How to pack like a man..

O.K. a better title might be – How to pack for a 6 month trip and still get to carry your bag on a plane. Our travels are usually long trips of 3-6 month , often in South America, Europe or Asia and Australasia. One of our issues main is packing for the wide variety of climates and terrain we will encounter – minus 20c on the Bolivian altiplano, to 30c and high humidity on the Caribbean beaches of Colombia. A nice problem to have, but somewhat challenging when everything has to fit in a 40 litre backpack measuring 56cm x 45cm x 25cm. Over the years we have made most of the packing mistakes possible and have hopefully learnt Our lessons. This is how we pack.

Air Travel

One would have thought that by now, airlines would have got there act together and standardised baggage limits. Sadly no..

British Airways  very generously, allow two carry-on bags each weighing no more than 23kg! I don’t think I have ever checked in that amount of luggage, let alone carried it on board!).  Most other airlines permit allow somewhere between 5 and 10 kg carry. Our bags usually weigh in at around 10kg.

We always check in online and print our boarding passes not only does this save time but by bypassing the check-in desk we avoid the  risk of being stopped and our bags weighed and being forced to check them. At the boarding gate we just pretend our bags were as light as a feather and generally saunter through. In over 50 flights over the last couple of years we haven’t been asked to check in our bags once.

Bags

My trusty Lowe Alpine TT40 Carry-on finally gave up after ten years of faithful service. This has now been replaced with an Osprey Farpoint 40. In addition to my main bag I also take a Muji day pack, ultra light and made out of the same stuff as hang-gliders, is incredibly tough. Fits into a pocket when not in use. A more recent addition is a “Healthy Back Bag (the orange one below). How heathy it is for my back remains to be seen!

The three bags

 

Clothes

These clearly make up the biggest volume of stuff in my bag and include:

• Rohan lightweight hiking trousers (pants if you are American!)
• Rohan travel chinos ( for the rare occasions i want/ need to be smart!)
• Rab travel jeans  (best, most comfortable jeans ever!)
• Rohan hiking shorts
• Pair swim shorts
• Tee shirts synthetic and quick drying(x3)
• 1 long sleeve shirts
• Merino long sleeve base layer (x2)
• Pair merino long pants
• Icebreaker merino mid-weight fleece
• Rab Spark waterproof jacket – packs really small, completely wind and waterproof
• Linen jacket. Always worn at check in for international flights in the hope of getting an upgrade!
• 5 pairs of underpants ( 1 pair merino!)
• 4 pairs of socks ( yet again, merino!)

Carolyn discovered merino years ago. I only started using it a couple of years ago in New Zealand. Incredible stuff, amazingly warm, very light weight. A little mentioned attribute are its’ “no stink” properties – basically you can wear it for a week and it still smells as fresh as a daisy! What I have been missing! Should have listened to my wife years ago! Merino base layers are very thin so in ultra cold places I just wear more of them.

To keep things neat and tidy in our bags, I use 2 Osprey 8 litre lightweight compression bags and a few Muji lightweight nylon bags to keep the small stuff like socks, adaptors and toiletries organised.

Footwear

The correct footwear is essential. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just comfortable, hard wearing and have plenty of grip. I confess to being a Keens junkie and have been wearing their boots, shoes and sandals for years. My main footwear is a pair of Keen Targhee 2 hiking shoes:

For hotter weather and on the coast these are supplemented by a pair of Keen Newport H2 sandals. I also have a pair of Keen boots but rarely use them.

 

Toiletries and first aid

We limit what we take because most it all has to fit into small plastic bags to go through airport security. Most stuff is readily available in supermarkets and shops the world over so it is easy to buy on arrival. However I do start off with a basic stash;

1 razor plus 5 blades (1 blade per month- can’t be bothered to shave every day)
1 set of small hair clippers
1 tube shave cream
1 tube aftershave balm
1 tube of favourite toothpaste
1 anti perspirant
1 50ml bottle of 100% deet mozzie repellent ( dilute to use)
1 100ml bottle of Riemann P20 sunscreen – fantastic stuff. Apply once and lasts all day. Water resistant too.
Eyedrops for the plane
Antihistamine tablets and cream for bites.
Antiseptic

Sundry bits and pieces

These make all the difference on a long trip.

