- mobility. When doing any long-term or multi-destination travel, you want to be able to move with ease. Given that, the selection of your travel luggage is just as important as what you put inside. I recommend going with the smallest luggage you can and the most portable, ex: a backpack instead of a rollie bag. As mentioned in my earlier post, this year I bought a smaller pack (only 52L). It forced me to pare down my baggage only to the bare minimum.
- versatility. It's key to find the items that can serve many purposes. For instance, if you choose plain tops, bringing simple accessories like a scarf or bolero allows you to dress up your outfit for a nice dinner without needing to bring "fancy" clothes with you.
- leave some space. I know I always like to bring back souvenirs and gifts for friends and family. If you stuff your pack to the gills before you even leave, that means you either need to buy another piece of luggage there, or leave behind some things to make space. To help with that, I intentionally leave pockets and other spaces empty when I pack so that I can easily bring back items.
- what does it mean to you? For everything you bring, think to yourself: "What if I lost this?" If the loss of any item would leave you heartbroken, don't take it. Pretty much anything you bring should be easily replaceable, or at least definitely not sentimental or valuable.
Tip #1, pack in stuff sacks. Rather than cramming everything into your backpack, invest in smaller stuff sacks. This way, you can easy find what you're looking for, without creating an explosion of clothes. I have invested in water-proof bags, which is a bit more expensive, but these silicon-impregnated nylon sacks are colorful, lightweight, and completely waterproof; they are perfect for keeping valuables dry and organized without adding much weight. With practice, it becomes easy to look for items just by remembering the color of the sack. Here are all the smaller sacks I have within my larger pack:
(This is a photo of just about every single thing I am bringing with me. Not pictured here: a light blanket for the plane rides, a light jacket, sunglasses, and of course, the camera I am using to take the pictures!)
Now I will share with you exactly what I have packed. Let's start with the simple stuff first. Footwear. I always bring 3 pairs of footwear with me: flip flops, chacos, and well-worn sneakers/day hikers. Flip flops are not only great for walking around where you are staying or slipping on for a quick jaunt, but also for showering in shared space. Always important. Chacos, or other stiff, supportive hiking sandals are great for hot areas where you will do a lot of walking without the soreness and stiffness of cheaper alternatives. Lastly, old, comfortable but supportive sneakers are great to have on hand for colder days, really buggy areas, manual labor or eco-volunteering, or days when you need good support for a lot of walking. I strongly recommend bringing old, well-worn shoes with you, since it makes it easy to ditch them there if they get trashed, or if you just need to space in your pack.
Next, I like to bring a variety of tops with me. I always keep a few things in mind when choosing my tops: ease of cleaning/care, comfort, material appropriateness for the destination, color variety, dress up/down capability, and intermixing/coordination/layering. Once an item has passed through those layers of selection, I pare down to the most versatile and easiest pieces. Pictured here are 3 sun/rash guards for diving or time in intense sun, 3 long-sleeve shirts, 3 tank tops, 2 casual Ts that can dress up, 2 workout shirts with built in bra (ladies, this is key for hot climates!), and 1 wrap/bolero for covering shoulders or dressing up a shirt or sundress.
This next stuff sack hold my other random accessories: knee braces, baseball hat, swimsuits, hankercheif, and scarf.
This purple stuff sack houses a very lightweight raincoat, large quick-dry towel, beach sarong (really just fantastic quick-drying fabric I bought at a sewing store), and a pillowcase. The pillowcase has many potential uses, the two main ones are to put clothes inside and use it as an actual pillow if need be, but also to contain laundry until it can be washed.
This next sack has a bar of soap, 2 kinds of bugspray, and Dr. Bronner's soap, which is an environmentally friendly soap that can be used for just about anything, inluding brushing teeth, washing laundry or dishes....
This red stuff sack is my electronics, and other things that must stay dry: headlamp, travel cell phone, micra leatherman-juice, travel alarm clock, divers log, chargers and power cords, diving watch, spare batteries, underwater camera, 20 of cord for a clothes line, spanish-english dictionary, eating tool (a knife, fork and spoon all in one), rehydration salts, watercolor postcards to share memories with home.
