What are we taking?

Preparations
South America
North America
Asia
Africa
Europe
Returning home

Why go?
Where do you start?
Weather
What are we taking?
The send-off
Quirky places

What are we taking?

"He who would travel happily must travel light."

Antoine de Saint Exupéry

The most often repeated packing advice is to list what you think you're going to need, ditch half of it and then repack! In our case, we'll probably have to repeat that process a couple of times to arrive at a manageable pack size! Ness on the clothes front, Stef on the Useful Things front. On past trips we have gradually refined our packing lists but we're still a along way from being minimalist travellers.

To Argentina we took our wheelie-trolleys, intrepid world travellers that we are! We saw sense the next year, and for Chile we just had a large bag each, no wheels but no shoulder straps either, and very easy to break into (luckily that didn't happen to us). For India we bought sturdier versions of the bags, with wheels and split into two large compartments, but soon found out that they were still difficult to manage. For the world trip we have opted for MacPac backpacks.

And this went into it:

Note: Several months into the trip we have managed to reduce our packs considerably. Some stuff we simply never even needed and was just taking up space & weight, other stuff (hats, gloves, thermals) we mailed home as we don't expect to need it again but it certainly was handy when we did need it!

This was the first pass list:

Clothes

Long-sleeved shirts (2), short-sleeved shirts (2), t-shirts (2)

Long trousers (2)

Convertible trousers

Fleece

Waterproof jacket

Sturdy shoes, sandals

Swimming trunks

Thermal underwear

Underpants (6)

Socks (6)

Accessories

Digital camera x 2, with charger & cable

Mobile phone, with charger

Travel laptop, with charger & modem cable

Universal electricity adaptor

Binoculars

Handheld GPS

Notebooks and pens

Universal "point it" dictionary

Lonely Planet guidebooks for the first countries

Documents and Money

Passports

Vaccinations booklet

Insurance

Flight tickets

Credit cards

Currency (dollars)

Travellers cheques

Driving licences (+ international)

Membership cards (YHA)

Maps

Book (keep swapping as we go along)

Miscellaneous

Toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, razor and spare blades, shaving brush, floss, deodorant, after-shave, soap, mirror)

Medical kit

Ear plugs

Mosquito repellent

Sun-block

Aspirines

Carabiners

Water bottle

Pocket knife

Torch

Compact sleeping bags

Sleeping bag liners

Mosquito net & hanging kit

Travel pillow case

Universal sink plug

Gaffa tape

String

Some of the things in the list might seem absurd and we have no doubt left out some useful ones. As we said, it's a first pass. The less we take, the better, but it's still an art to reduce it down to the bare bones and we're a long way from that! On the other hand we are at least sensible enough not to be taking things like the hair-straighteners and blow-dryer as Nessie's hairdresser seemed to think!

For a bit of a laugh, have a look at the Vuitton site and have a go at The Art of Packing. Don't forget to insert some tissue paper when folding that casual crew-neck cashmere pullover now...

Of more practical use is the advice on One Bag.

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