“Growing maturity is marked by the increasing liberties we take with our traveling.” – CS Lewis
In November 2015, my girlfriend and I travelled to Andalucia and Madrid in Spain, with just a vague itinerary and a need to get away from Singapore. It was our first long trip together, and the second unplanned trip after my jaunt to Turkiye in 2014. All I had was one backpack for the whole 16 days.
Like in Turkiye last year, the whole trip was a test on how much I could push my limits (travelling on a budget, spending 28 hours on the road). Carrying one backpack was an experiment on how light I could travel without discomfort. Was it feasible to take a trip across a foreign country with the same backpack I take to work daily?
Yes. And in the rest of this post, I will go into detail about my packing list, the advantages of carrying one backpack and my own analysis of the entire concept of travelling light from the point of view of a kiasu Singaporean.
One bag, one person: SM’s bag and mine on the Cercanias Madrid
Packing List
When the trip was confirmed and airplane tickets booked, I had a brief discussion with my girlfriend about travelling with one bag. The first and most important hurdle to cross was the airline’s carry-on requirements. I flew Turkish Airlines, so their carry-on baggage allowance was one piece not exceeding 8kg.
Second, I needed to pack for the weather. Because I was travelling to separate regions in Spain, I had a rough-estimate that the weather would be dry, windy and cold. To make sure I could both protect myself from the elements and travel light, I followed this sagely advice from all the blogs I read: layer.
Finally, I didn’t want to spend an excessive amount of cash on gear because, to put it simply, I’m not that rich. A lot of travel and ultralight packing blogs recommend certain types of apparel to travel light and the one thing that most have in common is Merino Wool. But shit that material is expensive (one Icebreaker shirt for S$85) and has not much practical use post-trip in a tropical place like Singapore. So I made the conscious decision to skimp on my clothing, and thus all the gear I took to Spain can be found at any local shopping centre. Don’t need to buy too much branded gear. Save the money for travel instead.
Here’s my packing list to prove it. I will go through each set of choices with notes on the rationale behind them. Items marked with an asterisk (*) were worn on the flight.
Clothing:
• 4 x shirts (1 Uniqlo Heattec + 1 Mizuno dri-fit + 1 Stoic Roam Long-Sleeve Shirt + 1 Uniqlo Polo-Tee*)
• 3 x underwear (2 Uniqlo Micro-Tencel + 1 cotton*)
• 2 x training socks*
• 1 x Adidas Response shorts (pyjamas)
• 1 x Basic House jeans*
• 1 x Marmot Torrey long pants
• 1 x Marmot Mica (rain jacket)
• 1 x Patagonia Micro D Fleece
• 1 x 2XU Thermal Compression Tights
Footwear:
• 1 x pair of slippers
• 1 x pair Merrell Gore-Tex Grassbow Sport shoes (worn)*
Electronics:
• 1 x Nokia Lumia 635, with charger and USB cable
• 1 x Panasonic Lumix LX7
• 1 x Creative Zen Neeon MP3 player
• 1 x ear-plugs
• 1 x adaptor
Accessories:
• 1 x Exped Summit Lite 15
• 1 x New Balance sling bag
• 1 x N-Lite sports towel
• 1 x Passport/ ID/ extra photographs
• 2 x pens
• 1 x flashlight
• 1 x decoy cache for emergency cash
• 1 x notebook
• 1 x paperback (How does a single blade of grass thank the sun by Deborah Lau)
• 6 x muesli bars (F&N Alive & Corny)
• 1 x Suunto T3C watch*
• 1 x TSA-compliant lock
• 1 x tissue paper pack
• 2 x Ziplock bags (A4)
Toiletries & Medicine
• 3 x adhesive plaster
• 2 x antiseptic wipes
• 2 x gauze pad (2’ x 2’)
• 6 x Panadol Cold tablets
• 4 x Clarinase anti-cold tablets
• 16 x Vitamin C tablets
• 1 x washing powder pack
• 1 x Gatsby facial wipes
• 1 x Gatsby facial wash
• 1 x shower gel bullet (30ml Shokubutsu)
• 1 x Gatsby shampoo (30ml)
• 1 x travel toothbrush & paste
Backpack:
• 1 x Goruck GR1 (26L)
Summary:
• Total Weight (pack + consumables + worn weight) – 7.6 kg
• Total Pack Weight (pack + consumables) – 6.2 kg
• Base Pack Weight (pack only) – 6.0 kg
Notes on gear:
1. Clothing
My clothes are mostly synthetics or dri-fit. They’re functional and the kind of clothes any sportsperson who lives in Singapore would own. So I bring them overseas with me because they’re light and they dry fast.
