I'm Travelling to Washington D.C Next Week - Should I Travel Light or bring The Kitchen Sink?

So as you can tell from the title above, I have a small (but pleasant) dilemma on my hands. I'm currently trying to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of bringing loads of photography gear with me next week on my 3 day trip to the nations capital. I have this tendency and urge to 'overpack' whenever I'm preparing for a trip because I have this burning fear of being in a situation and thinking, "man, I wish I brought such and such with me". Thankfully, that actually hasn't happened before!

On the one hand I'm thinking if I bring more then I know I'll be ready for anything that happens on the trip. On the other hand, I know that I'm most likely going to be doing a lot of walking and I'm not particularly warming to the idea of lugging around a big heavy photography backpack around all day long. I thinking about leaving my big heavy 700-200mm telephoto lens at home along with my nifty fifty and just bringing; my fast 17-50 f2.8 zoom lens (which is great for the causal walking around), my slow ultra wide 10-20mm lens (perhaps for some architecture shots) and then my 18-135mm kit lens (for the extra reach on the long end) in case I see a subject off in the distance. If I decide to do this, It'll allow me to take my smaller (lighter) messenger bag instead of it's bigger brother backpack version. 

So I kind of went through this dilemma last october when I went to Alabama, but that was a little different because we had the pleasure of being driven by coach from destination to destination. My trip to Iceland last summer (images are on a slideshow above) was a little more similar to this up-comming D.C one in the sense that there was a fair bit of walking planned for each day. In that instance I opted for the lighter approach which served my back well and I didn't feel as if I needed anything else while I was there. I used my 18-135mm zoom lens the most, while only using my primes and ultra wide lenses for a small handful of shots (I felt like I had to use it because I brought it along with me). 

All in all I think I'm swaying more towards traveling light, but I still have one more week to deliberate, ponder and procrastinate. I'll let you know what I ended up taking with me and I'll definitely post some images of D.C up here next week.

Take care and enjoy your week!