Gear: Her Packing List

Packing everything you need for 6 months into a 38L bag sounds… easy, right? Honestly, it took an embarrassingly long amount of time to get a plan in place and bags packed.

My usual packing methods…

This all began with my clothing process and my bag  and now here we are!

Because Adam and I are traveling together, I we have the benefit of working together to pack things. Adam also has a bigger bag (with some extra liters of storage, muahaha) and slightly fewer clothes than me, so he ended up carrying the majority of “shared” items.

Let’s see what made the cut into my bag…

Shirts (7)

• Black Athleta T-shirt
• Black Old Navy fitness tank
• Black Forever 21 flowy tank
• Black All 4 One Diane Kroe shirt (converts into dress, long sleeve, halter)
• White REI athletic T-shirt
• Burgundy flowers Old Navy long sleeve
• Forever 21 flower shirt/dress

My largest Lewis & Clark packing cube, all zipped up (and compressed).

All of the tops fit into one packing cube that sits at the bottom of my bag. Having the cubes grouped by item helps me stay organized. If I need a top, I always look in the neon cube!

Pants (3) & Shorts (2)

• Gray Prana Halle Pants
• Black Old Navy yoga pant
• Gray Prana Tess Shorts
• Blue Prana Hazel Shorts
• H&M fitness capri (picked these up in Bogota after wanting an additional workout option)
• Thin gray leggings (these made the cut after Bogota)

The smaller bright blue Lewis & Clark compression cube is all full of bottoms.

All bottoms fit in this cube, easy for organization.

Cardigans (2)

• Gray Scottevest Maddie Cardigan
• White Diane Kroe Wrap Top

Swimsuit (1)

• Target Tankini

Jackets (2)

• Black convertible jacket (a vest and secret pockets, oh my!)
• Purple Calia jacket

Scarves (2)

• Purple hidden pocket scarf
• Carry-on Cozy (converts into scarf/skirt/shirt/blanket)

This Eagle Creek compression cube holds my random other items.

It includes scarves, jackets, cardigans, and my pillow case 🙂

Undergarments

All undergarments fit in one small Lewis and Clark compression cube.

• Smartwool socks (x2)
• Underwear (x7)
• Bra (x3)
• Black tank with secret pocket

Shoes (4 – Wild Woman!)

• Adidas Terrex Waterproof sneakers
• Croc sandals
• Tieks fold-up flats
• Water shoes

Accessories

• Gray visor
• Small jewelry pouch
• • 2 earrings
  • 2 necklaces
  • Plastic wedding band
  • Fitbit watch

My wide variety of choices to accessorize my outfits. Makes getting dressed very simple!

Toiletries

My toiletries (LOVE this bag instead of a ziploc), make-up, daily contact supply, and medicine.

• Plastic Liquids Bag
• • Face sunscreen
  • Body sunscreen (Adam’s bag)
  • Lotion
  • Hair gel
  • Hair spray
  • Toothpaste (Adam’s bag)
• Dry Toiletries Bag
• • Lush shampoo bar
  • Travel razor
  • Lip balm
  • Deodorant
  • Comb
  • Sunscreen stick
  • Floss (Adam’s bag)
  • Nail clippers (Adam’s bag)
  • Toothbrush (battery operated)

Make-up Bag

• Concealer
• Powder/brush
• Eyebrow powder/brush
• Red lipstick
• Pink lipstick
• Tweezers

Medicine

• Over-the-counter: Advil, Tylenol, Excedrin, etc. (People say not to bring these, but I’ve already been so glad to have it.)
• Regular prescriptions
• Travel prescriptions: Malaria and Traveler’s Diarrhea
• Daily multi-vitamin

Eyewear

• Prescription glasses
• Prescription sunglasses and case
• Non-prescription sunglasses and case
• Daily Contacts (30 day supply, will get new installments delivered from visitors)
• Eyedrops

3 glasses and 2 hard super slim light aluminum cases.

Miscellaneous

Extra bags that live inside the big bag. I’ve got a purse for city roaming and a sling bag for my camera and hiking. There’s also some spare bags and a fold up bag for groceries.

Documents on the trip: passport, vaccines, spare cash, travel insurance info, copies of passports/licenses, prescriptions for medicines, and camera manual.

My plane gear goes in the easy to access outside pocket of the bag.

• Retainer (braces kid, oh yeah!)
• Compression bag (wet clothes or squeezing out more space)
• Ziplock bags (one gallon, one quart, one sandwich)
• Small amount of toilet paper
• Bag lock
• Pen
• Safety pins
• Eye mask
• Neck pillow
• Allergy pillow case

Electronics

We split electronics between our two bags. In my bag I’ll have headphones, camera/accessories, kindle, fitbit, iphone 7 plus, mini USB, and lightning charger.

• Kindle eReader
• Earbuds
• Splitter
• Camera + 2 lenses (split between our bags)
• Camera & lens cases
• 3 camera batteries + charging station
• 2 memory cards (32 & 64 GB)
• Camera Lens Pen
• iPhone 7 Plus (unlocked)
• Fitbit + charging cable
• Charging cables (mini USB & lightning)

The finished product with all packing cubes in the bag. It makes it really organized and easy to pack!

What’s Different in My Bag?

The biggest thing I gleaned from other blogs is: pack what is your priority.

A couple examples of how I prioritized items:

• I have far more “over coats” than a typical RTW packing list with 2 cardigans and 2 jackets. However, I wear something as an overcoat pretty much every day of my life. Be it a blazer, cardigan, sweater, Adam’s zip ups… you name it. I love to have that second layer, so I prioritized making space for it.
• I have a lot of glasses and eye gear. My eyes are a pain and I packed what I needed to be happy with my vision long term.
• Portable speaker – Adam and I are big music people and just have to find space for a way to belt out musical theatre ballads listen to cool jams.
• I’m pretty allergic to dust mites and just do better with the pillow cover. I have a decent chance of forgetting it (lol), but it makes a big difference to my asthma.
• Yes I need both pink and red lipstick. Next question?
• Water shoes were a real “luxury” item for me. But I get a little neurotic uncomfortable about my feet touching the ground in bodies of water. When I have water shoes on I am invincible! I found some super thin shoes that will allow me to be fearless in the water. Because we done have many more water locations, I will probably dump these after New Zealand.

Full Disclosure: For our first stop in Bogota we took a small extra bag (personal item) with dance shoes and dance dresses in it (you know, pretty standard stuff). Because we took dance classes, it was really important to us Kelly that we could make the most of it and have the right gear. It got dropped at the airport on our way back through and won’t make it “round the world”. Convenient when you have friends who work at the airport and you just MUST have your dancing shoes 🙂

Because of this extra bag, we were fortunate that we could make some minor tweaks in Colombia. We ended up making a few trades from our original list and bought capris for Kelly and a shirt for Adam in Bogota (to accommodate Cyglo and the torrential amounts of sweat). This made packing less stressful knowing we had a back-up bag going home.

So far, we’ve been really pleased with how our packing lists have worked out. I’ll check back in later to see what swaps I would’ve made!

-Kelly