I met a few German hitchhikers in southern Mexico. They were the talk of the hostel, tramping all the way from New York to Patagonia with nothing but backpacks, some clever couch surfing and their charming accents. On my way out, I met the hotshot of the group – an early-twenties Eurohipster who had decided to scatter his life across the road. I, on the other hand, had just a measly six-week stint, but when he saw my 15-pound knapsack, the first thing he said was, “Man, I really haf brought too much stauff!”
The fact that he had just traversed a continent with what he already had didn’t matter; backpackers always need to out-vagabond one another, and apparently the ideal nomad is something akin to Frodo Baggins. I’ve never met anyone else who travels as light as I do. To our German, that means I win. But to normal people, it means I have to wash the same two T-shirts in guesthouse sinks for six weeks.
Good packing is about bringing what you need, but not what you need for Cairo or what you need for Paris; it’s about what you need for you. Personally, I like to be able to carry everything I own and still sprint to catch a bus. But hey, maybe you want to go clubbing in something other than a ratty T-shirt. If you don’t mind lugging the extra weight, by all means, lug it. You’re not doing it wrong.
Doing it wrong is what I did last summer. When I got robbed the summer before in Guatemala, I realized I had been bringing the same items for years. Same little red pack, same thin cotton pants that roll up into shorts, even the same Bible – not because I was sentimental or cheap, but because it was the stuff that, trip after trip, always made it home. It was a system that took years to carve out, filled with personal habits like keeping the pipe tobacco in the side pouch or always bringing rubber bands.
But at the time, I just figured I traveled so light because I was Rambo, so last summer, I didn’t bother to find replacements for my lost equipment until a few days before I left for Nicaragua. I had smuggled a live frog into the States from Thailand, I had caught malaria, I had eaten a dog for Pete’s sake, but without the right luggage – MY luggage! – I was like a sorority girl on a camping trip. It wasn’t that I brought too little, but that I didn’t recognize exactly what I needed.
Of course, figuring out your own system takes practice, and even our grizzled German hitchhikers were bound to shed some items and acquire others. Trouble lurks in things you can’t discard, like laptops, sleeping bags and girlfriends (jk). The only terribly valuable essentials are your passport, bank card and maybe a camera or something. Nix the laptop for Internet cafes and don’t buy expensive travel gear – that Target backpack will be just fine.
In fact, it’s generally better to underpack. Unless you’re camping or something, you’ll be able to find bed sheets, hygiene products, clothes and anything else you need on the fly, usually for less than it would have cost you back home. So when you get to the Indian Desert, there’s no reason why you can’t ditch your nomad frock and pretend to be Humphrey Bogart (it cost me $8).
Packing isn’t about being prepared; some people are so prepared they can’t even fit through the hostel door. But it also isn’t about being rugged; travelers who desire discomfort for its own sake read too much Jack Kerouac. It’s about being comfortable in whatever you’re doing, whether it’s hitching across Patagonia or studying abroad in Oxford. If you pack right, your only real burden is, well, you.
