What to Pack for a World Trip: Here Is Our List

After planning our itinerary around the world, the next big challenge was to prepare a packing list that would fit both our needs and those of our itinerary.

These are the main points to consider when creating your packing list:

Size

In this case, size matters. All your clothes, toiletries, travel gear and electronics need to fit in your backpack. Even if you have an additional, smaller daypack, it isn’t practical to carry around many smaller bags. And don’t even think about a trolley bag if you plan to be on the road most of the time — which is pretty much the idea behind a trip around the world.

We went for a 60-litre backpack each, plus an additional 20-litre daypack that can eventually fit inside the bigger one. It is obviously a good idea to have a couple of foldable, reusable grocery bags with you, and an even smaller fanny pack for your most important documents.

Itinerary

After choosing your itinerary, you should get an idea of the climate and weather in the places you plan to visit. If you can somehow manage to visit every place in the warm season, lucky you — you don’t need to worry about essentials for extreme heat or cold.

As we decided to travel mostly during shoulder seasons, casual clothing will be our default. At the same time, we couldn’t avoid extreme cold, so we’ll bring some essentials with us, but the plan is to get proper winter clothing on the spot — practically a couple of days before we need it.

Travel Style Reimagined

For an Italian summer holiday, you would pack totally different clothes than for a trip to Norway’s fjords in winter. On a world trip, you don’t really have the opportunity or space to pack separate outfits for hiking, sightseeing and classy dinners. You need to simplify and combine styles.

As we’ll be travelling through bustling cities, remote villages, high mountains and beaches, it is pretty complicated to define our travel style. At the same time, we’re rather low-maintenance and can manage different activities with similar clothing.

Our idea was to pick one or two sets of clothes for different activities and use only those.

Comfort First

A world trip is quite long — unless you plan to do it as quickly as possible. You don’t really want to drag around a thousand hand-wash-only clothes for a year and a half.

We decided to pick comfortable and practical shoes and clothing that we can grab anytime and wear worry-free.

One tip: pick clothes in similar tones — we went for dark colours — so you can wash them together. Darker, casual-looking pieces are also less flashy, which can make you feel safer in some countries.

Only The Essentials

As you don’t have too much space, and your back will also thank you for not carrying too much, you need to stick to the essentials in many cases.

At home, you can have thousands of high-quality skincare products, but on the road, you need to narrow it down to one or two. In many accommodations, you’ll get basic toiletries, so say goodbye to your favourite shampoo and use what you’ve got. It is also very personal, so we’re not saying you shouldn’t bring a tube of your favourite toothpaste. But narrowing down your toiletry needs goes a long way.

Too much travel gear takes up a lot of space in your bag and in your head as well. Stick to the most important things, and to those you will definitely use.

The same goes for electronics. Your phone can practically do as much as four or five other devices. Think about your needs and pack accordingly. Dávid loves to read, so he brings his e-book reader with him, but it will go a long way on those day-long train journeys.

So here is our packing list, with some notes.

Clothes

• Down jacket (goose or duck) – Versatile and easy to pack.
• Raincoat – Better than an umbrella.
• Flip-flops
• 3 pairs of trousers (jeans, hiking trousers, and a smarter pair)
• 2–3 pairs of shorts (hiking or casual)
• Swimming shorts
• 4–5 T-shirts – One of them could be used as pyjamas. It is also useful to have one smarter option, such as a polo shirt.
• 1–2 sweatshirts (fleece and/or cotton)
• 1–2 thermal base-layer T-shirts
• 1 pair of thermal base-layer trousers
• 6–7 pairs of underwear
• 6–7 pairs of socks
• Winter hat
• Baseball cap
• Scarves
• Thin gloves
• Thin towel

Gear

• Backpack – Obvious, but bring a daypack as well.
• Sleeping bag – It isn't essential, but it can be very useful on sleeper trains or in under-heated accommodation. We chose a thinner one with a comfort temperature of 10°C.
• Sunglasses
• Multi-port charger – With USB-C and USB ports.
• Cables – According to the charger and our devices.
• Camera
• Earphones
• Phone
• Laptop
• E-reader
• USB-stick
• Shopping bag
• Torch
• Small padlock
• Repair kit (clear tape, felt-tip pen, cable ties, string, safety pins, plastic bags, sewing kit)
• Earplugs

The essentials

• Pens and notebook
• Medication (painkillers, fever reducers, anti-diarrhoeal medication, vitamins)
• Toiletry bag (shower bar and shampoo bar, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, soap, hand cream, face cream)
• Documents – A passport is a must. Don't forget any necessary visas and vaccination certificates.
• Debit and credit cards
• Some cash

This is everything we packed. Keep in mind that we're two guys, so we have no idea about female-specific needs – sorry about that! Hopefully, this will be enough for us, and maybe our list will be helpful to you, too.