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Randy Johnson's "Footloose and Fancy-Free in the Third World"
All text Copyright © 1992-2008, Randy R. Johnson.
Precious Items
There are two reasons to limit the precious items you take. First, expensive -- or even apparently expensive -- hi-tech items attract thieves. Even a cheap wristwatch is assumed to be valuable if worn by a western tourist. If you carry a big camera, Walkman, radio, binoculars, and a flashy tent, sleeping bag, or even jacket, they may draw the attention of thieves, or ordinary people who are tempted by such "extravagant" valuables. You must be more careful to protect them, and yourself.
Second, you will continue to carry all those expensive, irreplaceable, or favorite items even after they prove themselves to be of little use. Before leaving home, I make a short list of those few items that I definitely intend to bring home with me -- those that I will not toss out, give away, sell for a ridiculous pittance, or tolerate the theft of. If your bag is full of such items, you are asking for some heartache, or at least difficult choices. When you decide that some of these items are an unnecessary burden, you might be able to mail them home, but Third World postal systems are not always reliable -- some are like black holes. Whenever possible, take an item of lesser value that you will not mind giving up.
For example, if you will need a sleeping bag, don't take your new $400 down bag if you can get along with a cheap, lightweight, or used bag that you won't mind ruining, selling, or just leaving behind when it is no longer useful. Better yet, count on picking up an old bag (or other equipment) from another traveler or sports shop when the need arises.
Fragile Items
Another criterion for leaving things at home is fragility. Before leaving on a trip, I take my packed bag, throw it to the floor, bounce it off the walls and jump up and down on it a few times. Dropping it from an upstairs window is also a good test. Anything that breaks, stays home. This is not a joke. It is no worse than what will often happen to your rucksack in the course of a trip.
Keep your precious and fragile items to a bare minimum and be prepared to carry them around in a separate bag. This applies not only to traveling on buses and trains, but also when you are staying in questionable accommodations, which is virtually every place in most countries, regardless of how much you pay. Be prepared to carry all of those precious items around with you all day, every day of your travels. Consider this when making up your list.
Army Colors
Do not take anything that is green, camouflage-patterned, or in any way looks like it might be military or guerrilla gear. Definitely avoid Army Surplus gear, including canteens, that really are military, as well as epaulettes and high-topped work boots that look vaguely 'army'. This may sound silly to you, but for a few years, anyone (male or female) with a green rucksack was turned back at the Nicaraguan border. A few people even had their green backpacks confiscated. They were suspected of being connected with the CIA, guerrillas, or a counter-revolutionary plot. This was at an official border. Consider how paranoid and unsophisticated young Third World army troops may be when they are out on patrol in potential guerrilla territory! These problems may be rare, but you want to avoid them by looking like a tourist, not a mercenary! I take this quite seriously when buying and packing.
Leather
You may end up with several items made partly or completely of leather. When leather gets wet, it molds and mildews very easily. It also dries slowly and tends to rot faster than nylon or canvas. Shoes or sandals made with leather are often a good choice, but you must take care of them. Do not dry them in the direct sun; put crumpled newspaper inside leather shoes to dry them out. When leather gets dry and cracked, apply any kind of oil you can find, except animal fat. You will not be able to find boot cream, waterproofing wax or the like. I recommend canvas or nylon belts over leather, especially if you ever plan to sweat.
Everything Rusts!
When you install yourself on a lovely beach by a tropical sea -- or almost anywhere in humid climates -- you will soon discover that everything rusts. Items that I have owned and kept tidy for many years have suddenly turned to rust in a few weeks at the beach. The rivets on your jeans will rust, the hardware on your pack will rust, even your stainless steel knife will begin to show signs of pitting and rust. Your belt buckle, safety pins, scissors, snaps, spiral notebooks, and even coins will rust! The metal eyes on your shoes will rust and fray the laces; cheap padlocks certainly rust. Spare batteries will definitely corrode as will the contacts on your flashlight and its bulb. Metal zippers also tend to rust if not oiled. Keep your spare camera battery in an air-tight plastic bag. I carry a water-tight plastic (Tupperware) food container where I store some of these items.
Check your gear for metal and consider how useful it will be when (not if) it rusts. Needle points rust quickly and become worse than useless unless kept in an airtight container or stuck in petroleum jelly. I have gone to great trouble to find genuine stainless steel sail-maker's needles that I can really depend on (try a ship's chandlery). The main manufacturers of these specialty needles are "W. Smith & Son" of Reddich England, and "Mailspeed Marine", which you can find on the internet.
Nail clippers soon become useless with rust unless you find the rare stainless steel models (try a cutlery shop). You will discover the true value of your "stainless" steel items when they all start turning to rust! Consider any non-metal alternatives; if there are none, then you will just live with the rust -- it's a part of life.
There are really very few required articles beyond the obvious clothing and luggage. But there are a few items which -- in my personal opinion as a traveler -- make you look like a hopeless novice and nincompoop if you do not have them: a flashlight (torch), a cup, a spoon. There will be any number of occasions during your travels when you will suddenly be faced with a situation -- often in the presence of others -- when you must be able to produce one of these three items of your very own. If you don't have one, other travelers will just roll their eyes and wonder what airplane you just stepped off of (or crawled out from under).
I would normally add a water container to this list, but you can now buy bottled water in most tourist spots, and some 'travelers' get along on that. If you are doing any interesting traveling at all, you will also need the water container, a pocket knife, and a minimal sewing kit, to keep the eyes from rolling.
