Travel

Packing is a maths problem people solve emotionally. A wardrobe for ten days does not need ten of anything: it needs a colour spine of two neutrals, three layers that combine in both directions, and shoes chosen by the surface you will walk on rather than the photograph you imagine. The rule that survives contact with reality is that every top must work with every bottom, which caps the case at around fourteen pieces for any trip of any length.

Timing is the cheapest upgrade in travel. Shoulder months carry most of the weather of high season at a third to a half of the price, with a fraction of the crowd, and the difference between the right week and the wrong one is often larger than the difference between a good hotel and a great one. Sea temperature lags air temperature by about six weeks, which is why September swims better than June almost everywhere in the northern hemisphere.

And a hotel sells three things: a bed, a location and a service culture. Star ratings measure the first and ignore the third. The tells are consistent: how the phone is answered, whether anyone uses your name twice, how long the third request takes. None of that appears in the photographs and all of it decides how the week feels.