THE BACKPACKING PACKING LIST
WHAT DO YOU PACK FOR A BACKPACKING TRIP OF INDEFINITE LENGTH?
This was the question I posed to myself!
The nature of my trip meant that I didn’t know for sure how long I would be away for or where I might end up and I spent a while trying to decide on what would be essential, regardless of how the trip started.
In this post, I’ll list:
- the items I packed for the trip and…
- why I found them essential
You’ll see that there are some links to some of the items on this page. If, when reading this page, you’re interested in buying any of these items, then please do so from following the links here. This won’t cost you any extra, but I will earn a couple of pence in commission! It all helps to make sure I can travel for longer and keep the dream alive and I can work on trying to get more useful info and travelling tales for you guys!
I appreciate it!
Ok here goes…
MAIN BAG
The first thing that’s key here, of course is the bag itself. I spent several days researching this to make sure I got something that struck a balance of:
- Ease of access
- Just enough space, but not too much so that you’re overburdened and end up bringing unnecessary items!
I settled on the Osprey Farpoint 70. This seemed to have everything:
- A 55 litre main bag and detachable 15 litre day bag
- Could be opened like a suitcase, making it easy to access things from anywhere in the bag
- Comfortable to carry
- Rucksack straps which could be zipped away for easy stowing as hold luggage
- Sturdy build quiality
- Lots of useful compartments, including a laptop sleeve in the day bag
PACKING THE MAIN BAG
Dry bag
Heading out for a day when it is or might be raining? Something like that linked above could be a life saver for taking belongings with you without risk of them getting wet!
Packing Cubes
These were a revelation. I bought the Amazon branded ones in different sizes and split up my clothes into separate cubes. This made it so much easier to pack and unpack in a hurry, keep things organised and know where everything was.
Clothes
Heading initially to a warm climate, I didn’t want to overpack and decided that if I ended up somewhere cool I would buy extras as I went along. Initially I packed the following:
- 7 t-shirts
- 2 shirts
- 1 pair jeans
- 1 hoodie
- 1 pair of swim shorts
- 2 pairs of cargo shorts
- 7 days worth of underwear
First Aid / Toiletries / Prescription medications
To try and keep all this together as one and prevent any leakages, I bought a 5 litre plastic container to store them. The one linked above I can highly recommend.
Mosquito repellant
Going out to Asia, and pretty much any warm climate for that matter, meant mosquitos! If you want to keep these blighters at bay, then it’s best to get a repellant with a high level of deet. This one has a level of 97% and is probably the best stuff out there. Slap this on and they won’t come anywhere near you.
Running shoes
I have high hopes of exercising while out on my travels. Don’t we all. If nothing else, these would be comfortable for walking around.
Flip flops
Obvious really
Paper map of Southeast Asia
Always handy to have a paper map if you end up off the beaten track with no wifi or phone signal. Old skool, but potentially a life saver.
Microfibre towel
Many hostels don’t provide towels and you don’t want to take up too much space in your backpack with a towel. A good microfibre towel is the best way to go. As absorbent as a bath sheet, but a fraction of the size. Easy to wash and quick to dry too,
Silk sleeping bag liner
If ever you end up staying in a place where the bedding isn’t quite up to scratch or there’s bugs around, you’ll want one of these. Totally impenetrable to bed bugs to ensure the best sleep possible. Make sure it’s 100% silk though, like the one linked here.
Travel tripod
If you’re into photography (and if you’re a traveller, you should be, as there’s so much beauty to capture), pick up a travel tripod, something like that linked above.
Pacsafe 12L travel safe
An amazing travel companion for peace of mind. This thing is seriously heavy duty, for it’s weight and will prevent all but the most tooled up and patient thief. If you use this to store your valuables if there’s no safe available and attach it to something fixed, this will eliminate the chance of opportunistic theft. Get one.
PACKING THE DAY BAG
In the day bag I packed mainly the tech equipment that I’d be taking on the road. As I was going to be needing to update this site, it was essential that I had the necessary tools for capturing and editing photographs and video and for writing content.
This is what I chose to take:
Camera
I’d suggest taking a DSLR with you, if you want to capture your travels in the best possible way. If you’re packing really light you may want to go for a compact, or simply rely on your phone, but for me I needed the flexibility of a DSLR. I have a Nikon D5200, which is smaller than a full frame SLR, but is still capable of capturing some amazing images and is more compact. There is a later model now available – the D5300 – which I’d certainly recommend. It’s specs as a camera are fantastic and it is probably the best in its class at shooting video also.
I also took along with me a 35mm fixed lens. If you have a Nikon camera with an APS-C sensor, like that mentioned above, then this is THE LENS YOU NEED. Get yourself one of these and leave it on your camera for as long as possible. It will improve your photography no end!!
Camera USB battery charger and spare SLR batteries
To be able to easily charge the batteries for the camera on the road, I needed USB compatibility, so I picked up one of these. This allows you to charge multiple batteries at once, so has proved incredibly helpful in ensuring I’m never caught in a scenario where I don’t have power for my camera.
I also picked up some spare batteries. These aren’t Nikon branded, but they’re much cheaper, fantastic quality and I think they actually last longer than the standard Nikon ones!
GoPro
To ensure I could capture video in pretty much any scenario, I brought a GoPro camera with me. This is small, compact, easy to use and can be used underwater. Perfect for travelling.
GoPro battery charger
I also bought some additional batteries for the GoPro, as they only tend to last ~1.5 hour of constant use. This USB charging station and 3 replacement batteries was less than £20. Incredible value.
Note – the above link is for batteries for the GoPro Hero 4. The GoPro Hero 5 uses a different battery format, but here’s a good alternative which is also much cheaper than the standard GoPro batteries.
Kindle
We all know that books are heavy. An e-reader, such as a Kindle is a must-have on the road.
Bluetooth Earphones
I was absolutely blown away by these things. Hands free calling and full control of your mobile for playing music with great sound and battery life at incredible value. I cannot fault them. A revelation!
External Hard Drive
If you’re like me and you’re going to be capturing a lot of photo and video, then this is an essential part of the kit list. I picked up this 1TB hard drive from Toshiba. It’s sturdy, fast and reliable. You may also want to check out some cloud storage as well, but there’s not always wifi available on the road and you’ll want to be able to access things on the go without being dependent on this and you won’t want to fill up your laptop’s hard-drive!
Flash drive
If you don’t need as much storage as 1TB then it’s worth picking up a small low-profile Flash drive, such as this. This plugs straight into a USB slot and you wouldn’t even know it’s there. Quick file transfer and very reliable.
Beard Trimmer
For quick grooming on the go, get your hands on something like this.
External chargers
Everyone needs power on the go, for mobile phones, tablets, cameras etc. This thing has an incredible amount of capacity and will keep you going all week, so no need to worry about how remote you’re going, you can rest assured you’ll have all the charging power you need.
If that is more than you need, then perhaps a smaller more portable charger for day to day use, such as this.
Macbook Pro
I picked up this 13″ Macbook Pro with retina display. It’s the 2015 model and in my mind, the best laptop out there and much better than this year’s model, which has done away with the magsafe charger, USB ports and SD card slot. No excuses for that, Apple.
Universal Plug adaptor
Don’t know where you’re going to end up in the world? You’ll need one of these. This covers all of your compatibility needs and has 2 USB ports for charging 2 other devices while plugging in another. All from one socket, which are very limited in shared dorm rooms!
Journal
Sometimes you’ll want to go old skool and keep a paper journal for jotting down any thoughts the moment inspiration strikes. For me I keep a record of my key dice decisions.
