We originally posted our “Long Term One Bag Travel Packing List (For Two People)” back in December of 2011. We have now been on the road for over eight months and a lot has changed since then.
We have changed bags, sent stuff home, chucked a lot out and replaced items.
Below is everything that we have on us now, as of September 2012. We reserve the right to make changes at any time!
Contents
Our Clothing And Footwear
On the left side is all the clothing and footwear that Tanya has with her:
Four bras – one used as a bathing top
Five lightweight knickers
One bikini bottoms
One bather tanktop
One bather board shorts
Two pairs of ankle socks
One pair of normal socks
One black tank top
One stetchy black around the hostel, beach and pool dress
One pair of Northface pants that roll up to be 3/4 pants.
One pair of Kathmandu 3/4 pants
Three polo shirts pictured although I now only have two – one purple and one pink
One black “going out” top
One Columbia hoodie jacket
One reversible hat
One pair of Keen Venice H2 Sandals
One pair of thongs / flip flops for the bathroom
On the right side is all the clothing and footwear that Andrew has with him:
Five pairs of dark coloured trunk underwear
One pair of grey very cheap jocks to wear when swimming
One pair of board shorts
Two pairs of ankle socks (although three are shown in the photo)
One pair of normal socks
Two pairs of lightweight pants – one pair is North Face, the other is Kathmandu
Three t-shirts
One thin thermal sweater
One hat
One adjustable belt
One pair of Keen Canyon Sandals
One pair of Havaianas / flip flops for the bathroom
Clothing and Footwear Packed in Cubes
The photo above shows the clothing that we wear on any typical day ie. underwear, pants, tops, and our sweater and hoodie. Plus our sandals of course.
The rest of our clothing has been packed into cubes for ease of packing. The blue packing cube holds all of our normal every day clothing – underwear, tops and bottoms. The black packing cube holds the other clothing – swimwear and socks etcetera.
We chose different coloured packing cubes as it makes it easier to find what we need fast. We both know exactly what is stored in each cube.
The flip flops get packed up in the red bag they are sitting on. When not worn, the sweater and hoodie are packed lose in our bags. Our hats are packed in pockets of our bags for easy access.
Our Electronic Equipment
Tanya has a 12″ HP Tablet on the left
Andrew has a 13″ Asus Laptop on the right
Both laptops have semi-waterproof and very cushy sleeves.
We need new laptops. They are way too heavy and too big for our liking. We will be updating our laptops in the new year. Two ultra light, ultra fast, ultra awesome laptops please.
One unlocked iPhone 4 – used for everything
One locked iPhone 3G – used for games mainly
One Sony Cybershot waterproof and shockproof camera – Not pictured (it is taking the photos)
Two headlamps
One medium sized Pacsafe
One usb power board
One Electronics Bag
Electronics Bag
Two USB wifi extenders – These are excellent for making the most of weak wifi.
Two 16GB flash drives
One mini-wifi router – So we can turn a LAN connection into our own wifi network for our laptops and iPhone. This sounds really handy but we have never actually used it.
Two sets of Apple headphones which include a mic
Two iPhone usb cables
One headphone splitter
Three various power plug adapters
One mini zip lock bag containing – one 2GB flash drive containing the Ubuntu installer in case we have to replace Andrew’s laptop, iPhone 4 pin for getting the sim out, numerous sim cards, one mini 8GB flash drive, lan cable, power cable, little knick-knacks.
One unlocked iPhone 4 – used for everything
One locked iPhone 3G – used for games mainly
One usb power board
Two headlamps
One mini camera tripod
Games, Laundry, Kitchen, Bedding And Things That We Carry
We are fairly self-sufficient now. If we could, we would also pack a little kettle with us. And extremely comfortable pillows. Tanya is working on these as she writes this!
As pictured above, semi circular around the scrabble board:
One full size scrabble board for game playing – board slides nicely into the laptop pocket of the backpack. Scrabble letters and holders take next to no space.
One little red bag of various sized zip lock bags. The little red bag often gets used as a waterproof bag.
