Now, by no means am I implying that my list can beat up yours, because I'm sure you have lovely Top Ten lists of your own. But since you're here, reading this piece, the least I can do is treat you to some traditional Turkish hospitality. I'll start by offering you a cup of 'Top Ten Items To Pack When You Are Backpacking Around The World', to see how you like it.
Here I go!
Many of you have traveled. Be it to your grandparent's cottage in North Bay; to Rome, Italy for two weeks; or to an all-inclusive Cuban resort for 7-days and 6-nights. Some of you might have spent a month or two traveling through Europe or North America. Maybe even a few of you have taken an extended trip to more than one continent. Regardless of how long you have left your home for, it requires a certain amount of planning. I'm not talking about researching the suitable itinerary, or making sure all your bills are paid while you're away. I'm talking about the one thing many of us fear when a trip is imminent: packing. This became a daily ritual for JT (the love of my life) and I along our travels since we were always on the move, so I feel like we are accustomed to figuring out what we really needed to take with us and what we didn't. Here they are in order of importance. Hey, if these are things that you think would help you out on your 2-week holiday away from home, I will be thrilled!
Top Ten Items To Pack When You Are Backpacking Around The World
10) A good book (or a few) to read.
9) A notebook and pen/pencil to document your thoughts and views on your surroundings. It's also an "old-school" alternative to an address or phone book. What an interesting concept! You'd be surprised at the things you forget if you haven't documented them. Photos can only capture instances while sentences can capture entire emotions and events. I wrote down everything we did, where we went and who we met almost each day that we were on the road. I am so glad I did because now it not only reminds me of my perspective and state-of-mind at the time, but it makes the whirlwind of world travel that we've experienced so much more real since it is there in front of me, on paper. This documentation method serves to take you back to the places you've been, and like I said, even if it is to Grandma M's cottage in North Bay, reflecting back on the written memories of your grandma's facial expressions or the way the sun set over the lake can give your emotions a positive boost when things get tough at work or at home. To know that you had the courage to leave your surroundings and seek something different and new should be a boost enough, but this is a little added-value to your holiday package.
8) This leads me to another important thing to make sure you have with you. Courage. You have saved up money, or maybe you've won the lottery and you've decided that instead of buying a new flatscreen TV, you are going to venture outside of your comfort zone to somewhere new. Already you have separated yourself from many people who would rather watch new places on their new flatscreen TV then experience them first-hand. Your travel story has just begun. Wherever you decide to go is all yours. You are where you travel.
7) Travel-sized pillow. This can be the inflatable kind or not. We went with the ones made out of synthetic materials, and they did the trick. Oh yes, and the pillow must come with, or be matched up with a scarf, pashmina or small blanket of sorts. We did alot of overnight traveling on buses and trains to save on accommodation costs. If you are traveling through tropical climates or through countries that think they are tropical (like Europe) where people insist on blasting the A/C for the entire 8 to 18 hour trip, then a blanket will definitely come in handy. In addition, pillows do not only need to be used just for your head, but can also be used to prop your leg up if you have sprained your ankle, to sit on when you have been sitting on the "hard seat" of a train for 10 hours already and can't sleep because the guy next to you has not stopped smoking cigarettes and eating fried chicken. The versatility of certain items all depend on your creativity but also on your ability to "do without." The more you try to "do without," the more you realize that you really CAN do without. To know that you don't really need all that stuff the TV says you need or all those gadgets and tools that only serve one purpose each is a liberating and de-cluttering (word????) feeling.
6) A companion. Even though it is really nice to travel on your own, since you only have to take pee breaks if YOU drank too much coffee, and you can go wherever you want, whenever you want, see whatever you'd like at the time that suits YOU the best, there's still something to say about having one or more travel companions. JT and I are the perfect travel companions. And when I say perfect, well, there is no such thing as "perfect." We found that it helps to reduce the stress of constant interaction with your travel partner(s) to a few irritants: fear of change, hunger, thirst, fatigue and loneliness. Once you have overcome these five obstacles, you and your travel companion(s) can conquer the world with your smiles and positive attitudes. Of course, when you are traveling alone, you have no one but yourself to worry about when it comes to those five factors, but you also don't have people to experience and share things with. It also becomes a challenge if you always need to set up the automatic timer on your camera or extend your hand out to take self-portraits. More people in a photo is both fun and practical. That is why, as a unit, JT and I sought travel companions for ourselves. The experiences of other travelers matched up against your own makes for some great conversation and a whole new perspective when you are traveling. That's why you left home in the first place, to see new places and meet new people, right? Even if you like traveling alone, picking up a few travel companions along the way definitely doesn't hurt and can only add to your own experiences. While the world is getting smaller, you'll find that your network is actually getting bigger! You never know who you'll meet along the way!
