I’m an anxious traveler. Long gone are the days that I could fling a toothbrush and a change of clothes into a carry-on and hit the road. But I miss my old non-chalant self. Last month I took my daughter and her best friend to France for what ended up to be the trip of a lifetime. And I was determined (as my daughter constantly admonishes me) to “chill.” This trip, I didn’t spend days searching the internet for the “it” restaurant or hip hotel. I made reservations at the same sweet spot in Paris we stayed the last time, found a lovely hotel in the Loire, and off we went. No restaurant reservations, no elaborate itinerary. But that laissez faire attitude didn’t extend to packing. Along with my pillow, I could have stayed for a month with the amount of clothing (scarves, shoes, raincoat!) I dragged along. Everything went remarkably smoothly, down to driving the rented standard Renault (it’s been a while) through the teeny towns, with even teenier streets, of the Loire. And I think it had a lot to do with my attitude. I was determined to go with the flow. We had a ball roaming the castles of the Loire, hanging with my wonderful family in Lille, sight-seeing and shopping in Paris. Packing to go home, I just couldn’t squeeze my stuff plus a few new purchases, into my suitcase. With nary a second thought I left my favorite pillow behind and gained back a bit of my old wanderlust. See updates to my 2013 Paris article below.

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tags: Tiny Kitchen, Farm Dinners & Country Living, 6/24/15, travel, paris