This is how you pack your backpack
and still look nice
This week I received an email from a reader asking how she should pack her backpack for her four-week trip through Indonesia. The requirements: not to take too much, but still look a bit nice. How does one do that?
Look, I find those fun questions. You should know that I went with a backpack for my vacation to Rio last December and it weighed a neat 10.4 kilos. True story. So I'm very proud of that, you understand. Three years ago I went backpacking from Mongolia and China to New Zealand, then the Cook Islands, and I ended up in San Francisco. All with one backpack, and the temperatures in those countries ranged from -5 to 30 degrees. Quite tricky, I can tell you. But it worked out, so now I'm going to tell reader Anna (that's her name) and all of you how.
Preparation
When I pack my suitcase for a work trip or any other kind of trip where I want to look nice every day, I prepare by trying on all my outfits at home in front of the mirror. Who goes backpacking through a tropical country has different priorities, but preparation is still important. Especially if you're going away for a relatively long time, it's not feasible to create an outfit every day, but you need to ensure that you can create an outfit for every day with each piece of clothing. So still stand in front of that mirror because you still need to try on your clothes, but then to see if it still fits well, looks good, and you really like it. If you have even the slightest doubt, it shouldn't come along. This brings me to the next point.
Be strict
You have to be strict. For every piece of clothing that goes in your backpack, you must be sure that you will wear it. Don't take things for “you never know” because remember with everything you put in your bag that you have to carry it on your own back. Things you don't wear are just dead weight. Also, each piece must be wearable in multiple ways; that one dress that only looks nice with that jacket cannot come along. Every dress, skirt, T-shirt, or sweater must be able to be worn with almost everything in your bag. This way you can mix and still feel like you have a different look every day.
Think in basics
Assuming that you are going to a warm country the following items are always good.
- Two or three pairs of short jeans shorts
- A couple of loose-fitting T-shirts. White, but also colors that are less prone to staining, please. And loose-fitting because we women sometimes feel like we have a 'fat day' and a loose T-shirt is always good.
- Always-good-black-dress. For when everything is dirty or when you meet an incredibly hot guy and you're going on a steamy date.
- Stretch denim jeans. This is your plane pants or your bus trip pants. Call it your travel pants. Long bus rides, flights, train rides, or whatever you don't want to do in a short pair of shorts or a skirt because then you stick to the dirty leather and often you want to have as little to do with the filthy seat of the bus/boat/train you have to sit on.
- Warm sweater. For those same trips when the air conditioning is set to Siberia. Many hostels also like a good air conditioning and then it's lovely to sleep in.
- Flowy skirts and dresses. Because they are always good. Make sure they are made of light and thin fabrics, which are easy to roll up and don't weigh much.
Give away
If you're going away for a month or less, it's still manageable, but longer than that it becomes necessary to get rid of clothes halfway through the trip. During that long journey, I had the rule that if I bought a piece of clothing somewhere, I had to throw one piece out of my backpack. Do you notice after week 2 that you've never worn that one dress? Give it away to someone in your hostel. I also never carry expensive clothes or pieces I'm very attached to. You never know what happens to them, but mainly I want to be able to get rid of everything in case it gets in my way.
Okay, pay attention, this is the tip of tips and will make your backpacking life so much better...
Buy there
Clothes are available everywhere, so if you notice that you're missing something huge? Buy it where you are, it's often even cheaper. This also applies to toiletries. Really, don't drag that stuff along, you actually need so little and even in the shabbiest hostel there are rows and rows of shampoo bottles.
The tip of tips
Okay, pay attention: this will make your backpacking life so much better. Because instead of throwing all those clothes randomly into your backpack, you create a system with plastic bags. Grab some Albert Heijn bags and organize them as follows. One for pants, one for skirts, one for dresses, one for t-shirts, one for bikinis and underwear, and one for dirty laundry. This way you know exactly where something is and you don't have to throw all your clothes on the floor to find something. At the end of your vacation, on the last day, you reorganize it again, and then by color. So white items, dark items, and colorful items. This way, once you're home, you can just toss everything into the washing machine without having to sort it out first.
Finally
Despite all of the above, you will see that you actually wear very few clothes and actually stop caring about it all. So I walked around in Rio for days and days in nothing more than a pareo that I wrapped around to make it a dress (see here for the photo). Underneath a bikini, flip-flops, a bag, and you're done. Other days I wore shorts and t-shirts (like here) and that was about it. I never wore makeup, apart from some body lotion and sunscreen, I didn't put on anything. You're in the sun and the heat, much more than a tanned skin and a bikini, you don't really need, and while traveling, the pressure to look nice quickly falls away.
