A funny thing tends to happen to me as I’m planning a trip : I become completely, wholly fixated on finding the perfect version of one specific thing that, in my mind, will make (or break) my travels. I will zero in and obsess and scroll until I have found the closest approximation to my ideal iteration of whatever the thing is: cross-body bag, fragrance-free moisturizer , ankle boots. I don’t know why this happens, but I imagine it’s probably safe to blame a heady blend of Instagram and capitalism. Last month, I took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New Zealand. In the weeks preceding the trip, I obsessed over the calculus of assembling a lightweight, low-maintenance, minimalist, and versatile travel wardrobe for 10 days of hiking , visiting beaches, drinking wine, and strolling through city streets. Somewhere along the line, I decided that the linchpin of packing for this trip lay in…pants. I became fixated on finding a pair of pants that could pull double-duty on hiking trails, beache...