Two Travel Towels
One Laundry Stuff it Bag
One Travel Clothes Line
Two folding clothing hangers – awesome!
One lanyard for iPhone or camera
One Frontier emergency water filter system
One elastic exercise band / strap
One backpack waterproof cover for Andrew's backpack. He carries the electronics
Two blow up pillows – these will hopefully be replaced in the new year with better ones
Two collapsible water bottles
Two eye masks
Two travel sleep sheets that fold up easily and take up little space and weight
One door stopper
Two soup bowl sized plastic mugs that are microwave safe
One zip lock bag full of various teas, coffees, creamers that we buy and pick up along the way
Two Light my Fire Sporks
Two clear emergency rain ponchos
Magic Travel Blog business cards
Luggage scales to see how heavy our bags are
Astro and Uran, our travel companions
Things That Are Not Pictured
We didn't photograph our toiletries bag as that is pretty self explanatory. Our toiletries are now stored in an old hand bag of Tanya's. Main things of interest in the toiletries bag are:
Solid Shampoo and Conditioner Bars – we still have our first set after eight months on the road. If we have free shampoo and conditioner to use, we use that before we use our stuff. Because it is free of course.
One pair of thinning shear scissors that we use to cut our hair.
We also didn't photograph our medical kit. It has changed since the first photo was taken. It is not in a little grey bag like originally posted all that time ago. It is all stored in a zip lock bag. Lighter and easier to find everything we need. We don't carry much. When we use something all up, we replace it.
Backpacks and Bags
We replaced our backpacks very early into our travels as they were just not comfortable enough. The bags we have now are not perfect but they have worked well so far. They will be replaced in the new year with smaller bags.
Tanya has the Dueter ACT Lite 40L + 10L Backpack. It is the black and grey one on the left.
Andrew has the Dueter ACT Lite 50L + 10L Backpack. It is the blue and grey one on the right.
In the middle is an Adidas lightweight backpack that we put our laptops and cables in when we need to. We then put this whole backpack inside Andrew's backpack when we travel.
If there is not enough room to have our backpacks with us on a bus, then we just pull out the electronics backpack and Andrew's dueter backpack goes with the other luggage.
Tanya's handbag
Andrew's manbag
Not shown is another pocket backpack that folds up to next to nothing and we use that as a daypack.
Everything Packed Up And Ready To Go
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20 thoughts on “Updated Long Term Travel Packing List”
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Great post. How does the “weights” work (I can’t make it out in the photo)?
What do you find you want a door stop for?
Good tip on wifi extenders.
A Macbook Air is pretty awesome as a travel laptop.
The weights/scale have a little hook you can hang something on to see how much it weights. We just hang the bags off it using whatever strap is convenient.
We still carry a door stop but I’m increasingly unsure of it’s usefulness. The theory is that the room door in most places opens inwards. If you’re worried about security you can whack in a door stop before going to sleep. That should theoretically stop someone from quietly entering your room while you sleep. It sounds like a good idea as they are small and light so it doesn’t hurt to carry them however I’m a little dubious of their value. A few times I forgot about it and happily opened the door then realized that the door stop really didn’t do anything. Instead I took to putting something heavyish against the door plus something like an empty water bottle that will make noise if its knocked over. We never actually had any security related trouble but I won’t sleep well if I don’t feel secure.
My Dad used to put a chair wedged under the door handle (not sure this would work without carpet – as many floors in the tropics are tiles or something that might not work). The other option was something that would make a bunch of noise when it feel, as you mentioned.
Just wondering, which phone carrier do you use, how much is your monthly bill, even with the unlocked iPhone? I recently moved from the US to Johannesburg and I’m doing everything I can but the bill is just OUTRAGEOUS!!! Thoughts?! Thank you and have fun!!! (Please give as many details as possible).
Hi, we buy a new sim card in each country that we visit so our mobile phone bills are very cheap 🙂
Hi Tanya, I have further questions about the cell phone, and buying a sim card from each country. Is this why you have an ‘unlocked’ phone? And, does buying a sim card include the plan, or for that do you buy prepaid cards?