• Buff – a stretchy tube which can be used as a hat, face mask, eye shade, scarf hair band ( not that I have any hair!) and a lot, lot more..
• Kramar – a Cambodian cotton sarong which doubles as a scarf, towel, pillow, even a bed sheet at times -we have stayed in some rough places over the years!
• Rayban Aviator sunglasses – essential, especially at high altitude makes the sunlight and glare incredibly intense. I like this style mainly because they are big and cut out virtually all the glare.
• Reading glasses – it’s an age thing!
• A piece of string – mainly used as a washing line
• Gaffa Tape – incredibly useful for all sorts of repairs.

Technology

• iPad Air 2 – couldn’t travel without it! Used for:
  FaceTiming family and friends
  booking transport and accommodation
  backing up photos to iCloud whilst on the road, online
  banking
• I also use a Netshade VPN app which provides additional online security and allows me to stream and download TV from the BBC etc. when out of the U.K. Essential security for online banking and emails on non-secure wifi networks.

• Sony Soundcube. A small, portable Bluetooth speaker that enhances entertainment experience no end when listening to music or watching films.
• Bose earbuds. Not noise cancelling but they fit so well they have virtually the same effect. Great for listening to music on planes and buses.
• iPhone 5 S –  mainly used for navigation using downloaded googlemaps. So old, no one would want to steal it!
• For taking photographs I gave up on a DSLR years ago and use my Panasonic Lumix TZ70. It does everything I want it to and a lot more besides. Most importantly, it slips into a pocket. As a friend, a world renowned photographer once told me, “The best camera is the one you have with you”
• an abundance of chargers and leads is required for all of this stuff. Why can’t electronics manufacturers standardise these things? Sure it can’t be that difficult.
• a multi-country travel adapter. Covers any country and has 4 USB ports to allow multiple devices to be charged at the same time

Books

I find guidebooks becoming of less use as the years go by but still buy them as a “comfort blanket” . I usually prefer Rough Guides to Lonely Planet but find a lot depends on the author. Most information is readily available online for most regions.

We are both avid readers and usually but a couple of 50p paperbacks from our local library which we will swap along the way. Amazing how many books we get through and how many new authors we discover on a long trip. Also incredible to find out how many books John Grisham has actually written!

Games

We used to take a travel Scrabble with us on every trip but, after being consistently beaten, year after year, by my wife, it is staying behind. There is only so much humiliation a man can take.

Our entertainment for this trip consists of:

A pack of cards and a cribbage board – we were taught to play by Carolyn’s parents. We assumed it was just an English pub game but it seems to be popular with many nationalities – especially Canadians for some reason?

Start playing any of these games in a bar or hostel and it is not long before the locals or other travellers ask you what you are doing and want to join in.

There are risks inherent in playing cards though. Playing crib at a street side bar in Saigon, Vietnam, last year we were warned by the owner to put it away before the police saw us or we would be arrested. Oops!

Money

We usually take cash of a few hundred £s, €s or US $ ( depending on where we have been)  as an emergency reserve – secreted in several different places. Rarely used.

Until recently we have mostly used travel debit cards from  www.fairfx.com, denominated in £, € & $. 

I top up the cards online as and when required. The cards can be used just like a normal debit card in ATMs or anywhere that has a card machine like restaurants and hotels.

To an extent these have been superseded by a Barclaycard Platinum Card. Even though it is a credit card, no interest is charged on ATM withdrawals and there are no fx charges.

Security

Common sense and a innate tendency to trust no one, are the best ways to stay safe on the road! The various travel websites like Tripadvisor are a good starting point. But the source I rely on most is https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice.

We take a couple of combination padlocks to secure our bags. These double up as cable locks so we can lock our bags to a bed in a room, or a seat on buses etc.

Small cable ties are useful for the rare occasions we do have to put our bags into the hold of a bus or plane and are used in addition to padlocks.

Copies of all our important documents and contact details are scanned and emailed to ourselves in draft form.

I keep copies of our passports in my wallet and use these to check in to accommodation rather than hand over our actual passports.

We never travel without comprehensive travel insurance which covers us for medical treatment, lost bags, delays, death, injury, repatriation etc. In fact just about anything you can think of, including getting our camera stolen in a bus station in Ecuador.

So there we have it. Have I forgotten anything? Almost certainly, but one thing I have learned over the years we have been travelling is that you can pretty much buy anything anywhere these days.

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