So you decided to take the plunge, you booked your ticket, you handed in your notice at your dead end job, your finally getting out of there!
Packing your bag for a long trip can be a pretty daunting task. Essentially you need consolidate your whole life into a backpack, working out everything you may or may not need for the foreseeable future. Bring too much and you will be hating your life every time you have to throw your bag on your back and hit the road again, bring too little and face the idea of being thousands of miles from home longing for that sleeping bag you abandoned at the last minute. Constantly checking weather updates for the countries on your itinerary so you can work out whether to bring that extra sweater or rain jacket, trips to the the drug store to stock up on medicines, desperate calls to friends and family to ask for their advice. It can all seem too much.
Heres the thing, If I have learned anything from my travels its that you can make do with anything, so don’t overthink it too much. You should pack light, much lighter than you think. Pick a few essential items that you can’t live without, anything that you are on the fence about should probably stay behind. Forget those smart shoes and fancy shirts, they are just going to live at the bottom of your bag and weigh you down. Travelling makes you resourceful and adaptable, things go wrong, pretty regularly in fact, and you just have to laugh and carry on. With so much going on around you, your not going to miss that hairdryer or electric toothbrush as much as you may think. Arrive in a cold country and people will be selling warm clothes, arrive at a beach and people will be selling snorkels, want to climb a mountain somebody will sell you some crampons. And, all of it is probably going to be way cheaper that you would find it for at home.
