by William
All the luggage for our family of four in the back of a 3 door Yaris hatchback hire car, no problem. This was all we took to Bali this year.
Danielle asked that I share my thoughts on packing. It’s probably my engineering mind, but I am pretty anal about packing my bags for a trip. What I am about to describe will not suit everyone, but everyone should be able to pick up some good ideas about the thought process that goes into packing light for a holiday.
We pack ultra light. Every item carried when we travel has been carefully scrutinized. A packing list is essential. Over many trips items were crossed off our packing lists that were not needed or used. What’s left on the list are just the items we need. All members of our family have a packing list.
It wasn’t always this way. I remember my first overseas trip, to the USA, where I ended up dragging an enormous suitcase weighing the best part of 35Kg through LAX while trying to find the carrier for my flight. To make things worse I’d picked up a nasty cold from a passenger I was sitting next to on the flight over. Things were not looking good!
From then on I was determined to carry less stuff while traveling, and on each successive trip I did exactly that. I’ve now reached what I feel is the ultimate conclusion of this quest: There is no longer anything else I can remove from my packing list without having a negative impact on my trip.
The upside is that I carry a small (20 Litre) backpack onto the plane that contains everything I need for an enjoyable holiday, with no checked luggage. With such a small backpack I’m very mobile, I head straight out of the airport and into a waiting bus, taxi or train to my destination.
On a trip to New York we were passing by the luggage carousels headed for the exit and a good Samaritan ran up to us and said “Excuse me, you’ve forgotten your bags”. I looked over my shoulder at my small backpack then turned around and said “Nope, All good. Thanks.” and went on my way.
While passing through airports we amuse ourselves by watching other travelers drag huge mountains past us on luggage carts. Exactly how much stuff is required for a holiday? I can’t imagine what’s in those suit cases.
Now, the nuts and bolts. This is what my current warm weather packing list looks like:
The blue items are all camera related. The green items are every day carry when I am at my destination and the red items will be left in the hotel room. All of these items are kept in four medium and small ziplock bags in my backpack. Two of which stay with me and the other two stay in the room during the day. This list is flexible, If I am going to a tropical climate, I’ll also carry a small pressure pack of DEET based insect spray (Bushmans). For a cooler climate I might add a long sleeved shirt or even a jumper, and wear long pants instead of shorts. Any other destination specific items will be added too.
The totals on the bottom show that approximately half the weight that I carry is associated with my camera and the various batteries, chargers and other stuff that goes with it. I downsized my camera a few years back from a Nikon D700 to the Fuji X-T1 and saved many kilograms in carried weight and improved my image quality! The only downside of the Fuji camera for travel is it’s poor battery life, which is around 350 Shots per charge. This necessitates carrying three spare batteries to ensure I’m not caught out with no charged batteries during the day. The chargers I use for the Fuji batteries are very light weight USB types. They weigh 30 grams each and work very well. The three short micro USB cables allow me to connect these chargers as well as my Motorola mobile phone to the mains charger. The pair of USB powered chargers for my camera allows all four batteries to be charged without having to get up in the middle of the night to swap batteries over. It also allows a level of redundancy. Danielle’s camera is a Fuji X-M1 which uses the same batteries, chargers and lenses, so another level of redundancy is available for the most important and difficult to obtain equipment we carry. Danielle and I both carry a three port mains to USB charger. If one fails, we can still charge our batteries and phones.
USB wall charger with a Euro plug for a recent trip to Bali charging my phone and two camera batteries.
I use a pair of Etymotic MC-5 earphones on the plane. These sound excellent and are great at blocking out most external noise, allowing for a relaxing flight.
The toothbrush and toothpaste (<100g travel size) are self explanatory. I had a tiny disposable toothpaste tube with me on this last trip which is why such a low weight is listed on the packlist.
I use bicarbonate of soda as a deodorant. It works very well, it’s not full of nasty chemicals like most commercial products and is very light in it’s little plastic bottle.
Then there is a spare pair of wool socks. Wool is wonderful on the feet. It breathes well and dries fast. My underpants are merino wool too. They also dry very fast even in damp conditions and never smell. Wool is naturally antibacterial.
My small 20 litre Black Wolf backpack
It’s only around half full with everything already packed leaving room for items purchased while away.
Everything laid out on the floor. There is a small tabletop tripod that I packed for some specific photos as well as some Bushmans Deet. I now use fewer ziplock bags.
Just as important as what is in my pack is what I am wearing. On the plane traveling to my destination I’ll wear two merino wool t-shirts (one if it’s warm) and a thin cotton shirt over the top. Plane flights can get a bit cold and the extra layer can help. On the bottom I’ll wear a pair of very light weight shorts or long pants, whatever I choose to wear at my destination. If I wear shorts on the plane the provided blanket is useful for keeping warm. I’m also wearing pair of thick wool hiking socks (Bonds Explorers).
At this point you are probably wondering where the rest of my clothes are, and it would probably shock you if I told you I could carry less and still wear fresh clothes every day. My trick is to wash the clothes I’ve worn during the day in the sink or shower each night. It takes no time at all washing two socks, a pair of underpants and a t-shirt in the hand basin or shower each evening (I use the supplied hand soap for this). I’ll wash the shorts as required. After squeezing most of the water out of my freshly washed clothes, I roll them up in a towel and walk over the towel a dozen or more times. After removing the clothes from the towel they are hung up to dry over the back of a chair or on the towel rack in the bathroom. The clothes will be dry in the morning. Now the next day when I dress, I wear the spare pair of socks, underpants and t-shirts, not the ones I wore the previous day. See what I mean when I say I carry more clothing than I need? Now Danielle wouldn’t be happy wearing the same clothes every other day so she carries a bit more than me. People who pack two weeks worth of clothes end up carrying two weeks worth of dirty clothes.
That’s it, <2.5Kg including the backpack it’s carried in. I have a few ideas about going even lighter which I may follow up. Since I am more than happy shooting an equivalent 35mm focal length exclusively, I might replace the X-T1 with it’s little brother, the X100. I owned one of these in the past and they are fantastic, still regret selling it! The camera change and swapping the backpack for a Sea to Summit Ultrasil Daypack will shave another 1Kg off my total carried weight and bring me down below 1.5Kg. That’s probably as light as anybody needs to go, except these guys: https://www.google.com/search?q=no+bag+travel