As most of you ladies know, it’s hard to pack for a weekend, let alone a year! After 12 months of travel one of the questions we’re asked most is, “what do you pack?” It was a lot of trial and error, packing and unpacking, and leaving many clothes behind. The main thing about traveling with a backpack is that you learn how little you actually need. I’ve prepared everything in this travel gear guide.
During the first month, both of us left all sorts of clothes and unnecessary travel gear behind. Wedges? Goodbye. Unnecessary outfit changes? Out the window. While we’ve purchased a few items while traveling, most of our items were with us from the beginning. If you’re looking to take a year long journey or even a week long trip. Here’s our travel gear guide.
Packing Tips
You don’t need everything you’re packing. Unless you’ve scrupulously planned out every day of your trip, there’s a very good chance that you are packing too much.
Pack similar colors and stay away from patterns. All of my clothes match my neutral shoes. Try to stay either in the brown family or black family when choosing clothes.
Synthetics.
Synthetic clothes are your friends. Most of what I wear is synthetic! Besides being some of the most comfortable clothes, synthetics make it much easier to wash your clothes. Synthetics dry quickly and can work for many different occasions. Synthetics also keep you dry in humid weather. Whether hiking Corcovado in the killer Brazilian heat or walking the streets if Florence in Italy, synthetic tops are a life saver in the humidity. The last benefit of synthetic shirts is they don’t wrinkle. If you’re moving from place to place, there’s nothing more embarrassing than walking into dinner or meeting a new group of friends with a unkempt, wrinkly outfit. Do yourself a favor and buy a few synthetic tops for your trip.
Travel Gear
This travel gear list doesn’t include every single item in my bag but, it includes all the essential travel gear accessories I can’t live without.
35L Backpack
Electronics Backpack
Travel Jacket
Long Sleeve Synthetic Shirt
Travel Laundry Soap
Bug Spray Wipes
Power Adapter
Travel Extension Cord
Travel Clothing
Most people find it difficult to limit the amount of clothes they pack for traveling. Once you do, you’ll find it difficult to pack any extra clothes.
Sneakers
5 Pairs of Socks
7 pairs of underwear
2 pair of shorts
Hiking Shoes
Sandals
Shirts
1 Nice Tank
Travel Pants
Jeans (stretchy)
Capris
2 Workout Tanks
Scarf
Compression Socks
2 Sports Bras
Hat
Travel Photography Gear
Scott travels with most of the camera equipment, but I still need to keep editing equipment and general electronics on me.
Apple Macbook Pro 13″
GoPro underwater Camera
Wireless Lapel Mic
iPhone 6s Plus
Excellent post, thanks for your cool tips. I agree with you it’s so hard task to pack for a weekend especially for long time travelling .during our first journey with my husband to Argentina for a couple of week .both of us left some important document in our home .we took many unnecessary things with us .my husband became angry with me because our travel bag became full of many unnecessary things.
Antonina,
Thanks for writing! Isn’t it funny how much we THINK we need before leaving for a trip? Once we get to our destination, we realize how little we need and that we usually end up wearing the same clothes all the time anyway. A great tip for you would be to make copies of all of your important documents and put them on google drive or a cloud based software so that you can access your documents on the road without carrying heavy papers.