Travel Light, travel Fast
I’m a traveler. I haven’t gone everywhere around the world but I have traveled a fair amount including Guadeloupe, Martinique, Montreal, Calgary, Maine, Chicago, Seattle, Tokyo, Okinawa, Holland and my most recent trip was to France. Having said this I have generally traveled with a carry-on and one check-in.
One of the things I’ve always had issues with while traveling is my check-in luggage. I seem to be prone to being the one who’s bag goes missing, get rerouted to some other flight, is randomly selected for a in depth search, or comes out long after everyone else has left the carousel area, leaving me desperately peering up those flaps in the chance I will catch a glimpse of my bag slowly making it’s way to some unknown destination.
For my trip to France I rented a car and reserved hotels far in advance of the trip date. This took some time balancing and searching to get a schedule together that would work.
Since I was on a schedule I didn’t want to deal with delays, so I wanted to travel with carry-on only. Not only that but because we were going to be constantly on the move with 2–3 locations visited per day I wanted to leave my much battered carry-on suitcase and go with backpack only.
Picking a backpack:
I wanted a backpack that would not only be good for traveling, but which would also fit into my active lifestyle. I needed a backpack I could use to go cycling, hiking, snowboarding, commuting for work, and would look good. I did a lot of research and finally selected the Slicks Travel System backpack as the bag I was going to use. All bags I were looking into were in the 25–30L range, the Slicks holds 30L. My better half went with the small size of the Osprey Porter which also holds 30L.
Once the bags were selected I had to start thinking about what to bring on the trip.
Since we were traveling in September from Northern France, which would be around +10C and rainy, to Southern France, where it would be +27C and sunny, we had to pack right to fit all weather conditions.
I also wanted some space left to bring souvenirs back, so I had to devise a strict list of items which would work for the journey. I also wanted to not have to buy a lot of items so I chose from items I already owned as much as possible.
Electronics:
Coming from North America we needed a travel adapter. I chose to buy the Orei M8 which is an international travel adapter with dual USB plugins so more than one item could be charged at a time.
I brought along my Samsung Galaxy S3, it’s my old phone so I wouldn’t be too worried about damaging it or losing it. It has decent battery life running on Cyanogen Mod and its unlocked so if I wanted to I could get a SIM card and use it to call. The phone’s main purpose is to be the GPS, I installed Here Maps and downloaded the full France maps. I also installed the Triposo app for sightseeing info.
For a better browsing experience I brought along my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9. Thanks to its larger screen looking at websites and writing a blog of my trip was simple. I would have preferred to use a phablet in this situation to limit myself to one device, but since I didn’t have one, I compromised. The cellphone and tablet didn’t add a significant amount of weight.
Most importantly for me I brought along my camera, an Olympus OMD-EM5 with a Panasonic 14–140 II lens. I wanted to take great pictures while I was there but without worrying about changing prime lenses. The Panasonic lens isn’t as sharp as a prime, nor as fast but at 3.5 it’s fast enough and allowed me to focus on taking the pictures and bringing only 1 lens. I also brought the spare battery, spare SD card and the charger.
For charging I brought 2 USB cables which allowed me to charge my cellphone, tablet and camera battery simultaneously.
For blocking out noise having a good headset was important so I bought the MEElectronics M6 PRO headset.
Clothes:
All my clothes were rolled using the army roll, not folded to maximize the space as they went into the cubes. Check out how to do this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so93nqxZLjM
I purchased a set of Zi Travel Luggage Organizer Bags (aka packing cubes). I ended up using the 2 largest cubes.
I already own Adidas boxers, which are lightweight technical fabric, so I packed 5 pairs and wore one. Same with my socks, I have under armour socks and packed 5 pairs.
I wore a pair of jeans which contain a small amount of stretch fabric and synthetic fibers, making them comfortable for long wear and slightly water resistant.
I packed a pair of board shorts for warm weather and good for swimming.
I brought a thin waterproof jacket I own similar to the Uniqlo men’s ultralight pocketable jackets.
I brought along 2 t-shirts and 2 polos made of quick drying technical material I usually wear when doing sports or working out.
I brought a wrinkle free long sleeve dress shirt in case I needed to look good.
Footwear:
I wore my Puma street shoes and used those for most of the trip. I’ve had them for a few months so they were broken in and comfortable. I’ve been wearing Adidas street shoes for a long time now and I know the fit works well for me. They are also fairly light and compact.
I brought my flipflops for the beach because nothing beats flipflops on the beach.
Heath:
I fully charged my Philips diamond care electric toothbrush before going. The charge is good for about 2.5 weeks so I had a bit of leeway, besides, if it became discharged it would just become a regular toothbrush.
To go with the tooth brush I added a small tube of toothpaste.
I bought a small size Dove deodorant, technically it’s for women but I decided I could smell like fresh cucumber without putting my manliness in too much in danger.
I purchased a 3 pack set of HumanGear GoToob, 3.0-Ounce containers and filled them with my shampoo, bodywash and conditioner. All products went into a 1L freezer ziplock bag.
Other Stuff:
I purchased a Sea to Summit, Ultra-Sil Dry Sack in 4 Liter size. With a bit of laundry soap this was my washing machine.
I bought a large Ultra Fast-Dry Towel from discoverytrekking.com, they are very light, absorbent and soft enough it almost felt like using an actual towel.
Other random things I brought: a garbage bag, a pack of keenexes, and an airline headset adapter.
Papers:
I brought printed copies of all my reservations as well as my passport and citizenship card, just in case the worst were to happen and everything got lost or damaged somehow. I kept these in a sealed and taped ziplock bag and kept them in the inside inner pocket of the Slicks backpack where they were hidden away.
Packing it all:
With the bag open like a suitcase I filled the large packing cube and put it in the bottom of the rear side of my bag, the flipflops were where the bottom will be when the backpack is sitting normally. The tablet went into the laptop sleeve. The health products ziplock bag went into the mesh pocket. The medium packing cube went on top of the large packing cube. All chargers were spread around the packing cubes. Closing the bag up with only an opening at the top. The headset went into the front duffle compartment. The camera went into the top of the bag for easy access.
Everything fit well into the Slicks backpack. I actually even had enough extra space I purchased and brought back a dress shirt and a pair of jeans!
Traveling with just a backpack is not only about having the right equipment, it’s about knowing where you are going and what you will need, and having the right way to carry what you are bringing along.
