Our Gear
What do you bring for a year long flashpacking trip around the word? This is a very common question we get. So we created this page in an effort to more fully detail our gear, along with reviews and recommendations based upon our experience on the road. We will be updating the page with additional reviews and commentary as we continue our travels.
Keith's Gear
Amy's Gear
Below you will find an Amazon.com banner that provides convenient links to some of our gear that is available there. If you click through and buy anything on the site you help us out with a small referral fee. At the end of the year I am hopeful to have earned enough fees to buy a paperback book when we return.
Backpacks: This is pretty critical piece of gear. It carries all of your stuff and needs to be big enough, but no so big you are tempted to carry around lots of extra gear. We went with backpacks over rolling bags or other types of luggage as it offers the benefit of keeping your hands free as you negotiate crowded and unevenly paved streets, stairs and ferry boarding ramps. As a rule, if you are not bringing lots of technical camping type gear, 60-65 liters should be more than enough. If you don’t think so reevaluate what you think you need. As we have discovered along the way, a backpack also needs to be tough. We bought both of our packs at REI and while we are generally happy with them, Keith’s pack in particular is built to be super lightweight and as such seems more vulnerable to wear and tear. In addition to our main large packs we also each carry small day packs. We use our day packs as carry-ons when flying and for keeping the important/breakable/valuable stuff with us at all times, including things like the laptop, back-up hard-drive, and camera.
- Amy uses the ACT Lite 60+10 SL Women’s Internal Frame Backpack
- Keith uses the Osprey Atmos 65 Pack
Security Stuff: When we talk with people back in the States we often get the question if we have had anything stolen yet. Thankfully, the answer at this point is no. We like to think it is mostly due to the fact that most of the people in the world have a base level of morality and are not looking to swipe our belongings at the first chance they get. It is also probably a result of our somewhat fanatical approach to security. It starts by having travel locks to secure all the zippers of our small day packs and a small cable and padlock to secure our big packs when they are stored under buses as we have heard of bags being mistakenly taken out when buses stop in the middle of the night. We also use the PacSafe to secure our laptop and camera when we leave them in our room. Finally, when we are traveling from place to place, we use the universal traveler accessory, the Eagle Creek passport and money belt. By taking the security of our stuff seriously and consistently using these simple methods we hope to avoid becoming victims.
