I’ve spent the last few weeks selling, donating, and giving away pretty much everything I own. As freeing as this was at first, it has started to get really hard! There are just so many things I feel I need to have with me – especially when it comes to clothes. I’m not very stylish – in fact, I tend to wear the exact same thing almost every day. But it’s nice to have the option to maybe wear something a little different. It’s a little comforting.
I originally had planned on bringing an 80L backpacking backpack with me to Thailand and filling it about 3/4 full. In preparation I had started laying out everything I own on our living room floor. When one of my housemates saw it he was shocked at how little stuff I now had to my name. Turns out, it was still way too much stuff.
I started looking around on the internet for packing advice and stumbled upon a site detailing what to pack for pretty much every locale. It’s a pretty large article and very thorough – definitely worth reading if you’re planning on any kind of extended stay. Halfway through it convinced me to get a smaller backpack. I (fairly impulsively, in hindsight) headed over to REI and picked up an REI Lookout 40 – it’s significantly smaller (half the size!) and I was pretty concerned it would be too small – but online reviews said it wasn’t. Turns out they were kind of right. I still had to figure out how to do without about 20% of what I thought I needed. Here’s what made the cut.
All-in-all it’s a total of 44 items that I own (not including transient things like toothpaste, razor blades, and floss and I’m considering power cables as part of the item). I plan on buying a few things once I get to Bangkok, brining myself up to a much more reasonable level – probably similar to Colin Wright’s 72 things when he started out.
I leave for Bangkok in a little over 48 hours. Think I’m missing anything?
UPDATE
I’m now in the terminal and unfortunately without my backpack! EVA Air decided to be strict about the 7kg carry-on limit 
I’m an ex software engineer, a newly-minted exporter, and on my way to becoming an international vagabond. I write about things like polyphasic sleep, moving to the other side of the world for no good reason, and surfing. Read more...
Before we get started, I want to make it clear that I have never taught English in Thailand. I have...
great post, thanks for taking the time to write it
Stiltner Kyung recently posted..1
I[‘ve been reading your blog and couldn’t help but notice there are no posts about me.
At the risk of sounding like a luddite is a laptop, tablet and e-reader not surplus to requirement? Then again I don’t know what your requirement is so all I can really say is it is more than I am taking :p
I was worried about taking a 40L bag but if you can fit your list in then hopefully I should be fine too.
Hi David!
The laptop, tablet, and e-reader are definitely not necessary for most. I needed to have a laptop and tablet handy for work and it was a bit of a pain at times having to lug around the extra 10 pounds of digital equipment.
You can easily get by with a 40L backpack and bring well over a week of clothes if you ditch the electronics. Enjoy your trip!
Thanks for the article, we’re currently updating our packing list and wondered if you had any thoughts? Particularly on the electronics section!
http://www.worldlynomads.com/index.php/backpacking-packing-list/
Thanks for sharing and any comments!
Hey Barry, I think your list looks great!
The only thing I would suggest is perhaps swapping out the 1TB hard-drive for something lighter and perhaps smaller (like a few 256GB thumb drives) – unless the external drive is super light, of course.
And since you have quite a few expensive things on you, it might be wise to invest in something like the Pacsafe Travelsafe (linked above). It gave me a lot of peace of mind when I had to leave my computer, phone, etc. in a dodgy room with an equally dodgy door lock!
Safe travels! 🙂