My list is currently built around comfort at every temperature and it is already heavier than I want to carry between stations. I have done two week trips before but never anything long enough for the packing errors to actually punish me. Tell me what you carried out of caution and then paid to send back, because that is the part nobody writes on a packing list.
Mild disagreement with the ruthless-cutting crowd on one item: the second pair of shoes. Everyone tells you to carry one pair, and then you get wet feet on day three in an autumn start and there is nothing to change into while they dry. Light and cheap is fine, but zero backup footwear is the cut I regretted, and it is a miserable way to spend a week.
Clothes, always clothes, and never the number of items — it was the third and fourth of everything. On a long trip you converge on wearing the same two outfits and washing them constantly, and the extras just move between the bag and the bottom of a locker. Second thing I posted home was the dedicated camera, which I had convinced myself I would use daily and picked up perhaps four times after the first fortnight.
The camera is on my list and I have been arguing with myself about it for a week. That settles it unless the argument is really about photography rather than travel.
That is the right test. If photography is the point of the trip, carry it. If it is a thing you might do, it is dead weight in a locker.
Adaptors and cables. I left with a travel adaptor set, three charging bricks and a cable for every device, and ended up with one multi-port charger and two cables for the whole trip. The set weighed more than my jumper and I posted the whole lot home from a post office where nobody spoke my language, which was a memorable afternoon.
@chalkbag_chen · 3w ago · 2 replies
Numbers version. First long trip I left with a bag at about 14kg and by month two it was 8.5kg, and everything I removed fell into three groups: spare clothing, a full first aid and pharmacy kit that duplicated things buyable in any pharmacy anywhere, and single-purpose gadgets. The only thing I went back and bought was a second pair of decent socks. Shipping the discarded pile home cost more than the items were worth, which is the actual lesson.
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@stealth_park_stu · 3w ago
Shipping cost is why the better move is to leave things at home rather than plan to post them back. Nobody believes this until the post office quote.
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