What Mike's Packing
Mike’s Clothes
- 1 belt
- 2 technical t-shirt
- 1 collared shirt
- 1 pair cotton shorts
- 1 pairs of quick dry cargo/hiking pants
- 1 pair technical shorts
- 1 pair of swim shorts
- 5 pair underwear
- 5 pair liner socks
- 3 pairs wool socks
- 1 baseball hat
- 1 pair hiking shoes
- 1 wallet
- 1 Buff
- 1 long underwear top
- 1 long underwear bottom
- 1 sweater
- 1 fleece
- 1 rain jacket
- eye glasses
- prescription sunglasses
- 1 pair North Face hiking shoes
Ashley’s Clothes
What Ashley's Packing
- 5 pairs of liner socks
- 3 pairs wool socks
- 5 pairs non-cotton underwear
- 1 sports bra
- 2 regular bras
- 2 bathing suits (a one-piece and a bikini)
- 2 cotton t-shirts (red & black)
- 1 technical purple t-shirt
- 2 cotton tank tops (navy & turquoise)
- 1 dressier black tank top
- 1 long sleeve technical shirt
- 2 pairs shorts (black & brown)
- 1 pair beige cotton capris
- 1 pair black yoga capris
- 1 pair khaki-coloured “travel” technical pants
- 1 belt
- 1 pair of long underwear
- 1 wool sweater
- 1 micro-fleece
- 1 rain jacket
- buff
- 1 military-style hat
- prescription eye glasses
- sunglasses
- 1 pair North Face hiking shoes
- 1 pair Merrell sandals
Toiletry Bag
Mike's Daybag
- 2 deodorants (1 each)
- camp soap (laundry detergent, shampoo, soap)
- 2 toothbrushes
- tooth paste
- dental floss
- lip gloss
- nail clippers
- shampoo
- hair elastics/elastic headbands
- small hairbrush
- 2 XL travel towels
- mosquito repellent
- 4 bottles of sunscreen, SPF 55 and higher (we stocked up because it’s expensive in Central America!)
- Clear Care contact lens solution (Ashley)
- contacts case (Ashley)
- 12 pairs of contacts
- Refresh contacts eye drops
- lotion
- face moisturizer with SPF
- small compact mirror
- disposable razor (Ashley)
- beard trimmer (Mike)
- Diva Cup (Ashley)
- Q-tips
- microfibre cloths for glasses
Luggage
Ashley's Daybag
- 2 Osprey Kestrel 38L backpacks
- Crumpler 5 Million Dollar Home camera bag (Mike)
- North Face Cadene messenger bag (Ashley)
- 6 Eagle Creek packing cubes (2 large for Mike, 2 large + 2 medium for Ashley)
- 1 Eagle Creek toiletry bag (Mike)
- 3 stuff sacks (2 for Mike, 1 for Ashley)
- 2 mesh bags (for dirty cloths)
- 1 dry bag
- 1 12L PacSafe
First Aid Kit
- 30 days each of Doxycycline (anti-malarial)
- gauze pads (various sizes)
- bandaids (various sizes)
- tape
- moleskin
- Benadryl Itch Relief Cream (for allergies, insect bites, poison ivy, sunburns)
- Gastrolyte (re-hydration salts)
- Immodium (anti-diarrhea meds)
- antihistamines
- emergency blanket
- tincture of iodine
- tweezers
- triangular bandage
- crazy glue
- Ibuprofen
- Extra-Strength Tylenol Ultra (for Ashley’s migraines)
- Extra-Strength Aspirin (for Ashley’s migraines)
- 12 months birth control pills
Shared Electronics
- laptop – Lenovo X201 (12″ laptop)
- Canon Rebel xti dSLR
- Canon 430EX Speedlight flash
- lens – Canon 18-200 f3.5-5.6 IS
- lens – Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6
- lens – Canon 50mm f1.8
- circular polarizer filter
- compact flash – 2-8GB, 1-4GB, 1-2GB
- Nikon Coolpix camera
- 3 SD cards – 4 GB, 2GB, 1GB
- spare batteries 1700mAH CANON NB-2L EQUIVALENT
- spare batteries AA & AAA
- memory card reader
- 2 micro USB cords (memory card reader and portable hard drives)
- headset (for skype calls)
- 1 mini USB cord (kindle)
- 1 iShuffle cord
- 1 iphone sync cable
- 1 AC to USB adapter
- canon camera battery charger
- 1 USB Flash Drive 16 GB
- 2 500GB Portable Hard Drive
- 2 ebook readers (Kindles)
- 2 mP3 players (Sandisc Sansa Clip and iShuffle)
- 1 iPhone 3Gs
Other Shared Items
- 2 money belts
- 2 headlamps
- swiss army knife
- sewing kit
- 2 cotton sleep sacks
- 2 pad locks
- 2 retractable wire locks
- portable water filter
- 2 1L water bottles
- 2 2L platypus
- compass
- harmonica (key of C)
- travel clothesline
- jump rope
- resistance band
- collapsible grocery bag
- spare shoelaces
- 2 notebooks with a pen & a pencil
- 1 watch
- 2 travel guides (Central America & South America)
- 1 paperback book (since Ashley wasn’t finished reading it before we left)
Documentation
- see our previous post about this
Total Weight
All combined, we are carrying 69 lb of weight.
Wow, Ashley after all our lunch talk, this is sure an eye opener for me. (someone who does not travel) You got this thing cased!
I don’t know about having it cased… I think we’re going to start ditching some items pretty soon here. It feels like we’ve got more stuff than we need right now.
Quite the inventory. Good luck!
Hi. If I understand correctly you’ve been traveling for quite a bit since this blog post, have you made any changes? Anything that’s proved to be more important that others? bought anything new along the way?
Yes, we have been on the road, and we have made a few changes. I’ll have to update this post eventually, but off the top of my head here’s a few thoughts.
We sent home the water filter, camera flash, harmonica, and cotton sleep sheets fairly early on, as they were getting no use. We latter purchased silk sleep sheets (which are much smaller) in Europe, as most of the hostels we were staying in required that you brought your own bedding, or paid extra.
We found we couldn’t share our laptop, so Ashley purchased an inexpensive netbook. It eventually broke, and we replaced it with a tablet as we were unable to find a netbook. The netbook was better, as it was both cheaper, and ran more software.
I love my kindle!
We added a portable speaker to our packing list. We don’t use it much in hostels, but when we settle down it’s nice to have. We started with a cheapo $15 pod speaker, and have now upgraded to a fancy UE BOOM. Sounds great.
We’re still carrying the same clothing, toiletries, and backpacks. They work nice, and I’ve long since stopped carrying about wearing the same outfits in all of my photos.
Padlocks get a lot of use, it was nice to have matched keys.
I sent back my 1.4mm SLR lense. My 10-22mm lense broke, and I had to replace it. It’s my favourite.
We also purchased a dvd burner for our computer so we could mail home backups of our photos. Since then the world has moved on a bit, and I suspect our next mail-home backups will be on USB drives.
That’s about all I can think of off of the top of my head. Our backpacks were really awesome. Small enough to use as carryons in places, perfect for day hikes. We did use them for overnight camping, but we had to leave a lot of stuff behind to fit the tent, sleeping bags, and food. If you plan on a lot of camping, I’d get a larger backpack, otherwise, 40L is big enough.