What’s in the backpack?

Deciding what would be necessary to take on a one year backpacking trip around the world was a struggle for us.  Every item needed to have more than one purpose.  A dress needed to serve as a long shirt to cover the butt in conservative countries.  Shampoo needed to serve as hair and body wash as well as dish soap.  Our bowls for eating needed to serve as cups for drinking.  You get the idea, with every item we packed it needed to be a superpower multi-tool.

We started building our packing list by reading through other travellers blogs, and specifically travelling couples.  Why pack two of something when we could share?  It took us about a month to consolidate a list that we thought would be a good starting point but that list ended up being to large and our packs were too heavy.  That’s when we started rethinking every choice we made.

Do we really need a tent and camping gear? Yes! We never wanted to say no to the opportunity to sleep outdoors or camp.  We didn’t want to feel stressed that we didn’t have a place to lay our head.  A tent served as protection for us from weather and bugs that we weren’t familiar with and our camping gear allowed us to spend more time in nature.  But we really wanted to keep our camping gear minimal and since we were planning to stay in warmer climates we didn’t bring sleeping bags or sleeping mats.

Do we need to bring iPhones, iPads and laptops? Yes and no! We were disconnecting our phones so they were useless in that sense, however it was convenient for travel and to get wifi connections for planning.  The iPad was what we were going to use to back up photos and work on our blog, but we soon realized that a laptop was necessary to work on that so we purchased a cheap, lightweight one in Thailand.  In the future we would probably not bring a iPad unless its main use is to act as an e-reader.

Those are only a couple of the discussions that we had to have among many others, but they helped us decide what we wanted from the trip and what we thought we needed to have a happy and comfortable year away from “the comforts of home.”

So here is our up-to-date packing list, it’s changing every week as we adapt to new countries and climates as well as swap fun stuff with other globetrotters.

Clothes in compression sacks

• Rain Jacket (x2)
• Each of us have: pants (x3), shorts (x3), sweater (x1),long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts/tank tops, socks (x4), underwear (x10), bathing suit (x2), hat (x1)
• Her extras: Arcteryx base layer jacket, dresses that also serve as long shirts (x3), bra/sportsbra (x3), scarf (x1), purse (x1)
• Winter clothing/snowboarding equipment (sent home in March from Japan)

Shoes for each of us

• Flip flops
• Runners
• Flats

Osprey Backpack 48L

Osprey Backpack 60+5L expandable

• Waterproof backpack cover (x2)

Camping gear

• 3-person tent
• Sleeping bag liner
• Sleeping mat (purchased in Poland)
• Blanket (purchased in Poland)
• Pocket pilot cooking stove
• Gas for stove
• Metal cooking rack
• Pot set with four bowls
• Sporks x3
• Knife (lost in Poland in August)
• Headlamp x2 (lost in Poland in August)
• Flashlight
• Lighters
• Fire starter: Vaseline & cotton balls (purchased in Thailand)
• Tarp (purchased in Thailand)
• Purifying water tablets

Electronics

• iPhones (x2)
• iPad
• Laptop (purchased in Thailand)
• Canon point & shoot powershot camera
• Canon 70D DSLR camera & microphone
• GoPro Hero3 (send home in October from Germany)
• Earphones (x2)

Extras

• Tea bags
• Microfiber towels (x3)
• Emergency food
• Toilet Paper
• First aid kit
• Journal (x2)
• Notebook & pens
• Reading books
• Personal hygiene products in a large Ziploc bag
• Whittling knife
• Harmonica
• Coloring books & crayons (purchased in Turkey)
• Power adapter
• Extension cord (sent home in March)
• Memory cards, USB sticks
• Camera bag
• Backpack
• Waterproof iPhone case
• Soccer ball & pump
• Settlers of Catan travel game & cards

Feel free to share and comment on other things that are must needs for a backpacking trip around the world!  Something that’s really important to one person may not be as necessary for another but it’s always great to collaborate.