Disposable Paperbacks (Tuesday Tips: Travel Edition)

We're in the midst of planning a family trip to Europe this summer, complete with a vow renewal ceremony to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. So I've been thinking a lot about how to squeeze a lot of travel into a little suitcase (or at least one that will be easy to carry on a train, store in a ship's stateroom, stuff in the trunk of a taxi, haul up stairs, cram into elevators...).

I really look forward to lots of light (no pun intended) reading on my vacations. The Queen Mary 2 has a huge, beautiful lilbrary, so I'll have plenty of books to choose from while crossing the Atlantic. But what about hotels and trains (and train stations)? Last year I had a brainstorm. Why not take along a few paperbacks from the thrift shop (50 cents apiece)? Once you're done with one, just leave it for someone else to enjoy! So I left one on the train, two in the hotel in NYC, and another on the train back to Virginia.

Library on Queen Mary 2
The shelves all have locking fronts in case they need to "batten down the
 hatches" to keep the books from falling out in rough seas!

The room curves with the shape of the ship's bow.

This year, I think I can top that. In the free bin at the YMCA Thrift Shop, I found three newer novels by popular authors! They didn't have front covers, but who cares? (I know they're not supposed to sell those, since credit for them has probably been claimed from the publisher by the retailer who couldn't sell them for some reason, but as far as I know they are allowed to give them away). So my suitcase will just keep getting lighter and more spacious, and it costs me absolutely nothing to read the entire time!

If the thrift shop or second-hand store doesn't work for you, try asking a friend to save you some as they finish with them. All it takes is a little planning ahead! Or, if it's your style, you could just buy them and still leave behind, but I never buy new paperbacks myself.

Any travel tips you'd like to share?