Why You Should Never Pack Books for Travel: Hard-Won Truths from a Round-Island Suitcase

Over recent years, as professional routines solidified, the frequency with which I purchase and consume books has tapered, no longer mirroring student days when I routinely borrowed entire shelf sections from campus libraries. Back then, I even indulged an adolescent quirk — leaving tiny, cryptic signature marks on specific pages of borrowed books.

Yet even amid today’s fast-paced rhythm, I still order new batches of books each month, sustaining an unyielding devotion to the printed word.

However, when this literary devotion collides with packing for travel, it invariably triggers a catastrophe inside your suitcase.

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Travel Is Romantic Imagination, but Inherent Heavy Labor

When packing bags, many succumb to an exquisitely romantic daydream: Reading quietly by a sunlit train window, turning crisp pages under the warm amber glow of a mountain lodge lamp, or sipping dark espresso in an exotic cobblestone cafe lost in essays.

What is the gritty reality of travel?

While travel undeniably cleanses and nourishes the spirit, stripping away romanticized filters reveals that travel at its core is demanding, heavy physical labor.

You battle scorching heat or freezing gusts, haul luggage up endless metro stairways, constantly monitor transit schedules, and resolve unforeseen detours. After an exhilarating yet exhausting day, when you finally drag leaden legs into your hotel room and collapse onto the mattress after a scalding shower, your brain emits a single honest directive:

「Close your eyes and sleep right now, thank you.」

At that moment, any intellectual tome you intended to savor on the nightstand functions merely as a lethal sleep-inducing brick.

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The Cruel Truth Inside a Round-Island Suitcase

Under ordinary circumstances, I read briskly, comfortably finishing an entire book every two to three days.

Before embarking on a motorcycle and driving expedition around Taiwan, I deliberately packed two long-anticipated volumes into my luggage. I even smugly debated: 「Are two books enough? What if I finish them ahead of schedule and have nothing to read before bed? Shouldn’t I pack a third?」

The outcome?

Returning home weeks later after conquering mountains and coastlines, I unpacked the luggage and realized how foolishly naive I had been.

Those two books, having jostled across hundreds of kilometers of rugged asphalt, were opened only during brief toilet breaks in hotel bathrooms — and between both volumes, barely a dozen pages were turned.

For the remaining ninety-nine percent of the voyage, their sole functional contribution was hogging precious cubic inches of suitcase space, while offering ruthless, heavy weightlifting conditioning for my biceps every time I hauled luggage up stairwells.

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Leave Books Behind; Surrender Your Senses to the World

From that round-island lesson, I arrived at an absolute decree: Never pack physical books on a journey.

If reading is non-negotiable, a featherweight e-reader or smartphone app is more than adequate. Yet an even wiser philosophy: since you spent time and capital stepping beyond your front door, surrender your attention entirely to the living world before you.

The clouds racing past the train window are a book; the buttery aroma wafting from a corner bakery is a book; the weathered wrinkles upon an old farmer’s face are a book; the glowing fluorescent sign of a roadside convenience store in the midnight fog is a book.

These organic textures of reality deserve to be read with your undivided soul far more than ink pressed upon dead paper.