The world of backpacking can be stressful. Such a long way from home, you wonder about all the things you might need and end up with way more stuff than necessary. Other than the essentials like (2) pairs of pants, (2) shirts, a (1) rain jacket, boots, and a toothbrush, here are a few pointers to small, space efficient items that can improve your backpacking Adventure Saga.
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1. Dissolvable vitamins
Have you ever been dehydrated, hiking around a foreign country, trying to get that project done, or just lying in bed from last night? Maybe you aren’t feeling great and need a little immune boost but no oj is around.
A dehydrated person often needs more than just water, they need electrolytes and vitamins for their mind and body to function well. And although you may carry that everyday multivitamin pill, how many times has it sat funny in your stomach without food, not helping rehydrate your body, and how many times have you just forgotten to take it?
Mornings occupied by the stress to hydrate and feel refreshed for the coming day add difficulty to our lives that doesn’t need to be there. With a busy schedule, a daily intake of vitamins and hydration needs to be simplified. That’s why I travel with dissolvable vitamins.
With dissolvable vitamins, your body absorbs nutrients quicker and more efficiently than pills. They also work to restore hydration as rapidly as possible. Beverage vitamins are healthier with less sugar than sports drinks and way more mobile.
When you wonder why that sterile, mineral-less water isn’t doing the trick for you, you’ll remember that it’s time to take your dissolvable vitamin.
2. Microfiber Towel
One of the things you always hear backpackers say is “bring a towel.” Towels are great for sitting in the grass or sand, to use as a curtain, and to dry yourself when the hostel is lacking in the towel department.
But traditional towels are bulky, take time to dry, and are impractical when you’re trying to travel like a true minimalist with that 45-liter bag. Despite their necessity, towels are a real hindrance to travel with.
Queue the microfiber towel, a relatively new essential to any backpacker’s list. These microfiber towels are ultra-lightweight, compact into nothing, and are super absorbent. They dry in a matter of minutes when hung up, are durable enough to sit on, and come in a variety of sizes. There’s literally no downside to carrying one.
3. Sunhoodie
The biggest problem of adventure backpacking is how to be prepared for each climate you explore. Clothes for the blazing hot equatorial beaches are different from clothes for alpine cities that drop close to freezing at night. But the bus ride is only a few hours, and I want to do both!
Many people either over-pack because of this problem, or they just choose one climate and stick to it. But you don’t have to limit yourself. Multi-use apparel, like the sun hoodie, keeps you both cool and warm and is your one-stop solution for staying comfortable in different climates.
One of the secrets of a useful sun hoodie is material; a good synthetic is moisture-wicking, sun-blocking (SPF+), and thin enough to be layered with other clothes. A sun hoodie is also uniquely stylish, and Colombia has a variant on sale on amazon.
4. Kindle reader
If you’re like me, reading is more than entertainment. Diving into books is a lifestyle, educative and soothing, an escape from the moment’s preoccupations and pains. Reading is an absolute must for me, but…
Traveling with books is bulky, heavy, and cumbersome. There’s no way your bag will qualify as a carry-on when stuffed with books.
And while traveling with one book and trading it with others on the road is nice, you might take a month to find a good book. And what if the lights are out, do you just quit reading? No, impossible.
With a kindle e-reader, I can carry 100s of books in a package lighter than one print book. With a kindle e-reader, light is irrelevant to reading. And with a kindle, if you’re smart, you can even use your send yourself any pdf or .mobi file from the internet and read it for free.
5. Bladder
In Hemmingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” part of the plot takes place in Pamplona, Spain during a wild party celebrating bullfights. The main character, Jake, carries a leather bladder for wine which he refills multiple times through the festivities.
His antics inspired me to get a leather bladder designed for wine, but which supports water just fine.
If you’re going to skip the wine, sporty versions feature a drinking hose, and compact designs to fit in your knapsack. The food-grade material is a doubly secure and efficient addition to any hiker or walkers’ repertoire.
No matter which drinking bag you choose, this plastic bottle alternative makes sure you’re never thirsty on the road and is an eco-friendly alternative to using polluting practices.
6. Dual-use soap (clothes & body)
Hostels are not a reliable source of soap, you need to bring your own. Likewise, laundry prices at your hostel are probably double what they are on the street. But you gotta stay clean, both on your skin and what you cover it with. And no one likes a bunkmate who reeks.
I started traveling with soap which is gentle enough for both my body and clothes and I 100% recommend it. You save room by having soap dynamic enough to clean multiple things, and no more smelly socks sitting around because the rest of your clothes aren’t ready for the Laundromat.
Dual-use soap is the definition of two birds with one stone. You stay clean and don’t have to bother paying the Laundromat every few days just to get your favorite socks or underwear washed.
Though small, this is an important, dynamic tool essential to any minimalist backpacker’s list. Kirk’s soap takes things a step further and even cleans your hair!
7. Phone Case + Battery Combo
Keeping a charge is important while you're out there adventuring. Not many phone batteries today have enough power to do GPS, music, and info exchanges at the same time, for hours a day. So when you arrive to a new city and want to walk around all day meeting people and jamming, your options are to either carry around a cable and power
bank or simplify your life with a case & charger combo. This variety is for iphone but plenty of varieties exist for android phones, if you click they'll come up.
This attachment can be especially satisfying if you're an outdoors person like me, who enjoys disappearing into the woods. With the extra battery life (3 days for my iPhone 8+) I'm never preoccupied by getting accidently lost and my gps ceasing to function, and there's always power for that one extra video I end up impulsively shooting.
8. Multi-Charger Cable
Not much is more exasperating than fumbling around with a rat's nest of cables inside your backpack. Then, when you finally find the right one, it's tangled in such a mess that its extraction becomes an ordeal. Wouldn't avoiding this save your sanity, some extra space, and your precious traveling time?
Yes, is the answer. And that's why one of my travel hacks is carrying a multi-charger cable, a cord that has all three major connections in one usb. This item is so convenient, and you can even charge multiple devices at once. This edition is retractable, making it even tidier.