Rucksacks and travelling light
This is how we decided on which luggage to use on our trip around the world. We’ll try and provide updates about how well that actually turned out via the updates link above.
Rucksacks
One of the first things we settled on was the idea of travelling light. Everyone says the same thing: no matter how big your rucksack, you will always fill it to the brim. We didn’t want to be human snails, tottering under a teetering mountain of luggage. For a start, neither of us tops 5’ 6”!
We’ve ended up with two Osprey packs, one 45 litres and one 55 litres. The small one is small enough to go take on planes as hand luggage, the large one probably not but we’ve got a couple of items that have to be checked-in anyway. This is a tight squeeze even with the minimalist wardrobe we’ve got. It’s very strange to look at such a small puddle of items on the bed and imagine that they could be all we need for a year.
We have raincovers for both rucksacks too. Not just for the inevitable rain, but so that the one checked-in on plane flights can have all straps and buckles tucked away neatly for the trip through baggage handling.
Packing cubes
Can’t recommend these enough. They’re just small zippered canvas bags, but 2 or 3 make it so easy to organise a rucksack (or holdall, or suitcase) and avoid all the “where are my damn shorts!” woes that we enjoyed before we discovered them. Won’t need to update on this – we’ve already been using them.
Other bits
We’ve got a small airtight plastic food box, as this may come in handy in-country, though of course for flying it has to be stuffed full of something else so it doesn’t just take up space. We’ve also got a small waterproof bag, in case we ever need to keep a handful of important things dry. Various ziplock bags complete our organisation options.