I’m Susan Orleans, Author of the Library and This Is How I Travel

Susan Orlean is a bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and, most recently, The Library Book , and a regular contributor to New Yorker magazine. She is also a luggage freak, a firm believer in carry-on luggage, and prefers to travel without a plan. Generally. “It makes you realize how ignorant you are and how wrong you are,” she says. “I think this is the only authentic way to travel.”

What does your travel schedule look like?

I travel a lot – I give a lot of lectures, and this is separate from the book tour. Probably 10 – 12 a year. And then we [Susan, her husband and son] travel to New York and back whenever possible. It would be a very rare month when I am not traveling. I don’t want to complain because it’s obviously a wonderful thing, but there are times when I think, oh god, I really want to be home .

Have you ever gone to the beach just to relax?

We are not beach goers. We do not know how to walk and do nothing. We would rather go somewhere interesting and beautiful than just beautiful.

Package

Do you have a packing list?

I’ve tried lists and they never work for me. The closest thing to the list I’ve come up with is a short list of things I absolutely can’t travel without, like my contact lenses and my prescriptions. But when it comes to planning my clothes and stuff, I’ve never been able to come up with such a list. There is so much work to do here. And every trip is so different. I’m going to Palm Beach this weekend, last week I was in Edmonton and Vancouver. Aside from underwear, I don’t know where there is any overlap. If the list is general enough to apply to any situation, it probably won’t be very useful.

Are you a repacker or repacker?

Well, now I sort of figured it out. I was definitely a reseller. I would imagine a million accidents and I want to be prepared for all of them. I also had a lapse of imagination when I was about to travel to a different climate, and I literally could not imagine what this weather would be like. I read the weather forecast and thought it would be 50 – what does 50 degrees feel like? Does this mean that you are wearing a sweater or shorts? I felt completely dumbfounded.

But now several things have happened. First, I came to understand the huge benefits of just hand luggage. I also had the realization that it didn’t really matter what I was wearing. That is, I love clothes, I always want to look good. But when you travel, it doesn’t matter; you can wear the same thing over and over. And you don’t meet the same people over and over again, and even if you meet, so what, you are traveling. Probably, for many it is obvious, but for me it was a revelation.

Does this mean you are bringing carry-on luggage with you on your upcoming two-week trip to Australia?

Well, that’s a little – I mean, it’s a long journey. I would be very impressed with myself if I could actually spend two weeks in Australia with one bag. I’m not sure if I’m such a hero.

Many years ago, before my husband and I got married, we were going to Istanbul for about a week, and at that time he traveled a lot for work and never traveled with anything except carry-on luggage. And I told him something about bringing a suitcase, and he was horrified. And then he asked me to do it with carry-on luggage. So this was my first big trip. And, you know, I impressed him, and he proposed to me.

And this was done by hand luggage.

I think it was a sequel.

Tell me about your luggage.

I’m a luggage fanatic. I’m obsessed with luggage; I feel like the right luggage really speaks volumes about the quality of your trip. I have spent many years trying and frustrated looking for luggage and finding the perfect luggage. I want her to be really roomy. I want it to be easy for me to maneuver, I want it to be light. But I also like it to look distinctive. I feel so strong that I like it. I like it to be different from what everyone else has. I am a demanding customer.

I feel like I am still looking for the perfect luggage, but now I use the luggage that I really love that I got in Japan. There is a shop in Japan called Tokyu Hands . This is something like a department store, something like a hardware store – there is no comparison with a store in the United States. They have household items, stationery, luggage, dishes and all that. Anyway, this is their home brand.

I can talk about luggage for hours. I love it. This is so strange. This is what I love, and I loved it even before it became such a part of my life. I’ve always liked luggage. When I was a kid, my dad took me with him – my dad really did the luggage, and we went to the luggage storage together, which is funny because he didn’t travel that much.

By plane

What do you always take with you on planes?

This recent discovery is a small leg band that can be used on an airplane. This completely changes your ability to be comfortable in the seat. He hooks onto the tray table. If you’re tall, that’s not a problem, but if you’re short, it’s awesome, awesome.

Secondly, I always take my eye mask with me because you are in a new place and may be in a different time zone. An eye mask is always very good for sleep. Plus an iPad with some movies downloaded, because I never believe in-flight entertainment will keep me entertained.

Are there any special snacks that you bring or buy?

I always put a couple of muesli bars in my bag. Not only during the flight – I often don’t want to get up and get dressed [in the hotel], and if I don’t think about room service, I don’t always want to leave my room first. thing in the morning and I am really happy to have something to eat. And it saved me many times when I came too late and there was no food.

Are you talking to your seat mates?

