my biggest packing regret

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: my biggest packing regret 🧳 

the #1 thing i had in mind while packing for my month-long trip to tanzania was to pack light. as a result of this, i didn’t even bother contemplating whether or not i should bring items for my personal amusement outside of the candy crush and subway surfers apps i had downloaded on my phone.

i knew we were going to be offline for a lot of the trip. 👩‍💻 i also knew we were going to have a few rest days here and there where we wouldn’t be doing any large activities. yet, i still didn’t bring any form of physical entertainment.

i was entirely reliant on my phone and headphones to cure my boredom in an 18 hour bus ride to dar es salaam, hours spent idle at the kilimanjaro camps in between hikes, and long drives during our serengeti safari.

i just listened to music and stared outside my window (or went to sleep) letting my thoughts run free. it was nice for the first few hours until it just got boring. i didn’t bring any books or a physical journal like some of my friends (i defer a digital one on notion). even a sudoku booklet would have sufficed. these would have been easy fixes to pack beforehand and i regret not doing so. 🎒 

one of the first stops we made upon reaching dar es salaam yesterday was a bookstore, and i just sat there reading different books for a few hours (the owners quickly grew mad at us for “sitting and reading” despite there literally being couches). i realized then how much i miss grounding myself to words written on real paper wrapped up into a novel.

it’s a lesson for my next trip (stay tuned)! a book and journal will be packed. (:

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