Carryon packing for weeks/months

We are at it again. The objective: Within carry-on luggage guidelines, pack what is needed for 6 weeks or more, including warm beaches and snowy mountains, rain and shine, city and countryside.

Why carry-on? Why schlep? We don't trust the airlines to get our luggage to us, and we don't want to pay the disincentive fee for checking luggage that United imposes. As for the misery of handling our own luggage, well travel is already a circuit through Dante's Inferno, so why not?

We start with experience, lots of it. This is our umpteenth extended trip to France. We are both million mile travelers. We know what we are going to do, and what to expect from the weather. We have done this before, we are professionals, don't try this on your own. Other advantages: that we have pared our needs down through backpacking to ounces; we don't mind wearing clothes more than one day.

Circumstances: The weather will be variable, from the 80's to the 20's, with ample rain, we will carry our reading material, so lots of paperbacks we then give away along the way, there will be the normal PDA, iPod, phone, batteries, camera and chargers to deal with. There will be no social events or formal requirements. Plan on long walks to and from trains, hotels, and up stairs, as well as a tiny car. Plan on laundering as part of the trip.

So the process begins. We plan the list, jogging our memories about what we took, what we used last time. The list begins. Planning is always a part of the project we savor!

The result is this pile o' stuff, and how it fits in. The electronics, books and a couple of essentials or expensive things go into the backpack. This slideshow shows the layers as they go in, hopefully even in the order I need them. Toiletries are in an outside pocket, in the official 1 liter resealable ziplock bag we used last year.