2 Weeks Travel Capsule Wardrobe Ideas: Travel Light in Europe

In this post, I’m sharing my capsule wardrobe for 2 weeks in Europe this summer, how I was only able to pack 8 clothes items for a 2-week trip in Europe while visiting two countries.

We have been staying at home most of the time during the lockdown, so in 2022 early summer, we were super excited to finally stepped outside of California and visit UK and Italy for an 18-day trip – just a little over 2 weeks! Our trip is extremely packed with itineraries, as we planned to spend only 2 to 3 days in each city before moving onto the next one.

For minimalists like me, traveling is the true test of minimalism. And what is a better challenge than planing and trying out a travel capsule wardrobe this summer? So I was determined to make it work!

Although I generally prefer to travel light, this is really the lightest we’ve been with the smallest capsule wardrobe pieces. In fact, our entire luggage was just two normal size backpacks!

What’s the selling points for traveling so light?

Traveling light with a compact travel capsule wardrobe can be very beneficial. Here are two points that stood out to me the most:

• First of all, if I can pack everything into a backpack, it makes my travel day way easier. No need to check bags with the airlines which often comes with additional fees and waiting in lines. Besides, I don’t have to compete for the overhead luggage storage space on the airplane, as I can just slide the backpack under my seat.
• Because we were traveling to Europe, we learnt it can be challenging to move big luggages on those old European cobble stone roads, not to mention we were constantly moving between cities.

2 week travel capsule wardrobe items

When reading articles about travel essentials or what to pack, people usually share a comprehensive list of type of items to pack, not so much on how to select them, especially how to make sure a small selection of clothes can work with each other during your trip. So this post is dedicated to how to select a limited number of clothing pieces as your travel capsule wardrobe and create looks for your travel.

I was traveling to UK and Italy in early summer 2022, where UK was a bit chilly and Italy was very hot. So I will be using this European trip as an example for spring to summer, or summer to fall travel capsule wardrobe demonstration, but the rules and tips can pretty much apply to any season.

Essential clothes to pack for a 2-week travel

So before sharing a looks, I thought I’d walk you through what I have packed in terms of clothing pieces. Because there will be temperature variations, I was primarily relying on layering for warmth, instead of packing super warm and chunky clothes (as they will take a good amount of space).

The picture above shows all the clothes I have packed, including what I was wearing to the airport.

To account for summer weather in Europe, which is really temperate to hot, I packed:

• 2 short sleeve tops. For hot days. The V neck gingham was from Madewell with sleeve alteration.
• 2 long sleeve tops. For moderate days, or better protecting my skin from the sun. The blue pattern top is handmade, which I’ll share a post soon.
• 2 pairs of pants, in white and denim. This is to give more variety to my looks.
• 1 cashmere sweater and 1 long coat. For layering and adding warmth during chilly days.

When selecting travel capsule wardrobe pieces, I made sure each clothes I’m bringing will work with at least two other pieces in the same capsule in terms of color and style. A couple tips of choosing pieces to pack for travel:

1. Stick to a color palette. Since I’ve only packed 8 pieces, I need to make sure each one will work with at least 2 pieces in the same capsule. So I’m sticking to a neutral color palette which is white, blue, and navy. Those colors also represent the majority of my wardrobe, so selecting pieces was fairly easy before the trip.
2. Make sure they layer well. For example, the tops I’ve packed are in two neck styles: crew neck and V neck. So I packed V neck cashmere sweater to layer with V neck tops(the short sleeve one and the long sleeve one). And my navy coat works for all 4 tops I have.
3. Be ready to wash your clothes from time to time. For longer trips like this one, you might need to wash some clothes so you can wear them again later in the trip. In my recent Europe trip, I have washed both the short sleeve tops and long sleeve tops which were relatively easy to wash. Just do it in an evening that you know you won’t have to change hotels the next day – so they get ample time to hang dry. I didn’t wash my pants during this trip as pants don’t get much sweat.
4. Be okay to make some compromises.
   • One example is about packing dress or not. I’m a dress person and love to sew dresses for myself, however, I made a decision to sticky with pants for this trip. That’s because I think pants are a bit easier to move around given how intense our trip is. But I would totally pack dress if I’m traveling to a super warm place for the entire trip.
   • Another example is packing swimsuits. So we spent a day in Capri, Italy, and one activity we did was to sail a boat around the island. It might be nice to pack swim suits so I can jump into the ocean if I want, but I decided it wasn’t worth it for me to carry my swim suits for 18 days just so I can wear them for 3 hours during sailing. At the end, we stayed on the boat and didn’t regret a bit about not packing swimwear.

Essential accessories to pack for 2-week travel

Now let’s talk about accessories and other capsule wardrobe items I brought for the 2 week trip in summer Europe. Because accessories don’t get dirty as quick as clothes, I brought one per category, except I packed an extra pair of earrings as they are so small.

I wore my sneakers to the airport so I only had to stuff my flip flops in my backpack. I’m a big fan of packing flip flops: they are quite lightweight to bring, and you can wear them in the hotel to free your feet after a long day, plus wear them after shower with wet feet.

Sun hat is useful when you are traveling to anywhere sunny. The yellow Kanken bag is my go-to luggage bag because they are extremely lightweight without sacrificing the durability.

Capsule wardrobe looks for 2 weeks in Europe

Now with knowledge of the all clothes and accessories I included for my capsule wardrobe , here are the looks I’ve created with them for my 2 week travel in Europe this summer.

Note: This is not a comprehensive list of all the looks I have wore during this 2 week trip, but they are here to give you some ideas of how I’m layering them together without being repetitive. For example, in each look, you can swap a different pair of pants, earrings, or tops.

From look 1 to look 6, these capsule wardrobe looks are arranged from hot weather to cold weather.

2 week travel capsule wardrobe looks in my real life Europe trip

Now I want to share some examples of me wearing my travel capsule wardrobe for our 2-week European trip in summer 2022.

I was wearing Look 3 in those two photos above. On the right photo, I layered V neck cashmere sweater on top.

In fact, when I’m unsure about the weather, I just pack the sweater in my backpack, enclosed in a small linen bag to protect it. This way I can take it out whenever feeling cold. They are quite lightweight too.

I was wearing Look 2 and Look 4 in those photos above. You might notice I was wearing the same top. Just by changing up the pants and adding a layer piece, they look quite different.

In Look 4, the top layers work quite well together as they are both V neck.

Hope those photos taken from my 2-week European trip were helpful to show how some of the capsule wardrobe looks appear in real life travels.

I have worn all 6 looks, plus more variations for more than 2 weeks in Europe this summer. I just selected a few photos to show you the idea as I was mostly taking photos of the architecture during travel, not so much of myself 🙂

Which one is your favorite look?

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