My clothing list goes against ultralight conventions in two ways: I carry jeans (mostly worn) and I don’t carry anything with Merino Wool. The reason for using jeans is simple: it makes me presentable and keeps me warm. Compared to lighter options out there, the jeans I own (by Korean clothing line Basic House) are much more affordable and can pass off as smart casual if need be. They don’t dry fast, but when I’m doing trekking or scrambling up a mountain slope, I switch to my Marmot pants, so they rarely get dirty and I don’t have to wash them.
As for Merino Wool, I’ve already mentioned the cost. I find no reason to pay for something that will have little practical use back home when temperatures are 30’C and humidity is almost 100% daily. Plus I don’t want to support a certain outdoor retailer that has a monopoly on Icebreaker gear in Singapore. So I use the cheap man’s alternative alternative: Uniqlo’s Heattech shirts. They’re good enough to wear as a standalone shirt and thin enough to use as layering. Call me cost-conscious, but I’ve never understood the obsession with Merino Wool if you’re not travelling long-term in temperate places.
My conventional ultralight items are my Marmot Mica rain jacket (folds up nicely) and briefs (Micro-Tencil is very light, dries fast and doesn’t smell). A solid rain-jacket like the Marmot Mica was the only brand-name item I felt comfortable buying. It replaced an older Uniqlo Packetable Parka that failed quite badly in driving rain. However, I’ve not had the opportunity to test how waterproof it is yet.
Because I don’t travel to cold climates often, the Patagonia Micro D fleece is good enough to ward away low temperatures. It’s become my default cold weather item. The 2XU Compression tights which I bought for a marathon in Taipei several years back doubles up as an improvised long john in case it gets too cold.
2. Footwear
From mud pools along the Rail Corridor, to rainforest treks in Kelantan, hikes up hills in Turkey and treks through the craggy slopes of Monachil, my pair of Merrell Gore-Tex Grassbow Sport shoes have survived everything. They keep my feet dry and comfortable over long periods of time. They don’t look very fashionable, but they’re durable.
Slippers are essential. They kept my feet from feeling the shock of the cold floor in Spain, and are good to use in bathrooms. Every year I get a S$3 pair from the same guy at Hougang and normally leave it at the last hostel I stay at before flying home.
3. Electronics
The phone I carry is the last of the Nokia Lumia series (sigh, end of an era). It has a so-so camera and a bright orange cover that is the default for its model. But I still stick to the Lumia series because of its free offline maps (HERE maps) which work superbly with GPS, hardiness and long battery life. In Spain, I could go two days without charging, while using GPS and the occasional Wi-Fi.
Because my Panasonic Lumix LX7 camera is a bit bulky and heavy, I nearly omitted it from my packing list. However, I wanted to use it to get some quality shots of the Alhambra in Granada and the Mezquita-Cathedral in Cordoba, so I packed it in. As a non-camera person, the LX7 is really a glorified point-and-shoot, but it works great in low-light settings. Unfortunately, it is a hassle to carry around sometimes.
4. Accessories
I carry two daypacks: an Exped Summit Lite and a sling bag that I got free from my many races. The Exped bag packs down beautifully into its own pocket and weighs next to nothing. Despite the lack of a frame, it’s my default daypack when I go outdoors. Getting this bag at S$50 was probably the best buy of 2015. In addition to the Exped, I use the sling bag in cities, or as a ‘purse’, to keep my belongings close in crowded areas. The flap and inner zip makes it hard to steal from.
A lot of people recommend Packtowl, but I got the much more affordable Korean version from N-Lite. But whichever brand you choose, microfibre towels are great: they dry fast and if I air them, they don’t smell. They’re an essential item when travelling.
My one luxury item was a paperback book. I know – it’s stupid and adds unnecessary weight to my pack, and in an era of smartphones and Kindles, hardcopies of books are best left at home or in hostel libraries. But I enjoy the sensation of taking out a book and reading on a plane, during a long train or while eating. A book is also less intimidating: in Turkiye, sitting at the Balikigolu (Fish Lake) in Sanliurfa with riot police nearby, it seemed less suspicious if I pulled out a book instead of any kind of electronic device. This is just what I think.
Miscellaneous: I’m not very much an EDC junkie, so everything is no-name, no brand stuff, from my waterproof storage (from Beach Road army market) to my pens (all free). My watch is a really old Suunto that a friend gave me. I wear it while travelling because I don’t want to draw attention to a flashy watch and I don’t want to whip out my phone to check the time all the time. I also like to take at least six halal muesli or chocolate bars with me – a habit leftover from my days doing training with my police running unit where I could just eat and share.
5. Toiletries and medicine
The first six items on the list above are my improvised first-aid kit. It’s not heavy duty stuff, but considering that I catch colds easily, the medicine is just a back-up. I’ll be the first to admit that this set-up won’t suffice for anything more serious.
