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Packing for a year

Sat, 09/08/2007 - 07:11 — nicole

"How do you pack for a year-long trip?"

We heard this question often as we were preparing for this trip, and frankly didn't have a good answer. We wanted to travel light, but balancing this against the need to cover a variety of climates and activities, while trying to guess what would be available along the way, was no mean feat. Moreover, our hectic departure didn't leave time for a dry-run attempt to stuff everything into the bags. We ended up leaving with far too much stuff, and have since gone through several rounds of thinning, with things either being chucked, given away, or mailed to Taipei or Toronto.

Now that we've been on the road for almost four months, we can actually answer that question. For
the gear-minded, here is what we are carrying.

Luggage

  • Backpacks—We each carry an internal-frame backpack. Mine is a 57-litre Gregory, the first pack I've ever found that fits my short torso. Chris has a 65-litre Osprey pack.
  • Daypacks—We have two lightweight daypacks: one of them is usually folded up in Chris' pack and we use the other for carrying water and other stuff around town. We also have a shoulder bag for camera gear.

Hi-tech gear

This blog has been developed and updated almost entirely from Internet cafes. (If I've done most of the writing, it's because Chris has been doing the less visible site development work). We have flirted with the idea of carrying a laptop, but as we both work with computers in our "normal" lives we preferred to be unconnected for a while. Because of this, the site is still somewhat of a work in progress, and virtually none of the photos have been edited (except to reduce them to a web-friendly file size).

Here is the gear that we are carrying:

  • Cameras—We splurged on a Nikon D80 digital SLR camera, with an 18-200 mm Sigma lens and a mini tripod for night shots (which we usually forget to bring with us). We also have a point-and-shoot Canon IXUS 80 but the majority of our photos are from the Nikon.
  • Photo storage—We carry several Secure Digital cards and back them up on a 20 GB photo hard-drive. Every so often we burn photos to DVD and mail them home to free up space.
  • Software—We each carry a 4 GB USB drive on which we have loaded PortableApps, a suite of open-source software (including Firefox, OpenOffice, and Gimp) designed to run entirely from an external drive. This lets you carry your own browser configured how you like (including your own bookmarks), and ensures access to software without it needing to be installed on the computer. It's also safer in Internet cafes as your sessions are stored on the USB drive, which you take with you. Unfortunately, we often have trouble finding computers that have USB drives that are not disabled, broken, or non-existant. This also poses a problem for uploading pictures.
  • Batteries and chargers—An unfortunate side-effect of all this digital technology is that none of it uses standard batteries so we have to carry spares and chargers for everything, and many of them are as big and heavy as the equipment they power.

Clothing

The majority of our trip is through hot climes, and we packed with this in mind, opting to buy additional warm clothing on the road where we need it. After several rounds of thinning (and replacing clothes as they wore out), here is what we are each carrying:

  • 3 shirts, plus two t-shirts
  • 2 pairs of pants (right now we are each down to one as they have self-destructed and we haven't yet found replacements)
  • 4-5 pairs of underwear
  • 3 pairs of socks
  • 1 pair each of sandals, hiking boots and flip-flops (for nasty toilets/showers)
  • hat and sunglasses
  • headscarf (nicole only) for mosques
  • bathing suit
  • rain jacket and fleece
  • long underwear
  • lightweight shammy towel
  • moneybelts for valuables

You can see we're not going to win any fashion awards.

Miscellaneous stuff

In addition, we are carrying the following assorted items:

  • lightweight sleeping bags
  • first aid kit, sunscreen, vitamins and toiletries
  • sport rehydration tablets (essential for staving off dehydration in the desert)
  • alarm clock
  • laundry detergent, universal bathplug and string (for makeshift clotheslines)
  • dive torches, which double as flashlights
  • dive computers
  • compact binoculars
  • notebooks, pens, watercolour kit
  • maps and guidebooks (we give these away or leave them behind when we are done with them)
  • books and deck of cards for entertainment
  • Canada pins, postcards of Toronto, and a small album of family photos for gifts/conversation pieces
  • combination locks and cables for securing our packs (so far we haven't needed these)
  • physical therapy strap for stretching our old bones

Posted From: 
Tashkent, Uzbekistan