How not to pack for a family of 3 heading on extended travel

When we began looking to our travel adventures this year, I became obsessed with the idea of minimalism. I was reading blogs, watching YouTube videos, and looking at all the products that people used to save space. I dreamed of having a single 35-liter backpack that I could put whole life in. Small enough to carry on, but just big enough to fit everything I needed. It seemed a romantic ideal to easily have your whole life slung on your back and have nothing more than what you absolutely needed.

Then reality hit, I wasn’t traveling solo, I was traveling with my wife and 1-year old son.

So while the fantasy is still there somewhere deep inside, I stopped looking at it as the ideal for us. While I maintain that it was smart to become more realistic about what we needed and not think like complete nomads, I think we could have heeded some of the lessons, as we ended up running into a few issues on the way with how we did pack.

Here’s the rundown of what we had to carry:

• 1 75-liter hiking pack for me
• 1 75-liter hiking pack for mommy
• 1 duffel bag for baby
• 1 duffel bag full of miscellany
• 1 $20 umbrella stroller
• 1 WP Timbuk2 backpack full of my laptop + camera + everything else gear
• 1 small backpack full of mommy + baby stuff
• 1 even smaller backpack for baby full of random baby toys

All of it was packed to nearly bursting.

All of it needing to be carried.

I won’t go into what was in the bags and what was fully needed, but after hauling all of this stuff through multiple airports and train stations now, it has become clear that we could have made a couple small tweaks to help us be more mobile and stay realistic that we are a family traveling, not full nomads hitting the open road. Instead, we also have a nearly 30-pound baby almost always strapped to mommy, which further decreases what we’re capable of hauling around.

1. Ditch all the bags we brought and instead buy 2 large-sized plastic shelled suitcases. They are light and don’t have much weight themselves (important when traveling within Asia and you want to meet the 20 kg per person baggage limit), plus they are easier to navigate with when you have limited carrying capacity.
2. Don’t bring all the random stuff from the store that can be bought where you’re going. We have all sorts of small things that we brought, that while handy, could have been picked up for cheap at nearly any store here. Buying it at home and bringing it just means you have to lug it around. It may not seem like much individually, but add it together and it is a ton.
3. Don’t bring a stroller if you never, ever use a stroller. We still haven’t used it 2-weeks later. If we need a stroller in the future, we could buy the $20 stroller here for the same price, if not cheaper. We have it now so we’ll likely keep carrying it, but I fully expect we’ll get back to the US in December having barely used it.

That’s my novices list that I’ll try to remember for next time and I’m sure I’ll learn more on the way.

Luckily the rest of our travels will be less hectic than what we’ve experienced so far. Hopefully, we’ll shed a few things before we head to India in November, which will be the next time we’ll have a likely hectic travel schedule.

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