“On a long journey even a straw weighs heavy.” - Spanish proverb
Packing for our trip became pretty easy when we agreed our basic decision making process:
“When it is 35 degrees and we’re running for a train/plane/taxi/tuk tuk/elephant, what do we want on our backs?”
Sharpens the mind towards the essentials, doesn’t it? Funnily enough, we found it a lot harder packing for a couple of weeks in Spain than a year long round the world trip. We’d also probably take more to Spain as well, apparently you can never have enough bikinis…
Anyway, we were desperate to take as little as possible with us on our trip, why take stuff that you can buy en route for a fraction of the cost? With that in mind, here is our tried and tested backpacking packing list, and we’re delighted.
So what are we taking? We’ve got two lists, one for Barry (male backpacking packing list) and Laura (female backpacking packing list). First up, Barry! A quick note to say that somehow Barry has been persuaded to carry the small carry on bag for planes which will be where we store our electronic items, thus the electronic items in this list are for two people! Read on for his comprehensive backpacking packing list!
My Backpacking Packing List
- 60 litre backpack
- 18 litre back pack (day use & carry on)
Feet
- Flip flops
- Light trainers
- Walking trainers
Clothes
- Underwear x 10 (decided against the pants you can wear for six weeks!)
- Trainer socks x 5 (hoping to keep my feet free and easy for most of the trip!)
- Wool socks x 2 (for Antarctica and other cold places)
- 2 x trousers (with zip to turn into shorts – multitasking at its finest)
- 1 x jeans (for those rare times when I actually need to get dressed)
- 1 x Shorts
- 1 x swimming shorts
- 2 x long sleeve top (save on sunscreen for arms with these bad boys!)
- 5 x t shirts
- 1 x shirt (with collar for when we’re invited to a posh event – happens all the time right?)
- 2 x polo shirt
- 1 x fleece top / zipper (hoping won’t have to use this, otherwise I’d have stayed in the UK)
- Waterproof jacket (ditto)
- Sunglasses (think Tom Cruise from Top Gun)
- Hat (if I can find one that fits my massive skull)
Technology Packing List
- 15 inch MacBook Pro Laptop (for work, blogging and keeping in touch)
- 2 x Kindle (erm, for reading books)
- Canon 7D DSLR (erm, for taking photos)
- Camera carry case
- iPhone (for quick internet access, photos, skype and messaging home)
- Spare camera battery
- Rocket blower (to clean lens of dust, sand and other exotic materials)
- Camera tripod & bag (this we debated for ages but decided to go with a small, lightweight, cheap tripod that we can get rid of if we get sick of it!)
- Gorilla Pod (for those kodak moments of the two of us)
- Headphone splitter (to watch DVD’s together on laptop / listen to same music (unlikely))
- 2 x Adapter (to charge all this equipment)
- 2 x Memory card (SanDisk Extreme 20MB/s 8 GB)
- 1 TB External Hard Drive
- Camera, phone, kindle and video battery chargers
Toiletries
- Crystal Deodorant rock (lasts forever apparently)
- Razor (I want to grow a beard but Laura is having none of it)
- Toothbrush
- Toothpaste
- Hair wax (it doesn’t naturally stick up you know)
- Shower Gel
Admin
- Passports (and photocopies)
- Passport photographs (for visas)
- Photocopy of passport
- Credit Card (with free cash withdrawals abroad – main source of cash with direct debit set up to pay off balance each month)
- Credit Card (for purchases and backup)
- Current account (for cash withdrawals with small amount of cash in as a further back up)
- Flight confirmations
- Proof of vaccinations
- Drivers license (for our New Zealand, Australian and North America road trips!)
- 2 x head torch (very necessary for men when you need to go in the dark – think about it)
Useful things
- Silk travel sheet (for dodgy looking mattresses and sheets)
- Duct tape (will fix everything)
- Sunscreen (very important for my pasty skin)
- Clothesline
- Combination lock (rather than a key padlock which we could lose)
- Compression pack (to reduce the size of our clothes in our bags)
- Sleeping mask
- Ear plugs
- Travel pillow
- Small waterproof bag (for electronics)
- Travel towel
- Spotify premium account (£15 a month for a constant stream of new music which we can download onto our laptop/iPhones. Friends can also share playlists with us to keep us up to date)
- Photobucket pro account (£20 a year to store photos and videos)
- Prey for mac (to catch any nasty person who decides to steal our laptop)
- Skype on laptop and iPhones
- Twitter account - Worldly Nomads
- Facebook page – Worldly Nomads
- WhatsApp messenger for iPhone (great app that you can group message friends for free over wifi)
Medicine
- Malarone malaria tablets
- First aid kit
So thats it, all of my worldly posessions for a year! What do you think? Anything we’ve missed or recommendations let us know in the comments below!
