A Broad Side - What to sneak out/or not

You've just spent time abroad and now it is time to leave. You loaded your suitcase and found that you filled it without fitting everything you have into it. How are you supposed to return home without everything? Well I'm here to tell you how… okay I lied you can't bring everything back. But you can bring the things that matter. What matters? What should you leave?

Also this isn't a list of things to bring/not bring back. Just giving you an idea of how to decide which things you should/should not bring back.

Before you freak-out you need to decide what things are important. I really struggled with this myself. I ended up deciding that I had clothes back home that I could wear and actually left most the ones if had with me in Japan. Not everything I brought back with me was probably the best, but there were many things I had already invested in and so in order to bring the things I felt were important at that point I had to make sacrifices.

For instance, while in Japan I joined the tea ceremony club (sadou 茶道) I began collecting many of the items to perform the ceremony; bowls, water pots, ladles, stands, fans, etc. I had actually collected a lot of items for it. These were culturally important, I even had special ones with history and were in many ways irreplaceable. Because of the time and investment I put into them as well as their cultural importance they were something I decided to bring back with me. Now conversely there were so many things as similar to this that I had to sacrifice an entire suitcase for this stuff. That is a large commitment because typically all you can have are two suitcases unless you pay more. So if you make a decision like that make sure you really feel it is worth it.

Something I did, that I would tell you not to do is bring a bunch of books back home with you. It was too tempting and I couldn’t help myself, but most of the books I could buy back here. Now if you find things that have a major price difference and you feel it would be better to buy it wherever you go then by all means get it there, but if not try not to go crazy. On the flip side I did but some things in Japan that were way cheaper there. Several games including newer Pokémon games for less than five dollars. Big, big price difference. So well worth their weight.

So a difficult thing to tackle is souvenirs because some people have more of a tradition surrounding it. But I can at least make this short. If it is normal for you to get them, then try to keep them small and light. I know that is hard, but if you don’t then you will run out of space and weight quickly. If you do not normally get them though, just don’t bother because you will most likely find yourself fighting for that space and weight later.

School work should probably stay there. If you have school books that you will actually reference later then bring it, but your work and other things are not really important. You should bring syllabi back because most schools need them, and you never know if you will have to reference them later. Although if you can get your syllabi digitally that would be better. Most of your other school papers though will be unneeded, so choose carefully what you bring with you.

I don’t have much more advise on what to bring or not bring back, but I do suggest you think carefully about what to bring back with you. If you have any questions or want to know what I think you should or should not bring leave me a message. And if you liked this please subscribe.