Before embarking on our journey around the world, one of the major questions we fielded from friends and family was some variation of “how are you going to pack everything you need for a whole year?” As of this writing we’ve officially hit the 6-month mark of our trip (!!), so it’s a great time to share our inventory.
Broadly, we are carrying all our possessions within 2 large backpacks, one small backpack (Clint), and one shoulder pack (Kaitlin). Kaitlin is also using a packable backpack as an airplane carry-on, but this stuffs into her large pack when not in use. Per airport scales, when full the large packs are about 17 kg (37 lb, Clint) and 15 kg (33 lb, Kaitlin) respectively. The below is all our bags, fully packed:
Initial Packing
In addition to deliberately picking and choosing what to pack, we had to be quite deliberate about how we packed. Nylon packable storage cubes were instrumental here – the below photographs show of all Clint’s clothes outside of, and then packed into cubes:
And the same for Kaitlin’s clothes:
As the comparisons make clear, the packing cubes are very helpful in getting the overall bulk of our clothes compressed down. This is very helpful when cramming things into a backpack, with the additional benefit of keeping everything organized outside our packs as well.
Moving on – this is all of Clint’s gear laid out (minus the plant):
Didn’t get the same shot with all Kaitlin’s gear, but she did capture each small bag next to all items carried within each. Again, everything in the larger (Deuter) bag is packed into her main pack when we aren’t flying, including the bag itself which compresses down to about fist-sized.
Clint was analytical enough to take a full inventory as we geared up to depart – this is not completely exhaustive (for example, we didn’t itemize out our toiletries) but is fairly comprehensive of what we’re carrying. So, if you’ve ever wondered just exactly what we’ve been carrying on our backs through the world all year, eat your heart out:
Adding & Subtracting On The Road:
The above was our inventory at the outset; however it is no longer exactly accurate. At the 6 month mark, several things have changed. Mainly on the clothing front – we are down 1 bra (broken), 1 pair of socks (lost), 2 pairs of sandals (broken/too heavy & caused blisters), 1 pair of gym shorts (mailed home), 1 short-sleeve & 1 long-sleeve button up, 2 t-shirts, 1 pair of pants, and 1 tank top (donated). We’ve also bought 1 pair of pants, a pair of new flip-flops each, 1 short-sleeve button up, 1 tank top, 1 hoodie, and a light rain jacket each. Finally, while in New Zealand we bought and later discarded a cheap pair of flip flops to use in camper-park showers.
On the gear side we’ve acquired 1 small flashlight, given away one of our waterproof phone carriers, and ditched the collapsible water bottle (too small, also more convenient just to buy/refill normal bottles of water). Clint’s electric beard trimmer also broke, and were replaced by a pair of safety scissors. Finally, we purchased a small tube of superglue that’s come in handy way more than we originally thought it would.
Now – this doesn’t exactly count as “inventory” per se, but we did mail home a small box full of acquired trinkets one time so far. We’ve been collecting coasters whenever we can, and have been given some free gifts (wine carrier, beer glass, etc.) as we travel – to avoid either getting overburdened or throwing these things away, we shipped out a 1kg box right before leaving New Zealand. We’ve also been buying and mailing postcards throughout the trip!
Lessons Learned (So Far)
By no means are we packing experts at this point, but after 6 months on the road we’ve picked up a few valuable lessons from our experience. Hopefully you can use these for guidance on your next international trip!
- Over-packing clothing is much more of a problem than under-packing. You can always find/purchase clothing easily if you forget something, and in large parts of the world clothes are quite inexpensive. On the flip side, you may be forced to either pay extra baggage fees or discard some existing clothes if you start your trip packed to the gills. We deliberately packed some items with the intention of donating along the way, but have definitely needed to make some tough choices on this front so far.
- A compact, multi-outlet power strip is your friend internationally. We’ve been using this cube from Anker our whole trip, and it’s been quite useful. Instead of either purchasing multiple power adapters and/or constantly swapping out what needs charging, you can just plug the strip into a single outlet, and charge all of your devices through the strip. This also comes in handy when outlets aren’t conveniently located in a room.
- Talked a bit about these above, but we can’t stress enough that packing cubes are a very cheap and very effective way to organize/compress your packed clothing. Putting everything into the same general “shape” makes packing a bag/suitcase much easier, and on the other end you can just “unpack” from the cubes directly instead of rifling through your bag for each item.
- Shoe bags are also very cheap and very effective. You can pack shoes without worrying about getting the rest of your clothes dirty with these bags, and they don’t noticeably add any extra size or weight to your luggage.
- Aim low on the weight when you’re checking a bag. So far the most common checked bag weight limit is 20 kg (~44 lbs), but we did come across one flight with a limit of 15 kg (~33 lbs) and had to pay a fee. Sub-tip, try leave some extra room in your carry-on so you can lower your checked bag weight by transferring some things if needed – all posted carry on limits we’ve seen are 7kg (~15 lbs) but not once have we seen a carry on bag actually get weighed.
- (Backpacker Specific) – Keep rain gear (your coat, rain cover for the pack) in one of your packs easily accessible compartments. Sometimes rain comes out of nowhere, and sometimes you leave one place in sunshine to arrive when it is raining. Much less of an issue when you can quickly grab the right gear instead of opening up/digging through the whole pack.
- (Backpacker Specific) – Airport bag covers are very highly recommended, and you should put them on as soon as feasible. These covers protect the straps/buckles of your pack from catching on things and taking damage while serving as checked luggage.
- So far we’ve lost one buckle on Clint’s pack when we had it on a push-cart in the airport – a strap dragged behind and got stepped on, snapping the buckle. Fortunately buckles can be replaced (for as low as $0.15 USD, thanks Thailand!), but if we’d put the pack into its airport bag sooner (i.e., before we got into the cab to the airport in the first place) we would’ve avoided the mishap altogether.
We are learning things as we go, so we may learn some more tips and the inventory may change further moving forward. We’ll definitely continue buying/donating clothes along the way – especially in Southeast Asia, clothing is incredibly inexpensive and is available to purchase everywhere. We may ditch/mail home some more gear (particularly we haven’t really used the camelbak water bottles much, we have several extra charging plugs/cords, and a few GoPro accessories haven’t even been used yet) and/or acquire new gear on the road as well. Only time will tell!
Hopefully this has been an illuminating look into how we’re living on the road – if you’ve got any more questions about what we packed or the things we’ve learned so far, just contact us!