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Since you’re not going to be out in the wilds and can purchase stuff along the way, I’d consider these things:
- 3 pair underwear
- 3 pair socks
- drop the shorts and swim suit since your zip-offs work for that
- drop polo shirts and take 2 t-shirts (buy new ones as needed)
- drop 3rd pair of shoes
- a down vest is much lighter and packable than fleece, but more $$$
- since you don’t expect cold rain, a light rain poncho goes over pack and body and weighs much less than raincoat
But, I guess all that doesn’t really matter much when you weigh your electronics.
Adding a bandana could be very useful for many things.
Knives and liquids on planes can still be a pain.
Thanks for the reply mate, much appreciated! I think I will drop a pair of shorts, and a couple of t shirts as well after your comments, I think I will need the three different types of shoes after all but you’re right – compared to the weight of the electronics it doesn’t make too much difference! Still can’t bring myself to drop any of the electronics though!
Been on the road for 14 months while I’m not an expert on Men’s packing here are my tips.
Geez you are bringing a ton of electronics! Careful those things are heavy!
Less socks! You will be living in flip flops for most of southeast asia! Ditch a pair of trousers and a pair of shorts as well as polo shirts and 2 T-shirts you will want singlets for asia as well! It’s hot there you will be dressing like you are at the beach everyday even when in major cities. Ditch one of the headlamp and bring a leatherman instead! I also never leave home without a sarong! Useful in so many ways but I tend to buy one as a souvenir on my first stop. If you are too many for this than bring a bandana!
Thanks for the feedback Alexandra, going to ditch a couple of t shirts and some shorts, and will definitely buy a leatherman as well (heard great things about them). I think a sarong will be pushing it for me, a bandana may be acceptable! Thanks again!
You 1000% need to get yourself a STERIpen. We rock the traveler model, used it EVERYwhere in South America. On our 120 day journey through South America, we guesstimate that we saved approx 240 one liter plastic bottles from entering landfills. Not to mention the $360 (at $1.5 USD for a one liter bottle avg). BOOM!
Great feedback Mike, I hadn’t heard of this before but it looks like an amazing piece of kit! We’re going to be spending a lot of time in South America so this will come in really handy – will try and get one this week before we go!
Everyone else has commented on the contents of your packs, but I just wanted to address the paid Spotify & Photobucket accounts. I made similar purchases before we left thinking I could just listen to music when I got online down under…um, not so much. Broadband speeds and data allowances are a *lot* lower in Australia and New Zealand, so if you were planning to rely on internet cafes or hostel internet access, photo sharing and music streaming will eat them up in no time (if your connection is good enough to support Spotify streaming, which often it won’t be) and get expensive quickly. Even something as simple as having a video ad playing unnoticed in one of your tabs will gobble the megabytes–install an ad blocker on your browser if you haven’t already. I strongly suggest getting a dongle for mobile broadband in each country (NZ Telecom and Telstra are the main providers–check out Indie Travel Podcast and Gran Tourismo for NZ and Aus specific info). I haven’t had to explore mobile broadband options in the US before, but all the major cellular carriers will probably offer them.
Best of luck!
Really great comment Rachel, good to hear of someone who has tried to use these services before! We were wondering about internet speeds, so I guess we’ll just need to see how we get on – we’re hoping we don’t have to stream very often as the paid account allows us to download, so hopefully if we can find decent internent once a month to download new music we should be ok! But you’re right, we’ve heard it can be very patchy internet! I guess we can always cancel if its not working out!
We’ll definitely check out the mobile broadband options, particularly for NZ as a couple of friends did this too. We’ll have a listen to the podcasts you recommend, thanks so much for the advice!
To get you started:
Gran Tourismo’s tips on staying connected downunder and elsewhere, useful tips in comments: http://grantourismotravels.com/2012/05/01/staying-connected-in-australia/
Indie Travel Podcast on travel electronics (check the comments too): http://indietravelpodcast.com/travel-gear/best-electronics-travelling/
Just wanted to say hello – I stumbled upon your blog from Twitter, and noticed that we are also getting married and taking a backpacking honeymoon in 2012, as are you two!! Looking forward to reading about your adventures!
Thanks Christina, good luck on your honeymoon too!
Thanks for keeping this/posting this up mate, I’m planning a solo backpacking trip and this came in handy when starting my packing list!
No problem Ron, glad you found it useful! When are you off?
A separate daypack is always awkward and overall a burden. So many backpacks now come with a detachable bag you can use as a daypack and make it so much easier with only one piece of luggage.
I guess it comes down to personal preference. We prefer to have our daypacks on our front so that we can store and see our valuables in front of us as we walk through crowded areas. If its strapped to the backpack on our packs its more exposed. We also always take our daypacks onto the bus, so that we can keep them close to us and have access to our laptop etc on long journeys. Some people prefer one bag, we like two!