Before Jake and I even found our house in December, he had booked us a surprise trip to Europe for our combination Christmas + Birthday present that has become an annual tradition.  We’re both so passionate about traveling and exploring the world and value experiences more than things so we pool together what we would generally budget for Christmas, birthdays and travel and try to take one big trip per year.  With a 2 week trip planned for mid April, we had just under 6 weeks to move and get settled before taking off for Greece and Italy.  Basically, the week before our trip was a total scramble to organize, finish up a few loose ends at work and figure out what the heck I needed to bring with me to Europe.

I’d recently upgraded my camera for work and it no longer fit in my old bag so I’d had my eye on this replacement for a while.  When my mom sent me money to put towards it for my birthday, I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait for it to show up on our doorstep – I knew it would be perfect for not only keeping my camera safe, but also for holding all of the necessities while abroad.  When traveling, it’s so important to keep things light, versatile, organized and easily accessible (to you only) so this job did the trick. A large back pocket was perfect for storing my clutch/wallet, the large padded interior pocket was perfect for keeping my iPad safe, and the front two pockets were the perfect size for a charger, extra memory cards, passport, lipstick, etc. Before we left for the airport, I snapped a pic of what was in my bag – all of the essentials I’d need to have handy while traveling through Europe. Click through below to shop!