Skip to main content

Travelling Light: Three Months on a Carry-on

This time next week, I will be on my second leg of a four leg flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia.  Over the next three months I will be flying all over the place, logging over 20,000 airline miles and making at least fifteen transfers.

I simply can't afford to deal with misplaced baggage on this trip, and I need to be mobile enough to easily pack and move without worrying about carrying around multiple bags.  So, how do you travel for three months with a carry-on?  It's actually easier than you might think...

Clothes:

Clothes take up the most space in any traveler's bag, so if you want to travel light you need to eliminate them.  There are a few easy tricks to this, but the best is simple - use synthetics, wear bulky gear, buy local, and donate on the way out.  For this trip, I'll only be bringing the following with me:

Wearing when traveling:

  • New pair of jeans (they will wear out most likely)
  • North Face Hyvent waterproof/windproof shell (if I go somewhere cold I just need to add some cheap sweatshirts)
  • ExOfficio synthetic boxer briefs
  • Underarmor heatgear synethetic long sleeve undershirt
  • ExOfficio synthetic safari shirt
  • Socks
  • Salomon Gore-tex trail shoes

In the backpack:


  • 4x extra pairs of Ex Officio synthetic boxer briefs
  • 4x extra pairs of Underarmor heatgear synthetic undershirts
  • REI Taku mountaineering pants (waterproof hard wearing shell pants)
  • Reef leather flip flops (these have already been on three continents and 15+ countries with me, they rule) 

    That's it for three months.  I'll grab t-shirts and other gear (including stuff I need for training muay thai in Thailand) locally and give it away as I move on.  The only reason I'm even bringing that many extra pairs of underwear is because I'll be going through them like crazy in Thailand.

    Incidentally, I can't recommend Ex Officio Give-N-Go synthetic underwear enough - they are awesome for sports as well as just normal wear, they can be worn for multiple days, they dry quickly when washed on the go, and they are always comfortable and never chafe.  Downside is they are a bit pricey, but highly recommended.

    Gear:

    So what am I going to do with all the extra space in my pack?  Load up on gear of course - this meshes well with the clothes because I can also use them as padding.  For my long trip I'm going to be traveling with a cut down set of gear, eliminating all of the camping stuff and relying on what I find local in each area.  For now, I'm planning on the following:

    • Locosys BGT-32 GPS datalogger
    • SPOT Satellite Messenger
    • Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ10 (digital camera, my old standby)
    • Canon A590is (backup digital camera)
    • Gorillapod classic (not taking the SLIK this time unfortunately)
    • Dell Mini10 w/ 6 cell battery (I may replace this with a new Core i5 laptop, TBD)
    • Western Digital 250GB Passport USB drive (for backups)
    • Petzl headlamp
    • 10x20mm miniature spotting scope / monocle
    • Emergency Kit (first aid, treatment tablets, Celox, etc.)
    • Overnight Kit (antiperspirant, toothbrush, etc.)
    • Power adapter kit for SE Asia and Europe

    I'm also very seriously considering and extremely likely to pick up a Sony PRS-300 ebook reader - it's so much less bulky than carrying around real books that it's almost a no-brainer.

    There you go - all the gear and clothes a geek needs to survive three months away from home stuffed into an Oakley tactical pack.
    Labels:

    Comments

    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    5 Things that Suck about Traveling Solo

    I find it telling that it seems a majority of the interesting travel blogs I run across are written by solo travelers, most often women. I think there’s a reason why we write more than people who travel with friends or in groups and that it’s pretty self evident: it’s an outlet for our loneliness. In the last year and a half, the vast majority of my time has been spent away from home, alone. As I write this, it’s been over a month since I’ve conversed with anyone in my native language, and I can remember every single conversation in English for the month before that. The truth is, I don’t think I could have done this without the internet – without a blog to share my thoughts, without Facebook to see what my friends are up to, without the occasional e-mail to provide a façade of normalcy… without these things I’d likely have driven myself insane with my internal dialogue. Now, I grant, there’s a reason I travel alone and I do love it, but lately it seems all I run across in the blogosp...
    Post a Comment
    Read more

    Gear Review: Sea to Summit Big River Dry Sacks

    In the past couple months on the road I think I’ve spent more time riding my scooter through rain than I have in the dry – this is clearly reflected in the fact that as time has gone by I’ve invested more and more money in things to keep my stuff dry, since wet gear sucks. One of my favorite purchases for this trip is the pair of Sea to Summit Big River Dry Sacks I picked up just before leaving, in 13L and 20L sizes. They cost me around $20 each and are one of the best pieces of gear I’ve purchased in years – extremely durable, effective, and simple to use.
    Post a Comment
    Read more

    Tiger Muay Thai – Full Review

    After spending six weeks training and living at Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket, Thailand, I wanted to write up some of my thoughts on the entire experience, the gym, and the trainers.  This will be a long winded post with a lot of detail – I encourage anyone considering spending time in Thailand training Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and/or Muay Thai give it a read, but anyone else may want to skip it. Background:   I visited Tiger Muay Thai (TMT) from February 22 to March 23, then returned again from April 15 to April 28, 2010.  I had no previous MMA or Muay Thai experience, though I did grow up wrestling.  I came into my visit with above-average fitness but definitely not close to elite level. The Gym Facilities: TMT is amazing, and they finished a big expansion while I was there.  There is TONS of room, with seven+ massive separate training areas of various sizes, tailored for MMA, Muay Thai, weight lifting, and crossfit style workouts (kettlebells/etc.).  ...
    2 comments
    Read more