The Packing List, Part 1 – Gear

This has been a very fun post to write. What – and how – do we pack for a family of five for a year? The answer: as little as possible. We have agonized over every little decision with the goals of lightening our loads and keeping ourselves hands free. This first post focuses on our gear. The second (coming soon) will focus on our clothes and electronics.

Luggage

We are using backpacks so that we can be as hands free as possible during travel days. We have a lot to carry and kids to wrangle. The packs sit on our hips, force us to pack light, and are easy to travel with.

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• Osprey Aether 85L (Robby) – Robby will be carrying his clothes and Miles’s clothes, and one set of toiletries in his pack. This 85L is big enough for all of that. Quite a feat given that Robby has to fit a couple pairs of size 13 shoes.
• Timbuk2 Uptown Surplus Pack (Robby) – This will be Robby’s daypack and will primarily store our electronics.

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• Thule Versant 60L (Leemore) – I will be carrying my clothes and Ari’s clothes. I love this pack. I can load from the front or top; it has a built-in rain cover; it has a sling-pack I can use for day-to-day; and it fits me well.
• Lo & Sons Catalina Deluxe Tote (Leemore) – My Mary Poppins bag. I will mainly be carrying my books/kindle, a huge amount of snacks, diapers, wipes, and toys/activities for Miles.
• Schitt’s Creek Tote (Leemore) – The show Schitt’s Creek makes me so happy and so does this tote, which is great for every day. It fits diapers, wipes, snacks, water bottles, etc., and folds up very small.

Since I mentioned diapers, a brief note on potty training: Miles just turned 2; maybe he’s ready, but probably not. We tried for a minute in early summer, and after he peed on the floor for the fifth time, I had this vision of us waiting with our bags at some train station, the train pulling up, and hearing a little voice saying “mommy, pee pee” (or worse). So I put the diaper right back on him and am very confident we made the right choice to hold off for now.

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• Osprey Farpoint 40L (Reed) – This pack is carry on size, and it is beautifully designed with a place for Reed’s computer and pockets for his books and gear. Reed did not want a top-loader pack. This loads like a carry on, and will last him a lifetime! Reed will carry all of his clothes and gear.
• REI Coop Tarn 12L (Ari) – Ari tried all of our packs on and really wanted one of her own. This one from REI is perfect for her 4 year old size; it has a lot of little pockets to house her squishies and bouncy balls, and a hipbelt to distribute the weight. A good thing because she will carry all of her toys and electronics in her pack.

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• AmazonBasics 20″ Hardside Spinner Luggage (kids) – We are using these as the catch-all carry ons. They will carry Reed’s school books, a bin of Legos, games (Uno, cards, etc.), some play cars and characters, art supplies, workbooks, kids books, etc.

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• Packing cubes – I have lived on this earth for 42 years – and have traveled quite a bit – and only this year discovered packing cubes. Life changer! It keeps our stuff so organized. We have the eBags cubes and the Tripped compression cubes. We also picked up some inexpensive packing cubes at Marshall’s, and my sister and brother in law gifted me a rad packing cube from Flight 001, which has a clean and dirty side. It fits all of my clothes.

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• Toiletries – We have three toiletry bags. I have the Spacepak toiletry bag from Flight 001, which hangs and is orange and is compact but somehow fits a lot. Robby is using a Red Bull dopp kit that he got when he worked there. Reed has a tiny Travelon packing square for his very basic necessities.
• Miscellaneous – We also have a set of Travelon pouches to organize electronics, chargers, and toys.

Water Safety

We love this planet too much to buy umpteen plastic bottles as we travel through countries with unsafe drinking water. So we’re taking a filter and a purifier. Both are tiny.

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• Sawyer Mini Water Filtration System – This tiny filter weighs two ounces, does not require filter replacements, and removes 99.99999% of what we want it to remove (ie, salmonella, cholera, E. coli and micorplastics).
• Steripen – This is a UV water purifier that destroys 99.9% of all viruses and bacteria.

Mosquito Safety (and a note on travel vaccines)

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Mosquitoes love to feast on all of us. We have been preemptively rubbing citronella oil to the bottom of our feet; we will use the Sawyer Picaridin Insect Repellent daily; and will spray our clothes and surroundings with Cutter’s lemon eucalyptus oil. Picaridin is comparable to Deet but it repels more bugs than Deet does, it lasts longer (14 hours vs 12 hours), and it will not damage the synthetic parts of our gear (Deet has a tendency to do that). I will also be taking some natural sprays/repellents made from essential oils that I hope will keep the bugs off.

A note on vaccines. The Passport Health Travel Clinic helped us figure out which vaccines we need for this trip. We let them know ahead of our appointment which countries and cities we will be traveling to, and when we met with them in person, we reviewed that list and the recommended vaccines for each location. Some travel vaccines are very expensive in the US. We all received the typhoid vaccine at the clinic, but we declined the yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis vaccines because of cost ($400 per person and $200 per person, respectively). The yellow fever vaccine is required for parts of Africa that we are considering; the Japanese encephalitis vaccine is recommended for SE Asia. There is a travel clinic in Bangkok that offers the identical vaccines for a fraction of the price ($16 and $36, respectively), so we’ll visit the clinic when we’re in Bangkok. Miles, who is 2, will also have his second round of MMR before we leave, instead of at age 4, because, well, the measles are back.

The Kids: Gear

So much time and research was spent figuring out the kids’ gear. To car seat or not to car seat? To umbrella stroll or to double stroll or to (sigh) buy yet another stroller? Here is what we chose:

Car Seats: We chose to car seat.

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Other options for a 2 year old include the Cosco Scenera (light but bulky) and the Immi Go (a foldable car seat that Uber uses). We almost bought the Immi Go but it requires a top tether and since we will be traveling in countries where car seats are not required and tether hooks are not available in all cars, the Wayb was a better choice for us.

Stroller and Toddler Carrier: Baby Jogger City Mini GT and the Tula (toddler size).

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Micro Kickboard Scooters – My kids love scooters and these scooters are the best. They fold, are compact, and they last years and years (we’ve had one for over 7 years and it is still perfect). We are taking the MicroKick Mini for Ari and the MicroKick Sprite for Reed. Why scooters? We intend to visit lots and lots and lots of local parks.

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Travel Guides

Reason #1,473 to love the Los Angeles Public Library. Most of the travel guides are downloadable as e-Books and some, including many Lonely Planet guides, are “always available,” which means we don’t have to wait for another borrower to finish it before we can access it. So we will not be weighed down with travel books, and we can download the guides that we need onto the iPad/iPhone Kindle apps to view them in full color.

Public Library Pro Tip: audio books for kids can also be downloaded from the public library through Hoopla or Overdrive. This is great because it provides a good alternative to screen time. and we can carry fewer kids’ books with us.

Miscellaneous

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• World Map Blanket – For parks, beaches, etc. I was pretty happy to find one with the world map on it. It is tiny when folded up.
• Alvababy Wet Bags – For those days when we need to pack up wet items.
• Youphoria Microfiber Towels – One for each of us.
• Eagle Creek Compression Sac – Our laundry bags.
• Leatherman Sidekick – We have a family bet going about how many times we will actually use this thing.
• Clothesline – Because 5 people generate a shocking amount of laundry and not every accommodation will have a dryer.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned to hear more about the clothes we are packing and the electronics we are taking with us.