One Bag Travelling

So you plan to travel the world with a minimalist packing list and cram all your worldly possessions into a single backpack. The freedom to venture wherever and whenever you wish safe in the knowledge that everything you’ll ever need is close to hand – well just hold on there a minute cowboy!

Unless you’re planning on going au naturel, living off the land and sleeping in a freshly hollowed out tree stump then you’re going to have to invest a little time and effort making some decisions on what you actually need to take on your travels while being mindful of the fact that you’re going to have to carry it all.

Weight is your biggest enemy here, that’s assuming you can source the whole kit and caboodle of stuff you actually need, or at least the stuff to keep you reasonably comfortable without resorting to life as a Special Forces operative on a jungle reconnaissance mission.

Now as you know this is not a commercial or reviewer blog so don’t expect in-depth reviews or over technical analysis of products (that’s what Google is for), what I will do however is let you know what items we are initially planning to take with us, and then over time if they remain on our packing list or not.

Let’s start with the backpack – I informed Nettie that “if it won’t fit in your backpack, you can’t have it”. That was fine until she realised that the more she took the heavier it would become and that the pack size selected was only 40 litres, these two facts alone were enough to send her into a mild panic and reaching for her first (of many) Gin & Tonic.

If you know us at all you will be aware that we over research everything to a ridiculous degree (something that will have to stop when we leave on Wrinkly Ramblers). Therefore after days, yes I do mean days, of researching the best backpack for our travels we settled on his & hers Osprey 40L backpacks.

Okay, the reasoning: neither of us are particularly large framed people and some would go so far as to place Nettie in the petite category. Personally I’ve been called short-arse for most of my adult life so anything over 40L is going to be a real problem to lug around for extended periods. We had to make a compromise between having enough space to carry everything we need vs. too large a backpack and 40L seems to be about right for us.

With backpacks purchased and delivered we realise the enormity of the task of fitting everything in, but accept that we made the correct decision on size. The next big challenge is to find the right stuff to take that is practical, multi-purpose and lightweight.

We will cram our entire lives into these backpacks over the coming months and bring you details of what made the grade and why. We will make mistakes and alterations along the way but hopefully this will lead to a refinement of our packing list rather than a complete overhaul or revelation of a catastrophic planning failure – stay tuned.