I don’t usually do this. Before, when I was a more nervous pilot, I always talked to people, it helped me distract me. Now that I fly so much, I usually sit down and have my daily routine. I take out my iPad. I start watching a movie. I don’t usually chat with people. From time to time someone for some reason seems interesting to me, I start a conversation. But I am always afraid to start a conversation at the beginning of the flight, if it takes too long.

Tell me about your fear of flying. How did you get through this?

I went to the hypnotist. It was many years ago. I became really very afraid of flying to such an extent that I refused to attend various events, because I was afraid of the very idea of ​​flying. So I was about to start my book tour of The Orchid Thief and thought I had a real problem. I do not know how I will endure flying from day to day, being completely tired of anxiety and fear. It was a terrible way of life.

I went to, I think there were five sessions. The first time I flew after five trainings, when the plane was taking off, I said to my friend, who I was flying with – out of the blue, I said, “I think I’m going to get a pilot’s license.” And he said, “What did this guy do to you?” It was the strangest thing, I don’t know where it came from. It was like I was possessed. That is, I still don’t like harsh flights; it’s not that I’ve never had a single moment of discomfort. But now I’m one of those people I never imagined – I get on a plane and don’t even look up when we take off.

General travel tips

What do you do as soon as you move into your room?

I unpack it. Even if I only stay overnight, I unpack my things. If it’s one night, I don’t always unpack all the things, but I unpack them so that my things are laid out, I can see what I have, and it gives me a little sense of connection. Then I check the coffee situation because I know that in the morning when I wake up I want to know if I can have a good coffee or if they have shitty coffee in the room. I know that I will have to order coffee in my room or find better coffee nearby.

Are there any apps you depend on when traveling or helping you prepare for your trip?

I use TripIt to store and organize all of my travels. I have all the airline apps on my phone, even the ones I rarely travel with. I feel like you should download them all and get them all. I have SeatGuru, which I also highly recommend because it helps you choose seats that are comfortable on different planes – it actually tells you which model of plane you are going to travel on and advises you if certain seats are not suitable. there is strength or not to recline. This is really necessary.

I also have aworld clock app because it’s always important to keep track of the time. I have a [currency] conversion application. I always come up with a quick way to convert money in my head, so I don’t have to use the app all the time. Even if it’s a rough estimate, if it looks like the currency is worth half a dollar, or if you divide by five, you will roughly get the value . It’s nice not to grab hold of the phone for conversion all the time.

What do you buy when traveling?

I used to buy [local brands] toothpaste. I loved taking one really grounded subject and looking at versions from as many countries as possible. As a result, I had a large collection of toothpastes from all over the world. When it really should be almost like too big a collection. I stopped. Now I tend to buy paper products like notebooks or notepads, which I find really suitable. These are products that are produced locally or locally. So I have small notebooks and notebooks from all over the world.

What do you spend the most money on and was it worth it?

I went to Bhutan on a story and fell in love with a guy there. I flew home from Bhutan and then actually turned around and flew back. This is a very expensive journey. This is the biggest trip I have ever made for such a special reason. It was crazy, but it seemed very valuable at the time, so I have no regrets. But when I think about what it cost me and how crazy it was, it seems so romantic and young, even though I was not that young.

Have you made any noticeable mistakes while traveling?

I had many trips before converting to carry-on where my luggage got lost. It is a huge mistake to expect you to have your luggage, because there is every reason to believe that you will not. I lost my luggage on flights to England, Italy and Brazil, where the luggage was missing a few days before I received it. I am incredibly careful now, even if I am going on a trip where I need to check my luggage. I would never check something that I cannot do without.

I believe that when traveling, you don’t have to over-prepare. I want it to be an experience, a surprise and a journey. So I don’t prepare at all. And while I believe in this and believe in the reason for it, there are times when it comes at a cost in that you may completely misunderstand the place where you are going. I think that in order to have a real travel experience, sometimes you have to make mistakes and you have to have problems and you have to fight.

On the one hand, I could tell you that these are some of my big mistakes, and yet, from a philosophical point of view, I believe that it takes some element of danger to truly experience a place. – not like physical danger, but emotional danger. I think it’s helpful to have a moment when you think, ” My God, I didn’t expect this.” This is so different from what I imagined. But I think this is a good result. It just means that there are times when I was caught off guard and somewhat unprepared.

Being in a new place and not knowing what to expect, not arming yourself looking at that place on Google Maps in 3D, reading all the travel guides and having a list of where you should go can be very frustrating. I’d rather skip the big tourist attraction and walk around on my own instead and see things unexpectedly. I like the sharpness of the landing and I say, “Okay, what should I do now?”