back­pak­ers, back­packs in use

Back­pack­ing can be sum­ma­rized as trav­el­ing made sim­ple. Yet some sort of plan­ning should always be done, and what to carry is one of the most impor­tant deci­sions you will come across. In this sec­tion I’m going to list a few of the things you want to make sure you have with you for your trip, hope­fully right from the begin­ning. I will explain why they are needed, although some of the items are pretty obvi­ous.

• 1 roll of toi­let paper. When you carry one of these you’re actu­ally car­ry­ing Kleenex, nap­kins, a towel, a plate, a note­book, band aids, a shoe cleaner, ear plus, nose plugs, etc…and toi­let paper!! If this is your first trip you will find out how many pub­lic toi­lets in the world don’t have it!

• See point num­ber 1. I can’t insist enough.

• Swiss army knife. Make sure you keep it in a pocket of your main back­pack when about to fly– I once for­got it in the day­pack and the looks of the peo­ple wait­ing in line when see­ing that police offi­cers were tak­ing a knife out of a back­pack in the x-ray machine was price­less! They were kind enough how­ever to give me an enve­lope to check it in as another piece of lug­gage, but this would never hap­pen today.

• First aid kit and med­i­cines. This can be quite per­sonal, but I always carry some alco­hol, proper band-aids, antibi­otics (pills and cream), aspirin, malaria pills if needed and an anti-diarrheic of your choice.

• Money belt. I have never had any safety issues (have I been lucky?) but money belts can be quite use­ful any­how. Divide your money in 2 or 3 places and carry part of it in your belt. You will carry part of the money with you, it will be handy if needed, and in a place where a pos­si­ble thief will not con­sider check­ing.  They are cheap (around 13$), usu­ally have at least 2 pock­ets, a large one for pass­port and tick­ets, the other for money, and are quite com­fort­able. I have the Eagle Creek model like the one in the pic­ture, which is soft and comfy, but there are many like this one. Rick Steve’s Silk Mon­ey­belt is made of silk, has a mois­ture bar­rier liner in the main pocket and has received a lot of good reviews too.

• Zip­per locks. Can be used when not fly­ing in the USA but should be used when­ever leav­ing your stuff in your room and you are not there. Lock­ing your main back­pack when trav­el­ing by bus can also be a good idea, although I’ll admit a bit of a nuisance.

• A rain cover for your back­pack. Unless you are going to spend time in the desert or some­place you are sure it will not rain, get one. And even then, I would get one to keep the sand out if it gets too windy. Back­packs are quite water­proof, but not com­pletely if you’re caught in a down­pour, and once your clothes are wet it will take ages for them to dry if you’re in a trop­i­cal climate.

• A small flash­light- it will be much eas­ier to find the 20000 kip bill you dropped and save you from get­ting on your fours while pat­ting the mud in the dark.

• A few plas­tic bags. You can iso­late your smelly used clothes, keep your dirty boots off your clothes, carry food…don’t worry, you will find plenty of uses.

• Did I men­tion a roll of toi­let paper?

Wait a sec­ond, there are only 8 items in this list! True! This makes your back­pack lighter so you should be pleased. Review­ing all the trips I’ve done these are the items that con­stantly find their way into my back­pack and I believe every­one should take.

All my stuff fits eas­ily in my Eagle Creek backpack

Other things you should consider

The fol­low­ing are a few items that you might want to give a thought or two on. Bring­ing them with you or not will very likely depend on where you’re going, why and what you are going there for, what the weather will be like, for how long, expected avail­abil­ity of any­thing you might need and the cost, the kinds of places you expect to sleep in (some­times I sleep under the stars at a beach, oth­ers I get shel­ter), and so on.

• When on a surf trip (or plan­ning on spend­ing a lot of time at a beach) and on a tight bud­get I always take 2 tow­els. Why?  A towel is not only that, a towel, but can be used as a blan­ket or pil­low if folded prop­erly. I do the lat­ter often, even if some­times I do have a pil­low already. If I have been using my towel at the beach to dry myself out, or after a shower, odds are that by the sec­ond day it is pretty smelly because of humid­ity. For­tu­nately I have the other to use as men­tioned. It can also hap­pen that you have been using the towel as sup­posed to for many days with not a chance of wash­ing or dry­ing it, which means that it will be too damp to use a few days later.

• Sil­i­con earplugs. These are part of my pre­vi­ous list, but I can under­stand that a few lucky folks might not need them. How­ever, noisy hos­tel dorm rooms or 5 am wake up calls by healthy roost­ers are not my idea of a princess wor­thy rest.

• A rain­coat. Unless you’re going to the desert, get some­thing that will keep you dry, whether it’s a rain­coat, a water­proof pon­cho, or a large plas­tic trash bag. Make sure though that a light driz­zle is not enough to make it useless.

• Travel guides. You can cer­tailny find your way around by ask­ing, but they do make life eas­ier and com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers will not cause a headache. There are many out there such as Let’s Go, Frommer’s, Fodor’s that are very good, but I pre­fer Lonely Planet by far because of their sim­ple for­mat and good maps. Make sure though that the one you choose is not over 2 years old because prices and infor­ma­tion change quickly.

• If you’re trav­el­ling to a trop­i­cal des­ti­na­tion I strongly sug­gest mos­quito repel­lent with DEET as an active ingre­dent for best results.

• Trav­eller checks. I have car­ried these a few times and even used them even­tu­ally, but ATMs are so wide­spread nowa­days that they are not as use­ful as they used to be. And if there’s not ATM avail­able (can be quite com­mon as well depend­ing on where you are) odds are that the busi­ness you’re in doesn’t even know what a trav­eller check is. If you want to cash it in the local bank you will prob­a­bly be able to use your credit or debit card any­how. At least give it a thought or two.

There you go! This is a com­pre­hen­sive list of the items that con­sis­tently find their way into my back­pack and have always used them all very often or at least often. There might be oth­ers that are impor­tant but not manda­tory, like a book, pen and paper or oth­ers of the sort, but truth is that every­one can sur­vive with­out them for at least a few days-or weeks.

Did you find this list use­ful? Are there other items I have not listed that you always carry? What are they? Please share them with us, and don’t for­get to share this post too!