Spring Essentials: The Travel Sweater
If your family is anything like mine, you are periodically taking little trips here and there to visit family. My wife’s parents live about three hours from us so we usually drive down to see them once a month or so. Sometimes we stay for a day. Sometimes we stay for a week, depending on my son’s school schedule.
Since we parents need to take so much junk for the kids when we travel anywhere, I always prefer to pack light when it comes to my own belongings. If it can’t reasonably fit into my leather weekender bag, I leave it at home.
It’s pretty easy to pack for trips taken in the winter or summer. The weather is either predictably cold or hot. No problem.
Spring and fall require a little more thought since the weather and temperature can fluctuate greatly in the span of a day or two.
This is why I like to identify some essentials I always take with me when I travel in the spring. One of these essentials is the sweater.
Your travel sweater is your go-to sweater for when you’re, you guessed it, traveling.
No matter how long the visit, though, I always pack the same sweater.
Being a style-minded gent, you probably have a half-dozen sweaters in your closet. In order to identify which sweater of yours should be deemed your Travel Sweater, take a look at the weight, the material, the color, and the cost.
My Travel Sweater is a lighter weight, wool blend crewneck in navy from J. Crew.
I have a handful of other sweaters I could have chosen. Everything from very thin merino v-necks to chunky, cable-knit Aran cardigans.
But I chose this particular sweater for my Travel Sweater for the following reasons…
Weight – When you’re traveling, especially with children, even if it’s for a couple days, space is at a premium and you want to make sure you are packing light. Whenever we go anywhere with the kids we need to pack their clothes, toys, stuffed animals, nightlights, baby monitors, books, and whole host of other things.
For myself, since I stuff as much as I can into one leather weekender bag, a thinner sweater makes much more sense than a thicker one.
Also, beyond the issue of packing, a thinner sweater makes more sense in this strange, transitional weather. I COULD pack a thick sweater, but then I would be sweating my face off on the couple days during the trip where the temps creep north of 70 degrees. With a thinner sweater, I don’t have that problem.
Now, notice I said “thinner”. The weight of my Travel Sweater falls somewhere between a very light merino sweater and a heavier fisherman-style. It’s not too heavy but it’s not one of the lightest sweaters I own. This kind of in-between weight has two main benefits. One, it definitely makes it feel much cozier on the nights where the temps drop and the wind blows and I realize I still need to walk the dog before turning in. A sweater more suited to sliding easily under a suit jacket wouldn’t provide the same level of protection. Two, the more robust weight means that the sweater can be styled a little more casually if I want. This sweater looks just as good with jeans at home as it does with chinos and an OCBD at the office.
The in-between weight makes this sweater very versatile.
Material – My Travel Sweater is made of wool and nylon, which J. Crew calls “rugged merino”. It should be no surprise to anyone with even a passing knowledge of menswear, but wool outperforms cotton in almost every instance, especially when it comes to something like a sweater. The nylon adds a bit more durability to the already very durable wool.
My wool sweaters keep me noticeably warmer than my cotton sweaters.
Conversely, they don’t feel as heavy when the weather is warm. However, beyond temperature regulation there are two other key benefits to a wool sweater over cotton when traveling.
One, a wool sweater won’t wrinkle the way a cotton sweater will if you need to stuff it in your bag. Two, if you are away for a week or so, you can wear your wool sweater many days in a row (or keep it stuffed in your bag) without it starting to smell like dirty laundry. If you are going anywhere without a washer/dryer, that is important.
Color – It’s always a good idea when traveling to pack items you can use over and over again without people really realizing it. This usually means basic, muted colors with little to no pattern. Your travel sweater should reflect those guidelines.
My travel sweater is navy. Navy or charcoal are your best options. You could do a deep green or burgundy, but better to stick with blue or grey. Also, the darker navy or charcoal hides stains better, which is key when you are wearing something multiple times around children.
Cost – If you’re rolling in dough and money isn’t an issue for you, then you don’t need to worry about this section. For the rest of us normal folk, your travel sweater should be relatively inexpensive. You don’t want to be babying anything when you’re traveling. You also won’t have the option of changing into something more practical if one minute you’re having a drink with your in-laws and the next you’re wrestling with your son outside.
You’ll feel more relaxed if you aren’t fretting about getting your sweater dirty, stained, or damaged in some way. This is why your travel sweater shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg.
Could you use a luxurious cashmere as your travel sweater? Sure. It definitely ticks the boxes of being lightweight, cozy, and can be worn in both casual and more formal-leaning scenarios. The problem is that you might have a minor heart attack every time your kid touches you with their sticky ice-pop-hands. Is that really how you want to spend your trip? You’re better-off wearing something you can knock around a little bit.
If you want something luxurious, that’s totally fine, just make sure it’s something you picked up on sale, that way if it gets damaged it won’t bother you as much.
My travel sweater was a gift from my wife. It was on sale for $35 marked down from about $100. A great deal, indeed. But it gets better! After my wife ordered it, it got lost in the mail for a couple months. We assumed it was a lost cause, my wife called J. Crew, and she got a refund. A short time later, the sweater miraculously appeared in our mail box. So, I essentially got a free sweater.
This is why I feel like I can be hard on it and not feel the slightest twinge of unease. After all, it didn’t cost us anything.
Leaving the house for any length of time is a source of stress and anxiety for me (did I turn off the stove?!) but having a handful of essential items that I can toss in my bag without thinking really helps me stay focused and enjoy my time away.
