How to Pack for Long-Term Travel

Believe it or not, “How are you going to pack?” was by far the question we were both asked most when we told people about our trip. They didn’t want to know where we were going or how we were going to get there, they just wanted to know what we were going to bring with us. I think when most people imagine packing for a year they flash back to all of the outfits they wore over the past 365 days and try to think how anyone could pack all of that into one bag. For Nick this might be easier than most — he wore the same 3 suits to work for the past 6 months. Don’t worry, we went to the dry cleaners very often. In fact, they might be going out of business now that we’re leaving!

All we will be bringing to carry out clothes, gear, electronics, etc. are two 65 L Kelty backpacks (one for each of us) and one carry on bag each (see cover photo).

For us, fitting a years worth of clothes into a couple of backpacks is easier than you might think. First off, we are going to be in warm weather climates for the majority of our trip. We start in Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia during their summers and then we go to Bali and Thailand which are tropical climates year round. From there we are heading to Europe during the tail-end of their summer and we’ll me meeting with family that can bring us warmer clothes. So not having to pack big jackets and extra pairs of pants definitely thins out the pile.

We are also looking at packing as if we were going on a two week trip without being able to wash any of our clothes. This mean enough underwear, socks and t-shirts to last 14 days. So two pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks should about cover it ;-). We figure that two weeks should be enough time for us to find a place to do laundry throughout our trip. Wear, wash, repeat.

Below is a list of the clothes we will be packing for our trip to give you an idea of what we’ll be carrying around.

Clothes	Justine	Nick
Underwear	15 Pairs	20 Pairs
Bras/Sports Bras	3 and 2	None
Socks	10 Pairs	15 Pairs
T-Shirts	10	10
Undershirts	None	5
Sleep Shirts	3	None
Nice Shorts	2 Pairs	2 Pairs
Active Shorts	2 Pairs	4 Pairs
Jeans	1 Pair	1 Pair
Active Pants	4 Pairs	2 Pairs
Dresses	2	None
Sweatshirt	1	1
Rain Jacket	1	1
Bathing Suits	3	1
Microfiber Towels	2	2
Shoes	3	3
Headbands/Scarves	5	None

As you can see from the list, Nick has decided to leave his sports bras and fancy dresses at home. If the occasion arises he can always borrow one from Justine.

In addition to clothes we also have some camping gear, electronics, vitamins, prescriptions and miscellaneous items we’re bringing with us. We broke these out by category so you can easily skim through whatever you’re interested in reading

Camping Gear

For part of New Zealand and Australia we will be doing a decent amount of camping (Bear Grylls style) and that requires camping gear. Below is a list of everything we are bringing for our hiking excursions.

Two person tent
Two sleeping bags
Two camelback bags
Two Black Diamond headlamps
One Steripen
Two travel pillows
One portable clothesline
One first-aid kit
One fire starter
Soft-sided wine carafe (probably the best thing we’ve purchased)

Electronics

Although there will be some nights we’ll be roughing it, we will be spending a lot of time in homes, hotels, hostels, etc which means we’ll be able to bring some electronics. After all, it would be pretty tough to keep up a travel blog without a computer and internet.

Macbook Pro 13″
iPad Mini
Sony A6000 camera
Headphones
Converter
Cell phones
Portable charger
Chargers for all of the above

Vitamins/Miscellaneous/Prescriptions

Before leaving we wanted to make sure we had plenty of vitamins and prescriptions incase we come down with any sort of cold or flu. At this point we could be considered a walking pharmacy.

Vitamin C and D
Melatonin
Tiger Balm
Probiotics
Oscillococcinum (try saying that 5 times fast)
Aloe Vera
Imodium
Advil Cold and Sinus
Neosporin
Anti-chaffing spray
Peppermint Oil (Justine get’s migraines and this helps)
Face wipes/lotion
Sunscreen
Two travel locks

Prescriptions

We decided to break out the prescriptions from the vitamins so we can give you a brief description of what each is used for.

Epi Pens — Nick will be taste testing all of Justine’s food as she is allergic to fish.

Ciprofloxacin — We have this in both tablet and droplet form, tablets in case we get severe runs and droplet in case we get pink eye (you’re welcome for the visuals).

Birth Control — For obvious reasons…

Naproxen — Mild pain reliever similar to Ibuprofen.

Methylprednisolone — Mild steroid to help treat allergic reactions.

Carisoprodol —  Muscle relaxer that treats pain and stiffness.

We hope this gives you a pretty detailed rundown on what we plan on bringing with us.  It’s hard to believe we’ll be fitting everything on this list into a couple of bags, but hopefully it’s enough to last us the entire year!