Thank you!!
Yes, my iPhone is unlocked so I am able to put any sim card from anywhere in the world into it. We always buy pre-paid sim cards. Each country and company has different prices so it is best to do your research.
Hey guys, a couple of great articles on packing, some very useful info!
couple of questions… The 50L pack looks too big for carry-on? have you had any problems getting it on the planes? What about with budget airlines like air asia, Jetstar, some of these have a policy of 7KG + Laptop, and I’ve known some to weigh the carry on if it looks big/heavy.
also, logging in to comments with twitter doesn’t work, caused errors, had to log in with facebook. don’t know if its just me.
Thanks!
Tom>>>>
Hi Tom,
Twitter error – thanks, we have looked at it and can’t be bothered fixing the issue at the moment… the pool calls us instead 😀
As for our bags, we are on to our third type of bag. Each one, that range from 40L to 60L have been able to be put on as carry-on luggage. We are just very good at packing and using the compression straps properly.
Our first bags, the tatonka ones, we actually drove to Perth International Airport just to ask them if they could be put on as hand-luggage. I’m funny I know!
The 7KG + Laptop is a tricky one. As we carry everything in our backpack and each hold a hand-/man-bag, when we are asked to weigh our luggage we mention that our laptops are in there. We then pull them out along with the cables and electronics bag and then weigh our backpacks. They are then under 14kg together.
So… we do follow the rules!
Hi Guys.
We have previously done 12 month RTW in 2009 with larger bags, we are doing it again in 2014 and I have been looking at the Deuter Aircontact back packs similar to your ones.
Are you still using those pack as “cabin” luggage,and how do you go with the harness’My load including tablet (but not including pack is 7kg.
Hi, lovely to hear from you. We have different backpacks now that are smaller than the Deuter ones.
We really must create another video to show what and how we pack now.
The main tip I can give you is to use cubes inside the backpack. Put everything in cubes then into the backpack.
With the harness of the backpacks we tie the waist belt around the front of the bag, this brings the shoulder straps into the bag closer. I think that makes sense. You can kind of see what I mean in a picture in this post.
The weight of the packs is often a dilemma for us. Between the two of us, when we have all our electronics in them, our bags tend to weigh closer to 18kg in total. This is over most of the airlines carry-on luggage allowance. But, once we take our electronics out and put them in another bag (one that we have in our backpack) then we are under the 14kg between the two of weight limit.
Most airlines allow a carry on backpack / bag AND a laptop bag or handbag. This solves our problem 🙂
Also, if you find that you are still overweight, chuck out the bottles of shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste etc… you can always get it wherever you are going!
How do you get the scissors through security?
We don’t… once, we have forgotten that we had them and the lovely airport security man took them out of my bag for me. Since then, we buy a pair when we stop in a place for more than 4 weeks. We then leave them for the next lucky people 🙂
Your very brave Tanya, I don’t think I would trust my husband to cut my hair. Lol
It’s called TRUST!
Ha! In reality all he does is use the thinning shears to thing out my unruly curly thick hair. I have it tied up most of the time anyhow.
Andrew does a great job 🙂
Hi Tanya, thank you for a very practical post. I am wondering what kinds of travel luggage you notice older people using? (50’s). Also do u buy the SIM cards when u arrive at the destination airport? Thanks!
Hello there. We have seen older people than us using backpacks as well as roller bags. It all depends on how strong you are. I, personally, at 38 can no longer where a well fitted 40L backpack as I end up sore after a few hours. Therefore, I now use a wheelie bag. Always remember that less is more. You really don’t need seven tops!
Sim cards: Sometimes we will buy sim cards at the airport as it is much easier as the staff can speak English well. However, they can push you to get a special tourist sim card that for example only lasts for 7 days. As we usually stay longer than that in a country, we purchase sim cards at local convenience stores and recharge that way.
Hope that helps!
Your response is very helpful. Esp re the SIM cards. We purchased a combined wheele/backpack to test on a shorter trip. Thanks so much! nur
I’m glad you found it helpful 🙂