Where's Grayleen?

What do you bring when you’re planning to travel around for a year? If you’re us, not a whole lot.

Going into this, I knew I would find the task daunting; I even find packing for a weekend trip to San Francisco stressful. What’s the weather forecast? Will I need my swimsuit? Should I bring sandals? What about my running shoes and clothes? Do I really want to wait around to pick up checked bags? Invariably I forget my contact lens solution and end up with dry, painful eyes all weekend long.

A year-long trip calls for some strategery (yes, Mom, I know that is not a word).  Here are the guidelines we developed for how to approach our packing list:

• Mobility is important. We plan to be very active. At various points in the year we’ll be hiking in the Andes and trekking in Nepal. No doubt we’ll chase down a few buses. We never want to pass up an opportunity to go somewhere or do something because we have too much to lug.
• We want great photographs. This is our one major space and weight splurge. We’ll need a digital SLR camera, lenses, filters, and a computer for post processing.
• When in doubt, leave it at home. Somewhere along the way, we picked up this bit of wisdom off of the internet: people the world over have the same basic needs as you and me.  We can buy anything we really need wherever we go.

Based on these guidelines, I set a fairly arbitrary goal of having a pack weigh in under 20 pounds.

So here’s what we’re bringing:

The whole shebang.

• 1 backpack each
• To wear – Gray:
  • footwear: sandals, trail running shoes, 3 pairs wool socks, running socks
  • jackets: fleece, gore-tex shell
  • clothing: 2 pants, one t-shirt, one reversible polo shirt, board shorts (all from nau), one button-down collared shirt, 4 ex officio boxers, baseball cap, buff (entertaining video explaining the buff here)
• To wear – Aileen:
  • footwear: sandals, trail running shoes, 2 pairs wool socks, 2 pairs short socks
  • jackets: fleece, gore-tex shell
  • clothing: 2 t-shirts, 1 long sleeve shirt (all from ibex – thanks Cynthia!), 1 pair pants (from nau), 5 pair ex officio underwear, 2 bras, casual dress, shawl, buff, hat, swimsuit
• Electronics:
  • A Kindle each (What better excuse to finally buy a kindle than needing to limit the weight of books?)
  • headlamps
  • Netbook: Asus Eee PC
  • Nikon D90 Digital SLR camera, zoom lens, low light/portrait lens, filters, travel tripod, camera case (Thank you so much Mom and Dad Sandridge for fronting us our Christmas and birthday presents for the foreseeable future!)
  • cell phones and prepaid global sim cards
  • steripen (water purification device)
  • very old ipod nano for me, very new Sansa Fuze for Aileen (works with Rhapsody)
  • various cables, cords, chargers, and converters
• Toiletries
  • shampoo, conditioner, lotion, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, razors, extra contacts, glasses, lens solution
  • tiny travel towel each
  • little make-up kit and diva cup for Aileen
• Laundry Kit
  • detergent, sink plug, clothes line, stain remover
• Medical & First Aid
  • small amounts of: ibuprofen, day-quil, cough drops, pepto bismal, hydro cortisone cream
  • malarone (the cadillac of malaria pills), ciprofloxacin and azithromycin (2 kinds of antibiotics for different continents), valtrex (for monkey bites), tinidazole (giardia pills: our doctor guaranteed we’d get it while in Nepal – gross),  motion sickness patches, acetazolamide (altitude sickness medication), ambian (sleeping medication for jet lag)
  • daily prescription medications
• Important papers
  • passports, vaccination reports, international drivers licenses, extra passport photos (for visas at border crossings), travel insurance documents
• Other neccessities
  • sewing kit, ear plugs, sun block, insect repellant, hand sanitizer
  • silk sleep sacks (Thank you Asayo & Matt!)
  • ultra light umbrellas, cable locks

We’ve done a lot of research over the past several months to get this list just right.  Besides friends with experience, the best source of information we found is travelindependent.info.  We fell in love with two brands of active/outdoor clothing: Nau and Ibex.  Both specialize in stylish wool active wear.  Wool is warm in cool weather, cool in warm weather, stays warm when wet, dries fast, and is odor resistant.  I particularly love Nau because they don’t put  logos on their clothing.

How did we do on the 20lbs goal? Not too shabby.  Once we put every single belonging into our packs, mine weighed in at 23lbs and Aileen’s at 21lbs. Of course, since everything’s in the pack, we’d be in the nude!  Wearing clothes and shoes we figure we’re close enough to 20lbs to declare success.

Ready to hit the road.