5) A travel guide. Not a human one. One made out of paper and cardboard. I will not name any specific names of guidebooks, since there are many. However, there is one brand in specific that many travelers like to call The Book, that we relied on to find the best deals on hostels, maps of small towns and cities, the best one-day itinerary if you are only passing through a city for a few hours and the location of bus and train stations. Of course, there was a lot of other information that we extracted from these useful bibles that came in handy along our travels. But there is also the benefit of deriving information from referrals and just wandering about. Thankfully, our courage, stomachs and sign language skills helped us find that authentic "local experience."
4) Proper currency for the country you are traveling to. Some places do not except credit cards and ALOT of places definitely DO NOT accept traveler's cheques. Cash is king. Especially the appropriate cash for your location. AND, when in doubt, one thing we did not do while we were traveling, but will do the next time, is keep US Dollars in our shoes or somewhere hidden just in case. No matter what country we were in, US Dollars were pretty much accepted as valid currency and could get us a room if we had arrived at the hostel early in the morning and hadn't had a chance to hit the bank or ATM to withdraw local currency.
3) A good camera. I know that some of you might think that this object is the single most important piece of equipment to carry with you along the trip, but my vote is still for the ones below. Warmth and nourishment have always taken precedence for me. In the end, I can't eat something the camera has produced, it won't keep me dry, nor can it help me get out of a sticky situation unless I am getting robbed. I am not saying that our camera was useless, I am just a little sensitive since our beautiful and expensive camera was very fragile. We found this out after it fell two times, once in Egypt and once in China and we had to get it fixed. BUT, it was all worth it because our photos were amazing! I'll try to let the photos show you how important this camera was for us during our travels. My opinion is that if you like to take photos and document ANYTHING important in your life, a camera phone just won't do. And anything shy of 12 megapixels isn't going to cut it anymore.
2)A thin, water-resistant, breathable jacket. All the outfitters have a few types, in multi-colours. I chose the slimming effects of black-not very exciting, I know. I found this black beauty at the Europe Bound outlet store at Queen and Parliament in Toronto, it was on sale for half price. This versatile, sleek black design kept me warm and dry when the weather decided to go all topsy turvy on us. When it was cold instead of hot, and vice versa, that was one less thing I complained to JT about. It kept me warm when the Rain Gods graced us with their relentless presence in Scotland for our entire two-week stay IN AUGUST. It also came in handy walking up Mount Sinai in Egypt (where Moses received the Ten Commandments) at 2 o'clock in the morning in June when the dessert decided to trick us with a temperature drop from a daily high of 54 Celsius to a nighttime chill of 10 degrees Celsius.
1) A run-of-the-mill pocket knife (the specific model we got was nothing fancy, but also nothing short of fantastic!) If only for the sharp knife, tweezers, bottle opener, can opener and corkscrew, this compact little tool was our must-have on the trip. I can't tell you how times we have used that thing. We used the knife for cutting veggies for lunches we bought at supermarkets like Dia, Tesco's and Spar in Europe. The tweezers not only kept my eyebrows from shaping themselves into a bushy Mediterranean unibrow, but we also used them to pick a couple of tiny pebbles out of JT's foot after a day at the beach. Even though we didn't go all "Survivor" and use the magnifying glass to start a fire with the sun's reflection or unscrew something that...well, needed to be unscrewed with the screwdriver head, we did end up using the corkscrew to open a tasty bottle of French wine, the bottle opener to crack open a couple bottles of German beer and the can opener...well, we still use it because we have been too lazy to go out and buy one from the dollar store. So, for those who believe that this tool or "God-sent" is only used by hard-core campers and trekkers, think again. Like the saying goes, it never hurts to "Always Be Prepared." I think they even come in funky colours to match your whole travel-wear :)
So maybe this Top Ten List wasn't as compact as I promised it would be, but I guess there was alot I had been dying to tell you. The next Top Ten list promises to be shorter.
I'd have to add comfy boots and flip flops.
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