Tip #3 There are 2 specific things I want to point out that I think are really important to bring on any long trip. First, is a portable memory device, like this USB 8GB drive. This allows me to save files, back up photos, store data, music, anything. This will be my first time traveling with a netbook, so perhaps this will be obsolete after this trip, but I think it's worth having the extra storage as either back up or overflow, and so that you can transfer information to another computer if need be. I also save these trip to trip so that all of my photos from that trip are in one place as a back up for my home computer.
Lastly, I am a huge fan of the convertible memory card (though I need to give credit to my old friend JC for this idea. He got me into them years ago! Gracias!). As shown below, this handy gagdet allows you to directly plug your camera's memory card into any USB port by simply folding back the card. No cords to worry about or drivers to download. Again, the netbook may make this obsolete, but traveling without a computer, this was essential so that I could download my images without a cord or on a computer without an SD slot.
Ok.... drum roll please. Here is the last, and arguably most important section of my packing. Toiletries and first aid. To note--I only bring the travel-sized amounts of things to save space since most toiletries can be easily restocked abroad. I love this bag since it allows me two sides--toiletries on one, and first-aid on the other. Toiletries: shampoo, conditioner, razor, face cream, sunscreen, toothpaste, travel toothbrush (thanks, Rach!), facial scrub, nail file, nail clippers, tweezers, deodorant, powder, hairbrush, and q-tips.
Ok folks. That's everything! And believe it or not, there will still probably be a whole bunch of stuff that I am bringing that I will never use! I hope you found this helpful! Please feel welcome to share your own packing tips or ask any clarifying questions that you might have!
Happy Travels!
2 comments:
Wow, this is a great step-by-step with lots of great suggestions for organizing and keeping your pack light! These are sort of weird questions, but I ask because I often see this information missing from packing posts and would like to replicate what pro travelers do: What do you think is an appropriate amount of underwear to bring? Suggestions on bras that travel well and clean easily when you plan to being walking around in the heat a bunch? Thanks!
Hi there, anonymous! Thanks for a really great question. It's funny that you ask, because I definitely debated for a while about whether to share about the girlier side of packing. Since you asked, I'm more than happy to share. First of all, for a bra, I find that I usually spend most of my time either in athletic tops with built in bras, or in a sports bra. This is largely due to traveling a lot in tropical places where the less you have to create and hold sweat, the better. But, I would say pack one or two, with the priority being placed on comfort, and also ease of cleaning, and how easily it can be worn with each outfit. I would recommend taking only flesh colored bras, that way they can be worn under any color. The LAST thing you want is to have a dark colored bra show under a light shirt in a foreign country! I have definitely never taken more than one with me. As for underwear, I bring a week's supply. Since I am bringing a minimal amount of clothes, anyway, I know I will need to do laundry about once a week. When choosing your underwear, again think about comfort, ease of cleaning, but also appropriateness in case you hang them outdoors for locals to see. As a general rule I stay away from lacy or delicate or anything with writing. Lastly, you didn't ask, but I'll throw this in, too: feminine supplies. While one can certainly procure feminine supplies wherever they travel, depending on where you go and for how long, it may be worth bringing your supply with you. With conservation in mind, I would just like to give this advice. Many travel destinations have less-than-ideal waste disposal systems and/or weak plumming. I would suggest bringing the least wasteful alternative that works for you. I, for example, chose to bring "applicator-less" tampons, so that there is only a minimal amount of waste to be disposed of. All too often, when walking remote beaches, you can see applicators wash up on the shore. Plus, being smaller, they stand a better chance of being flushed, if the countries system allows it. In a number of places I have visited, you are not even allowed to flush toilet paper, instead placing it in a small waste bin next to the toilet. Well, I think that's everything I have to say on that! I hope that helps! Thanks for reading, best, -----------------jess
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