When I wrote my old list of travel essentials, books came before packing equipment. That was deliberate.
Travel comes with a lot of waiting, and I like to fill some of it by reading. A book gives that time somewhere to go.
In that earlier list, I wrote about choosing Kindle editions because they fitted on my phone. I also admitted that I nearly always had a book in my purse. Apparently, liking a practical solution did not stop me wanting the other version, too.
These days, my Kindle frequently travels with my iPad and Meta glasses. That little collection says quite a lot about me: I like reading, I like technology, and I like bringing both along.
The books I keep coming back to
I have a particular fascination with etiquette and charisma. I like reference books, and I like trying to understand the small things that make human interactions work.
That interest probably explains why a reading list found its way onto a website that also talked about packing and travel. The books were not separate from my curiosity about people. They were part of it.
At the time, I set myself a minimum of thirty minutes of reading each day. It mattered enough to get space in the routine rather than being left for whenever everything else was finished.
An essential does not have to be equipment
It is easy to think of travel essentials as chargers, cases, and things that keep other things organised. My old list had plenty of those.
But the books belonged there, too. They were something I genuinely used, and something I wanted to make time for.
I don’t need to turn that into a rule about how anyone else should spend a journey. It is simply one of the ways I like to travel: with something to read, and enough curiosity to keep going.
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