forward and some good tips on selecting the type of suitcase for the type of traveling (I’d never given this much thought). And then she starts to get a little more specific, talking about the type of hair-dryer to pack, the sort of jewelry case to use, and the kind of makeup case that is most effective.
Well…okay…not a big deal. The variation for men, with what kind of razor to bring and so forth will be a few pages later. Right? Um…
Bras, skirts, dresses, jumpsuits. Scarves and leggings. Makeup, bobby pins, hair-bands. Cocktail dresses and skinny jeans.
Where is the list for the male traveler? What kind of casual shoes should I be packing? How many ties and what colors?
It is okay that this list, this book, is for women. I just wish it had told me that. Somewhere. Anywhere.
There are things I can adapt for my traveling (rolling and folding, for instance) but there are just as many things that don’t apply to me at all while tips that might help the man aren’t to be found.
What I had hoped to be a useful book proved to be not so.
Looking for a good book? How to Pack by Hitha Palepu is a useful ‘how-to’ book for women, but leaves the male traveler out in the cold.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, through Blogging For Books, in exchange for an honest review.
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How to Pack
author: Hitha Palepu
publisher: Clarkson Potter Publishers
ISBN: 1101905646
hardcover, 128 pages
