If you are planning a trip to several countries, you may be interested in what we learnt from our trip. The bottomline is that you don't need as much as you think you need. You can get a lot of what you need along the way. Also, don't forget the option of shipping stuff back home.
We went through various climates along the way, including winter-like cold in Russia, Peru and Mt Kilimanjaro, hot summer in Brazil, Africa and India and temperate weather in New Zealand and France. So we had to pack for all these types of weather. We had to plan for the following things:
- Luggage - for long-distance travel and also day use.
- Clothing - for all the different climates we were going to be in.
- Footwear - a pair for every occasion.
- Finances - keeping track of our finances and paying bills.
- Toiletries & washing - keeping ourselves and our clothes clean.
- Entertainment - keeping ourselves amused.
- Books - to keep ourselves informed and entertained.
- Medicine - keeping healthy along the way.
- Miscellaneous - odds and ends.
- Communications - keeping in touch with friends and family through the phone, email etc. Covered in a separate blog.
- Electronics - taking along all gadgets that we deemed necessary to take photos, hear music, make phone calls etc.! Covered in a separate blog.
- RTW tickets & visas - covered in a separate blog on ticketing, guides, visas and health insurance.
- What we did not use
- What we should have taken along
Luggage - Our backpacks (bought from REI) each weighed in at about 20 kgs (about 44 pounds) when packed. Very heavy! This isn't counting the weight of our daypacks which we used for carry-on luggage on planes and also to carry water/food/tickets/passports etc. We also made sure that our bags, money, passports & tickets were secure at all times. We carried number locks plus money belts. We also bought two "stuff" bags each - these can be used to separate out things that would otherwise get completely lost or messed up (such as socks or electronics.
Clothing (Smruti)
- Jeans- yes, it was slightly heavier than khakis, but considering all the major cities we went to it was nice to be able to dress like a local and not a tourist in those nylon pants!
- Windbreaker - Very useful and doubled as rainjacket. If only I had a hoodie!
- Fleece and thermal. Picked them up in Darjeeling for $2. Good for layering. Wished I had it for Kilimanjaro!
- Wool socks. Brought 2 pairs. the best!
- Shawl can be used as blanket, sarong, shawl, head covering...the possibilities are endless!
- One dressy-ish skirt. good when going out to plays or local places. see jeans for reason.
- Black top. Nuff said.
- Nylon trekking pants (one pair) - From REI. Have a zip that converts these into shorts.
- Woolies (scarf, gloves, hat)
- Sun cap
- Swim suit
- Quick-dry towel
Clothing (Dev)
- Nylon trekking pants (one pair) - From REI. Have a zip that converts these into shorts.
- Jeans & one pair of shorts
- Raincoat & windbreaker - very useful in cold climates. When combined with a sweater, obviates the need to take along a bulky jacket.
- Woolen sweater (one) - very useful as most places get cold at night
- Woolen scarf
- Woolen/leather gloves
- Woolen socks (one pair)
- Woolen cap
- Regular socks - didn't really use these much as we were in summer weather in most places.
- Dress pants & shirt (one pair) - for going out at night!
- Daily-wear t-shirts (two pairs) - Quick-dry for daily wash
- Belt
- No-sleeve fleece - essential. Both for warmth and for carrying around guides etc. in the inside pockets.
- Running shorts & t-shirt
- Swimming trunks
- Quick-dry towel
- Sun hat
Footwear - We took along several pairs of footwear given that we were going to be trekking, shlepping around tourist sites, running and going out at night! Apart from books, this took up the largest volume of space in our backpacks. We had trekking boots (Hi-Tec is a good brand), we had day-wear sandals (with ankle straps to offer the best support), sneakers, we had running shoes and we had going-out shoes. We thought we had overdone it but it turns out that we used most of these pretty frequently! The only one that we did not end up using too often were our running shoes (unfortunately).
Finances - It was surprisingly easy to get access to funds and keep track of bills etc. ATMs are available in every single country in the world - you have to manage how many times you go there since there is a hefty transaction fee for international ATM withdrawals. Best thing to do is to use the credit card (rather than cash) so that you get the best exchange rates and also don't have to go to the ATM that often. Also, we had already set-up online bill payment (best thing since sliced bread!) so that all our bills were being electronically sent to us and paid electronically. We also kept track of our expenses on paper (I tried to do this on my PDA but it was too time-consuming!). We had also taken along traveller's checks - I had originally thought that we would never need this but we found that there are several places in the world where ATMs are not available.
Medicine - For medicine, we picked up a first-aid kit at Walgreens. They come with bandaids, antiseptic liquid & cream, needle & thread, small pair of scissors etc. We also took along our prescription Malaria pills which we had to take once a week. We added some aspirin, cottonwool and some Immodium (anti-diarrheal). This served our purposes for the whole six months. The one thing that we did require along the way was some Diamoxx (anti altitude sickness) when climbing Mt. Kili - we got that there.
Toiletries & washing - Along the way, we got mostly all the toiletries we need (soap, shampoo, etc.) plus washing detergent. The most important items were sunblock and chapstick with a good SPF. The sun tanned us something fierce! We did take along with us insta-dry handwash gel - this is invaluable whenever sitting down for meals without access to a clean bathroom and was difficult to find anywhere in Africa. We did take along a universal sink plug with us to enable us to do laundry wherever we were staying.
Entertainment - We had our MP3 player along with a pack of cards. We did pick up a travelpak of Scrabble & Chess which was great for long train or plane journeys.
Books - 
Books were essential, although we've heard from some other people that they never even once opened up the books they took with them. Most of the places we went had book exchanges so we were able to exchange anything we bought along the way for things we hadn´t read yet!
Miscellaneous - Our swiss knives were very useful - good for cutting up fruit, annoying plastic luggage tags, has a nail file, etc. Also useful were tweezers. It was very useful to bring along a diary/journal and pen for things like addresses, travel info, numbers, recipes and more!
Communications - keeping in touch with friends and family through the phone, email etc. Covered in a separate blog.
Electronics - taking along all gadgets that we deemed necessary to take photos, hear music, make phone calls etc.! Covered in a separate blog.
RTW tickets & visas - covered in a separate blog on ticketing, guides, visas and health insurance.
What we did not use - we ended up getting several things that we did not use, including:
- Iodine tablets for water purification - there's plenty of bottled mineral water everywhere!
- PDA- died along the way.
- Running shoes- The intent was there, but not the will.
Hair dryer- seriously got to be a pain to have to plug in the transformer and hold it in manually when it didn´t fit the weird sized plugs in Egypt, Morocco, etc.
What we should have taken along -
- Flashlights
- Re-usable spoon & knife
- Thermals
- Dev & Smruti
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