Do you remember me sewing things for my Start With A Scarf Wardrobe? I used those clothes along with a few RTW pieces as a travel capsule wardrobe for a trip to South Africa's garden route. I even took the scarf with me though I didn't actually wear it!
I also took footwear - walking shoes, walking sandals and silver flat sandals as well as sunglasses, underwear, PJs, socks and toiletries. Everything packed up into the packing cubes nicely. DH and I both had some clothing in each other's checked luggage and spare undies and top in our hand luggage (rucksacks), though we didn't have any issues with our checked luggage.
I did wear everything, and as we were away 3.5 weeks, we visited a laundrette half way through and had a service wash done of some items (underwear, socks, tops and dirtier bottoms/layers).
All my bottoms and layers were plain colours, as were some of my tops, and I stuck to a colour palette of black, sage green, burgundy and pink, this let me mix and match whatever was clean and suitable for the weather that day. We had rain, sunshine, heat and cold, so lots of different combos were in operation!
Coat
I took a Craghoppers lined waterproof jacket with hood and pockets. In the pockets I had gloves, beany hat, tube scarf/buff and a lightweight peaked cap. These fold up small, but were great for protection from the sun (peaked cap)
Bottoms
I took seven bottoms, perhaps it could've been slightly fewer. They were
Black stretch woven trousers, worn on all flights and over the joggers on cold morning and evening safari drives.
Dark grey slim leg joggers, worn for relaxing in the room/cabin, one night as PJ trousers when it was cold and as thermals under the black trousers.
Black stretch jeans, worn for evening meals and some around the town days.
Stretch woven tan shorts, worn a lot on the hot days. The internal zipped pocket was great, though banged a bit on my leg when I put too much in it.
Black culottes skirt, an alternative to the shorts on hot days.
Olive green Craghoppers trousers. Worn for hiking with a belt but not good for a boat trip - the fit isn't right when sitting.
Sage green stretch woven trousers. Worn for wine tasting, some evening meals and etc. Fit not right on these either.
Layers
2 lightweight fleece jackets from Craghoppers (one burgundy, one pink), and a self sewn cardigan in sage green. I wore all of these but could've probably managed with only 1 of the fleeces + the cardigan.
Shirts
I took 4 shirts, 2 self sewn (sage green and floral) and two purchased Craghoppers in Pink and Regatta in Burgundy check. More shirts would've been good and the ones with pockets were more useful. The floral shirt was worn the most and washed twice (once by hand, once at launderette).
3/4 sleeve tops
Wore all of these and washed them too.
Short sleeved tops
Useful as layers under the shirts, as well as self sewn I took quite a few RTW t-shirts, mostly from Decathlon.
Summary
Overall things worked well. Secure pockets were definitely useful. My self sewn items worked out quite well. My RTW pieces have been bought over the years and were not expensive. I have pieces from Regatta, Craghoppers and Decathlon. The better my sewing gets, the less RTW I wear :-)
