AWE Travels

When you plan your travels, it’s time to pack your bags! The next question is to pack either a backpack or suitcase. It depends on your personal travel style and if you want to carry your things.

For me, I prefer to travel with a backpack. It is easier to walk around busy cities and stairs. For my round-the-world-trip, I chose to travel 10 months with a carry-on backpack. A 40l Backpack and 20l Daypack.

Here are some packing tips that I put together after my travels for my future trips:

1.Don’t pack too many toiletries

At the beginning of my travels, I packed a shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body cream, face cream, hair cream. After a while, I recognized that it was not practical to have so many different washes and creams. In hostels it was unpractical to have so many different soaps because in bathrooms there is barely place to put it. I had solid soap bars, so it took some time to dry out all the different soaps. At some point, I only used one shampoo bar for hair & body and only one body cream for everything. Since then, I only pack one shampoo bar and body cream. My travels got easier and faster to pack.

2.Pack 2 liquid bags

After taking several flights and security controls at airports, the airport staff was not checking how many bags I carried with me. Since I had 2 backpacks, I separated my liquids in 2 liquid bags. No one ever asked about it. It is worth a try. But keep in mind that if they check all your bags together, it can happen that you have to throw some things away.

3.Pack clothes for 7 days

I packed one medium sized packing cube of clothes. All functional, quick drying and nothing valuable. After some months, I had still clothes that I didn’t wear, which is crazy thinking about how less I packed. In nearly every hostel is a washing machine and dryer, so there were plenty of opportunities to wash my clothes quickly. Packing only for 7-10 days is totally enough, if you are not in nowhere without any washing opportunity.

4.Organizing your things

With less space, organizing and compressing your clothes and things is so important. Besides my packing cube, I had several small bags to organize medicine, technical equipment, toiletries. Easy to unpack & pack.

5.Buy missing things

Anywhere I went, I always had the opportunity to buy things that I forgot or missed. A warm sweater, more body cream, lost phone, hiking gear, etc. There was always a city nearby to buy anything. So there is actually nothing to stress about packing.