The Tour Baggage This Time

Posted on August 25, 2014    Posted by John Scalzi

The Lock In tour lasts for four weeks, but the good news is that Tor arranged the tour so that I come home about once a week for a day or two. Aside from being an awesome thing that will let me save my sanity by allowing me to see my family, and thus not turn into a gibbering, insensate lump two weeks into the tour, it also means that I can pack quite a bit lighter, secure in the knowledge that I will be able to do laundry within a reasonable span of days.

So above, please find my baggage for the first leg of the tour, which takes me to Houston, Austin, Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Decatur, GA. The brown bag consists of clothes for six days (minus tomorrow’s clothes, which I have ready to deploy the instant I wake up), while the computer bag holds a computer (duuuuuhhhh), a tablet, cords, extra battery for tablet and phone, and pens. They’re both very small (the clothes bag is 17×9, and the computer bag is probably 16×4), which means that I will never have to check them or leave them at the side of the plane. This is key when you’re touring; never never never let them separate you from your luggage when you tour because if you do, you will be three cities onward when they finally locate it.

The flip side of this is that I am so tightly packed I have no room for anything else, which is why I warned people in my tour FAQ that if they give me a gift on tour (which does happen, and which is always very sweet), they may see me hand it over to a bookstore staffer or my media escort, who will mail it home for me. I will literally have to leave it in a hotel room otherwise, and nobody wants that. So please don’t be offended if you see me do that.

In any event: Thank you, Tor, for arranging my tour so I can travel light. I actually very much appreciate it.