The Magic of Laundry: How to Pack for a Three-Month Trip

“MOOOOOOM! Do you know if I have any clean clothes??” 12-year-old me yelled up the stairs.

“I don’t know, do your own laundry!” My mom quickly retorted.

Thank you, Mom, for subtly forcing laundry upon me because it is in times like these—three month long expeditions—when I really reap the benefits.

During this trip, I will hit every continent except for Antarctica. That is nine destinations (counting northern and southern Thailand separately), two hemispheres, and more than five climate zones.

...HOW DO YOU PACK FOR THAT?!

I have been asking myself this since I bought these tickets.

Luckily, my fellow around-the-world travellers have already delved into this question. In fact, I have found about 12 different (valid) packing lists on the good ole’ Interwebs. The minimalist list borders on fitting all your belongings into the pockets of a trench coat. The non-minimalist list included a wheely suitcase IN ADDITION to a 70-liter backpack.

Personally, I wanted to have enough underwear to stay hygienic, but I also wanted to be mobile. So, I didn’t go with either the trench coat or wheely suitcase combo.

That’s where laundry came in.

I will average about 9-10 days per location. Theoretically, if I do laundry once in each place I can 1) pack clean clothes in my backpack and 2) reduce the amount of weight I need to carry. This magical ability to clean my clothes, which thankfully is a worldwide phenomenon, allows me to shave off some unnecessary extras. As a result, all I had to do next was focus on what bag to bring, what stuff to put in it, and what stuff NOT to.

The Bag

I bought an Osprey Farpoint 55 liter backpack which so far, has been extremely fun to play with. This bag is specifically MEANT for Around the World trips. I’m pretty sure that means it was designed for airplanes and not the Himalayas (hence it has no sleeping bag holders, endless straps, nor other climbing/camping/hiking necessities). The bag fits my requirements because it:

• Has a detachable (15-liter) daypack. The bag comprises a 40-liter bag + the detachable backpack
• Opens like a suitcase
• Could be a carry-on
• Contains a standard lifetime warranty

I had never before been that into backpacks, but this bag had me at hello.

What to bring

My trip aggregates nine 9-day trips and thankfully, there are some overlapping items packable for each. An efficient method of preparing for a big trip is to pack for the best case scenario. From what I read, “the best case scenario” happens about 80% of the time.

Though I really pity the guinea pig for that statistic, I trusted it and decided that it sounded logical enough. I’m big on trial and error, so this is what my first attempt at packing for 80% looked like:

It all fit! Well, sort of. As you can see, I hadn’t put my melatonin pills into my bag...nor about 40% of the items I still had left to pack.

So I took it all out and really started thinking about what was necessary (remember, 80%...).

Every inch of my bag was valuable so I had to very strategically choose what to put in. I’m not going to go into extreme detail, but these were the Oscar winners for each category:

1. Technology

• Canon DSLR - I love this camera and don’t get to use it enough. Granted, it does take up a substantial amount of space.
• MacBook Air - I’m committing to getting material out to you all and require some mechanism to accomplish that.
• Iphone - I won’t have service, but I will have wifi!
• Chargers/Adapters/Cords - I really anticipate the day when everything is wireless. Until that day, I need to use wires to recharge and reuse

2. Clothes

• Patagonia Raincoat - A necessary item as I discovered I will hit a rainy season and a monsoon season.
• "More than enough" underwear- I absolutely wasn’t budging on this one. This also takes up (relatively) the least amount of space for any article of clothing.

3. Toiletries

• Sunscreen - To bring sunscreen or not to bring sunscreen? While most items in Thailand and Indonesia cost insanely close to zero dollars, sunscreen happens to be the exception. According to other travellers, often times the sunscreen you find in Thailand contains whitener. I’m not trying to do that—nor get skin cancer—so I brought one tube.
• Mosquito Repellant - Yet another item that I was unsure of bringing due to space restrictions. However, I have this weird phenomenon where mosquitos a) only like to bite my legs and upper arms (it seriously baffles me) and b) cause golf-ball sized welts. As a result, this quickly became a no-brainer.

4. Medication

• Three-month supply - An absurd number of vitamins and other prescription medication now inhabit my bag as I can't get these on the road.  As a result, my backpack and I now sound like a maraca.

5. Other

• Packing Cubes - These are magical. Not only do they optimize space and enhance organization, but they seriously condense my belongings so that I can fit even more. The only downside to these cubes is that my bag now weighs A RIDICULOUS amount.

It's deceivingly heavy

What NOT to bring

Nothing against my fellow Americans, but sometimes we forget that other countries have common luxuries too, like laundry, shampoo, the internet, etc. People live (very comfortably) in other places, which means you don’t have to pack like it’s the apocalypse. As a result, I trust that I can pick up "resupplies" along the way.

I still have 15 hours before I need to make it to the airport and while everything fits, my lovely packing cubes have created multiple lead bricks. Consequently, I’m still trying to narrow down the items—possibly remove a shirt, a pair of shorts, a long sleeve shirt.

After all, I can always do laundry.