Washing powder: I do my own laundry when I travel, so having washing powder is always useful. It can be used to wash clothes in basins, in the showers or as an addition to a washing machine. Supermarkets in Singapore tend to hand out free samples, and I’ve used the same 250g of washing powder for almost five trips. I don’t need a lot; just a sprinkle per load in the basin is normally enough.
Because of the 100ml carry-on limit, I usually hoard travel-size bottles for soap and shampoo, which I fill with the stuff I have at home. Constantly buying travel-sized soap and shampoo bottles isn’t doing the environment any favours, and I use them on a near daily basis after my runs anyway. The only exception is face wash – which is hard to transfer out of a tube – so I buy the small ones whenever there’s a deal at a supermarket.
6. Backpack
Because it’s something you carry on your back for a long period of time, this is the most important part of any gear list. My choice of backpack should be something comfortable, with ample space, and with the ability to withstand a sizeable amount of abuse (although from the photographs earlier, it’s quite clear what my chosen piece of gear already is).
My backpack is a second-hand, coyote-coloured 26-litre Goruck GR1. Perhaps one day I will do a full-review of the backpack, but for now it’s the best bag I’ve ever owned. Some things I like about it include the minimalist design, the water-resistant cordura fabric, very comfortable straps, the simple main internal compartment and the fact that it opens up flat. There are drawbacks: the weight, the ‘military-tactical backpack look’ and, of course, the price. No backpack is perfect. That said, I had been using it for a year when I took it to Spain, and it has served my needs sufficiently well. I use it daily to haul my gear to-and-from training, and it went with me to Kuala Koh and Melaka earlier in 2015.
(Prior to getting a GR1, I used a black Timbuk2 Phoenix backpack. It was significantly lighter, more normal-looking and had a great side zipper so I could swing the back on my right to access the contents without opening the top. Sadly, the Phoenix is more a cycling backpack, and as a result the top flap only closes with a horizontal strip of Velcro. There’s an unadjustable top end to the straps that make the entire backpack sit at an awkward angle on my shoulders when carrying heavy loads.)
A well-travelled bag for everything: Waiting for the boat at Kuala Koh National Park, Kelantan, Malaysia. (Photo by SJ)
Amendments
While the set-up above served me generally well in Spain, there are some things I would change for future trips:
• Never carry more than one daypack. Perhaps it’s a leftover from my days trekking in Malaysia, but I’ve always gone on trips with two daypacks: a drybag of sorts (something waterproof) and a more innocuous-looking sling bag (for the streets). This particular division of function makes sense if you’re bashing through jungle in the morning and in the evening going to town, but on a longer trip that doesn’t see too much change of terrain, carrying just one daypack is much more economical. In this case, I used my New Balance sling bag and left the Exped Summit Lite back at the hostel. The reason: it was much easier to get things out of the sling bag, even when hiking, so ease of access overrode functionality. Moreover, I will have more flexibility when it comes to daypacks since I bought a cheap Quechua Arpenaz 10 backpack in Madrid.
• The rain jacket was unfortunately redundant. I’ve done trips were it has rained every single day. But Spain in November is really dry and windy. So the rain jacket was dead weight. I would’ve brought a much lighter Uniqlo windbreaker if I’d known. Lesson learnt here: check and double-check the weather.
• A long-sleeved baselayer would’ve been great. It was damn cold at night (by Singaporean standards), especially in Cordoba and Grenada. While my fleece and Heattech helped, a windproof baselayer underneath it all would’ve been great.
• More washing powder. With a smaller bag, you have to keep washing clothes if you want to wear obsessively clean clothes like me. On this trip I finally exhausted the last 100g of washing powder while doing laundry almost every other day. Thankfully, SM had a bar of washing soap I could borrow.
• Next time, get dark-coloured hiking or tactical pants. My Marmot Torrey pants are the back-up off-road pants when I’m outdoors. There’s nothing technically wrong with them, but a darker colour (currently, mine are light beige) would be good, so I don’t constantly have to wash out the stains from hiking off-road.
• Other things I wasn’t happy with: the adaptor (kept getting jammed in sockets) and my lock (too small for hostel lockers). I will get both replaced, or borrow them at no extra cost.
In Summary
It’s a bit odd to describe gear in so much detail, but I hope the descriptions above will help others pack lighter and move more comfortably abroad.
To be more honest, I’ve got a spreadsheet that further details the costs of items in Singapore dollars for this particular trip. Items that are priced were bought specifically for the trip. Those that are left blank are reused from previous jaunts, borrowed or free.
This gear list is far from perfect, and my goal will ultimately to see if ultralight travel is possible without incurring heavy costs and going as light as I can go. If you have any questions, do let me know and I’ll be glad to answer them.