Boys & Travelling Light

This particular post is inspired by love! Well, actually, it's inpsired by the sight of the boy that I love effortlessly hoisting enormous luggages.

You see, in my very shallow way of seeing the world, there are two kinds of boys: the big, strong ones and the not so big, strong ones. And the beauty of nature is that most not so big, strong boys have a complex that compels them to prove that they are, indeed, big and strong. This is why girls should always leave the heavy lifting to the boys.

We picked up the mother of the boy I love yesterday at the airport from her month-long Hong Kong vacay with her daughter, and the two of them had four enormous luggages between them. Like, huge - which really is the only way to go when you spend a month in a shopping heaven. Each of those suckers took a gigantic effort from two of us girls to carry, just from the cart into the car.

However, with a simple "Here, let me," the boy that I love easily took one luggage in each hand and ambled along with utmost grace (well, the kind of grace a basketball player has, anyway). This reminded me of a scene four summers ago, when I was loading my suitcase into a bus to be taken to the train station after my five-week summer exchange program. My friend Justin, who is one of the sweetest guys I know but who probably weighed half as much as my suitcase, charged over to me and insisted on helping me. I wasn't really having any trouble, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. And that was when it hit me.

Girls should always leave the heavy lifting to the boys because, if the boy in question is big and strong (like my honey), he'd of course be able to do a fantastic job for you with little effort. He'd be pleased with himself and you'd be pleased with him because you didn't have to lift a finger. Win-win. However, even if a boy is not so big and strong, you don't have to worry - his complex will kick in (especially if he's the gentlemanly type - lucky you!) and he will bust his butt and exhaust every effort to do a fantastic job for you. And again, he'd be pleased with himself and you'd be pleased with him because you didn't have to lift a finger. See how awesome this is?

Of course, as with any community, there are the drones who have no complex and will hang back and let other people do it, even if they're girls. Or even worse, there are the ones that are perfectly capable physically but they're just lazy. Those ones are duds and not worth any consideration, in my opinion.

But unless you take one with you everywhere you go (by that I mean a boy), male assistance is not always guarateed to be available. The solution? Packing light, of course. Contrary to what most people would think, I'm an extremely light packer; it's been drummed into my head since childhood that this is the smart way to travel.

One of my favourite resources for tips on how to travel light is diva in a carry on - not only do they write about how to travel light, but they also write great product reviews and I love the tools they suggest. I also love One Bag, which is the ultimate how-to: what to pack, what to put it in and how to pack it. Am going to refer to them when I pack for my year in Europe later on this summer!