The Best Cellular Sim Cards for use in Paris and 16 Essential items for Exploring Europe (in March)
Comfort is vital to enjoying vacation. Our everyday carry items made our fantastic European trip an unforgettable experience by increasing daily comfort. Every day we were out of our hotel and on our feet exploring castles and cathedrals, museums, and landmarks. Europe in March has temps and weather that vary throughout the day, so versatility is essential to maintain comfort while spending your days outside.
Alaina and I sat down to discuss and share the items we used that helped make our trip so successful and fun. I will discuss the clothes Brody and I wore and how the family organized our gear. Alaina will inform you about the family's clothing choices and travel accessories.
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Contents:
Essential Garments for Paris and Europe in the Spring
When spending your days walking and hopping from metro to metro to explore a large city, you want to keep your baggage to a minimum. We selected items based on ease of carry and versatility. We lived in Florida and were concerned about dealing with colder weather. March temperatures in Florida have highs and lows in the 80s F. In Paris and London, temperatures started around 40 F and rose to about 60 F (10-15C), with showers mixing in occasionally. We found that layering clothing was the best way to feel comfortable throughout the daily temperature change.
The boys used poly cotton blended Ts or polos as a base layer and added a soft light sweater paired with a Navy-style pea coat for Brody and a leather jacket for myself on colder days. We layered a thick, quilted zip-up cardigan on warmer days over our shirts. We used tech fabric-based, Blue Jeans, and joggers for pants. Athletic shoes are less fashionable in Paris than in the US. We were able to compromise by finding a dress shoe that incorporated a running shoe platform. We always were invited into evening restaurants with upscale atmosphere with these shoes. Being dressed for daytime sightseeing and at the same time nighttime dining was vital to us because our daily itineraries often had us leaving before breakfast and not returning till late in the evening.
If you are interested in purchasing the comfortable items the guys chose, here is a list of links:
The girls used the same packing strategy as the boys. I packed to be able to mix several pants and sweaters to make different outfits. We had the added benefit of adding dresses to mix things up. Wide-leg pants with a sweater and tall boots make a lovely outfit. Remember to pack your jewelry to make the outfit look nice. A stunning necklace can take a simple T-shirt and elevate it to casual chic. This Jewelry case was a great way to keep all my jewelry untangled and in one place while we traveled. Having our daughter look nice as well was very easy with this jacket. She was wearing an XS and looked like she belonged right in Paris. One of my favorite finds was L'oréal Lumiglotion. I am a minimalist regarding makeup. I used this as my moisturizer and base and felt it helped me have my best photos.
If you are interested in purchasing the comfortable items the guys chose, here is a list of links:
Best Accessories for Exploring Restaurants, Museums, and Landmarks
Most days, we spent 12 to 13 hours catching trains, walking through neighborhoods, and exploring museums. We did not have the luxury of running back to the room to exchange an item or pick something we now needed. We needed to carry with us all the things we needed to stay as comfortable as possible for the day. We used a sash purse, a cross-body bag, and a collapsible backpack. The backpack was the workhorse of our trip, and we found it while souvenir hunting at Disneyland Paris. You can find a similar style here on Amazon.
The weather was often unpredictable and scattered showers were often likely. We used four nice travel umbrellas to keep ourselves dry. Other items we used daily were a credit card holder to organize train tickets, earbuds for audio tours, and eyeglass cloths for cleaning our lenses.
It is nice to pack your earbuds for audio tours because the provided headphones make it hard to keep one ear uncovered for chatting with your group. Buying metro and train tickets by the pack is the cheapest city travel option. The challenge is to keep all the keys organized and easy to find when needed. The credit card holder provided the perfect container to organize the tickets.
What trip is not complete without photos? When trying to get all four of us into a shot taken usie style, it is easy to accidentally drop a very expensive phone. Also on this specific trip we were worried about pick pockets taking phones while we are squished together in trains and waiting ques. For this trip I incorporated a stylish phone leash on my smart phone. The leash offered both fall protection as well as security, and most importantly peace of mind.
We had smudges here and there on our white shoes, or we had a bit of mustard or chocolate on a shirt. The Tide to Go pens and the laundry detergent sheets made spot cleaning easy on the go or in the hotel bathroom. We even took some down time and used the laundry detergent sheets at a local laundromat around the corner from our hotel.
Best Organization Products for Travel
We spent fourteen days in Europe packing only carry-on luggage. Instead, we relied on packing cubes, rolling luggage, and shoulder bags that slid over the roller handles. We used several types of shoulder bags based on each bag's functionality .
I carried a shoulder bag with designated pockets for laptops, tablets, documents, and accessories on one side and a clothing compartment on the other. The kids had shoulder bags that could be unzipped into deeper bags for bringing souvenirs home, and Alaina chose a shoulder bag with compartments for shoes and organization for all of her accessories.
So many packing cubes are on the market, and many are very thin with weak zippers. We spent some time finding very durable sets of bags with many valuable sizes or pouches. We needed bags that could organize small accessories and supplies, compress clothing piles, and fit within standard carry-on roller bags.
To further organize our packing cubes small containers become very important. To transport perfume, after shave or essential oils we used travel micro spray bottles. These bottles were completely leak proof and easy to fill. The bottles are within the TSA required liquid limits and made of aluminum.
If you are looking for new solutions for organizing and packing, check out these products we chose to use:
Best Cellular Sim Cards and Tech for Traveling to France and Europe
We use Verizon as our domestic carrier. When we travel to the Caribbean, we accept the travel charges on our plan because we mainly stay at the resort plugged into wifi. In Europe, we needed to be able to call Uber, navigate from place to place, and check train schedules. In addition, we often needed to communicate with tour companies or call for restaurant reservations. Before our trip, we researched and purchased the Orange brand sim cards from Amazon. We swapped out our cards in the airport and stored our Verizon cards in a small pouch with the sim card tool.
Tip: Take painter's tape and fold it over on itself, sandwiching your regular sim card in the middle. Do the same with the small sim card tool. We then placed the three folded pieces of tape into a small pouch for safekeeping.
We used Bluetooth bone conducting headphones for audio books, music and movies via our electronic devices. This allowed us to talk on the plane to each other or be able to listen for over head messages on the metro.
Europe has a different style of electrical installation than we do in the states, and adapters are needed to interface your US-style devices with European electrical outlets. We found a small square power strip that had the proper interface adapters. We recommend a power strip over a simple adapter because you will discover fewer electrical outlet options in European hotel rooms. For example, we stayed at Hyatt Regencies. Hyatt was very generous with the number of outlets. Still, not all hotel rooms have as many electrical options as Hyatt, especially if the hotel is in an older building.
Alaina and I captured our photos and videos on Samsung S23 cell phones. Samsung has created a fantastic digital camera. We do not see the need to lug an extra camera and lenses or video equipment. Of course, there are advantages to more technical devices, but for our blog, the Samsung S23 is performing what we need. Alaina used a wrist strap for her phone, and it is one of her top recommendations. As our designated use taker, she never had to worry about dropping her phone with that. Additionally, pick-pockets and theft are a big concern in Paris, which helped ensure it never disappeared, even if it was in her pocket.
Let us know if you decide to try one of the products we discussed and how it worked for you. We love talking with readers about their thoughts on our suggestions. If you manufacture or sell a product we may want to try let us know and we will be happy to give an honest review.
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