What to Take Backpacking | Backpacking Central

One thing you realise very quickly in the first few weeks of your trip is what you should have taken. It will either have gone two ways, you have taken to much or not enough. If you pack the items below you should have a comfortable trip. Most of the items are simple luxuries which make a massive difference.

Backpack

The backpack is one of the most important decisions you will make towards your trip. Choose the wrong one and you have to live with it for the whole trip. The aim is to get a fairly cheap bag but make sure its a good brand. Below is a list of good brands and links to their sites where you can find out more.

- Osprey - Black Wolf - Deuter

Recommendations -

Males- 60-70 Litre Backpack
Females 50-60 Litre Backpack
If bought brand new dirty it up before heading off traveling
must be able to use padlocks on the Zippers -Very Important
Waterproof or have a waterproof cover at least

First Aid Kit

You never know when you will need a first aid kit whilst backpacking. Nothing too serious like a Surgery kit but enough to bandage yourself up or apply band aids to someone. You would be surprised how handy they can be.

Recommended Items in a backpackers First Aid kit

Clean Scissors
Tweezers
Bandages
Antiseptic cream - Very Important
Butterfly clip Band aids
Headache tablets

Depending on where you are in the world its actually a lot cleaner, more hygienic, safer and always cheaper to perform your own first aid if possible.

Laptop-

A Laptop could be judged as an essential item to most travelers. I use a Macbook Air 13″. You could almost say it was designed for backpacking.

Extremely light
Small and Compact
Has webcam for Skype calls
with SSD Hard Drive your data is safer and loads very quickly.
Powerful enough to run any programs or games you might want
With an external Hard Drive you can store as much data as you want.
Keyboard very comfortable for typing for long periods of time.

Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch Laptop

Amazon Kindle

The Kindle is basically an electronic book reader. One of the best inventions around for backpackers.

Very Lightweight
Can hold up to 1500 novels in the palm of your hand
Can read for hours and the screen is designed in a way that your eyes will not hurt
Will work in Glarey conditions.
Books are generally a lot cheaper
You can get kindle apps on other devices to read your Ebooks.
You can lend your books with other Friends for 14 days.

Kindle, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display

Clothing.

Clothing is hard to judge and you always take to much. Fut below are a few tips.

If going to Asia or South America or a cheaper area you can buy clothes there very cheap.
2 Shirts
2 Pair Board Shorts
2 Tank Tops\Singlets
2 pair of long pants
4 Pair of Socks
5 Pair of Underwear
Flip Flops\ Pluggers
Jacket -depending on destination