College 101
Packing List for Travelers Article Type: Checklist
If you’re here wondering how many pairs of socks to pack for your year of hiking in the Himalaya, move on. We’re going to assume that you’re going to pack the necessary clothes, toiletries, and personal items for your trip.
So here’s a packing list of items you might not have thought of, that tend to come in extremely handy for travelers. This is the stuff you might not always need, but when you do, you sure are happy to have it.
This list comes from years of experience traveling the globe, and nothing on it takes up too much space. What have you got to lose (except your passport—check the last item on this list)?
__Dental floss: Not just to clean the nasty from between your teeth. Stick a sewing needle in the floss box and you can use it to repair a backpack or replace a broken shoelace.
__A Head Lamp: They aren’t just for miners anymore. A flashlight is great, until you need one and actually need to use both of your hands at the same time. Plus, a headlamp is great for reading at night.
__ Some Toilet Paper: You can figure out why. Trust us.
__Pens: Don’t be the person on the plane who needs to fill out their immigration form but doesn’t have a pen. Bring a few, and stash them in different places (but not so many that you’re stopped by customs for smuggling).
__Duct Tape: You’ll need to MacGyver something along the way (plus it’s great for blisters, (something MacGyver knows something about, what with all the hurtling over things, scaling walls, and such). If you have a water bottle, wrap a couple of meters of tape around it.
__A Small Notebook: Back-pocket size. Great for working out exchange rates, communicating ideas when you don’t speak the language, and jotting down random thoughts.
__An International Phone Card: If you need this and don’t have it, you will really wish you had brought it. If you don’t need it, use it up at the airport on the way home calling random people to tell them about your trip. Call up that snot-nosed yuppy neighbor boy and all his trips to the Caymans—tell him about your experience swimming in the South Pacific with two nurse sharks and a transsexual.
__A Travel Bottle of Shampoo: Use it as soap in a pinch. Even better, shampoo works great to wash out a few items of clothing in the sink. Heck you may even need to wash out a sink with it…
__A Handful of Plastic Bags: These can protect your books, disguise your computer, or separate dirty or wet clothes from your good stuff. Tons of uses.
__A Deck of Cards: Travel means delays. Start up a game. A game of Old Maid or poker (played with peanuts, of course) is a great way to meet people.
__An information card: This is something you can have two of: One for you to keep on you and one to leave with family or friends back home. This will have things like your passport number, your driver’s license number, your credit card number and the numbers to call and report it missing.