The size and weight of your luggage is crucial to how easily you travel around. (I feel like I should have put that line in bold -- just read it three times in a row.) The lighter you travel, the more footloose and fancy-free you will be. If you carry a heavy rucksack and another one or two bulging day packs or duffel bags, you will not spend much time looking around for hotels, and you will avoid midday stopovers to visit sights along the way. You become your own beast of burden and a prisoner of your luggage. Your first job will always be to find a place to unload your bags, instead of having the freedom to walk around and explore the place before deciding where, and if, you want to stay.
The quantity of your luggage also affects your vulnerability to sneak thieves who abound in some countries. My personal rule is to travel with both hands free. It makes me feel free to consult my guide book, or pop into a shop along the way. A person with both hands full of luggage is an open invitation to any thieves who may be watching. As long as there are plenty of such overloaded travelers around, I feel safe that no intelligent thief will select me as a target.
Keeping your luggage down to size is no easy task, and I sometimes find myself struggling through a station with an extra bag after making several purchases. I definitely feel better when my hands are free. Toward this end, I keep my small amount of valuables in a waist pack, and everything else goes into the rucksack, gets sent home, or donated to science. Some people seem to travel around happily with huge rucksacks and frame packs. I don't know how they can stand it, but I am constantly reminded that it can be done. If you must carry a large amount of gear, try to get it all into one big bag, so you can keep your hands free.
Traveling Light is a Promethean task -- and one that will make you a better person! You must make some hard decisions about what are the most necessary items. One of the most important lessons that traveling has taught me in my life is what I can live without, and what I absolutely need to have (put that sentence in bold and read it three times, please). This lesson applies to many things in Life beyond just luggage, but it is a good starting point.
Since travel is a learning process, you cannot readily imagine on your first trip just what you can actually do without. If you have ever packed a backpack for a camping trip of several days, you already have a good head start. You know that some things are not really essential, and those that are essential can be miniaturized in several ways. In short, the items you find in your bathroom and kitchen at home are usually much too big to carry around on your back.
Over the years, I have kept a list of the truly amazing things that I have seen people carrying around in their rucksacks. To me, they were absolutely absurd, but I'm sure that those people just looked around and picked up the things that they were accustomed to using at home and tossed them into the bag. Maybe they found them useful because they travel differently than I do. Like the young woman who pulled out her travel iron, plugged it into the light socket over the camp table at a campground on a deserted Mexican beach and proceeded to iron her clothing. I was dumbfounded, speechless; but I imagine it was an important part of her routine. I will, however, make no further mention of travel irons.
As you travel, you should periodically make assessments of what you could just as well do without. I constantly keep a "hit list" in my notebooks -- a list of those items which I suspect I could just as well do without, or which are about to wear out. When the bag starts getting too tight to close, I go through this list and toss out a few items. Still, at the end of each trip, when I check my written inventory, I find a couple of items which made it home without hardly ever being used. Some of them (snake bite kit) I hope never to use, but a few just seem to hang on as apparently superfluous items that I unrepentantly choose not to be without, for no logical reason at all.
Small is Beautiful
Some people make the mistake of trying to take along all they will need for an entire trip of several weeks or months. You will be able to get most of life's basic necessities wherever you are. They may not be as nice as the stuff you use at home, but that's what "roughing it" is all about. Just take enough for a couple of weeks.
Choose the smallest items you can. Don't carry the large family-sized bottle of shampoo just because it will last for your whole trip. Shampoo can be purchased anywhere in the world. Get a good, sturdy, leak-proof, small (4 to 8 oz) bottle for your shampoo and replenish it when it runs low. If something cannot be purchased overseas, maybe you should just learn to live with an alternative that can be! Get rid of excess packaging, attachments, and frills you don't need! I cut down the handles of my toothbrushes so they will fit in my toilet bag and my little soap dish takes just half a bar of regular soap.
Weight-to-Use Ratio
Every time I leave on a trip, I leave behind many very useful items. If I took all the useful things, I would need to hire a Sherpa to carry them! There are a few items I carry which I hope never to use, such as some medicines, but these are also small and lightweight items (as long as I don't take too many). I also take some small articles that I find very useful, although I use them only a few times a month.
For every item you take, seriously consider its weight versus the amount of practical use you will get out of it. Some things that look great in catalogs end up as nothing more than ballast in your pack. If you won't be using an article very often in relation to the amount of energy you will expend carrying it on your back across half the surface of the globe, then consider these three alternatives: a lighter item that is not quite as convenient, finding one overseas when you really need it, or doing without it.
Some people argue that although they use a tent and stove only one or two days a month, on those occasions, they are extremely useful. That sounds like a pretty good argument, but the same can be said for a machete or an electric fan. And what about the other 29 days of the month? Who has to haul that gear around through all of those days? You do. If it is necessary and will improve your trip, you will take it -- if not, don't.
I have already cautioned you against bringing your favorite, precious, and fragile possessions. Along the way, I will tell you that some of the items I list below are best left at home. They are listed just because many people may consider taking them along, if only because they are a part of daily routines at home. Here I will add pajamas, cream rinse, shaving cream, and hair spray as examples of items which I feel are really unnecessary. After reading through my tirades about "useless" items, you will get an idea of my personal criteria for the types of things that will soon end up as gifts to friendly locals.
Electrical Appliances -- Anything that needs to be plugged in will be useless in half the places you go. They are also prone to break down, especially if connected to the wrong current. Is it really necessary? Things like hair dryers, irons, and curling irons should be left at home, and electric razors are of questionable utility. I will mention an emersion heater for making tea; it is small and, when working, a nice convenience, but hardly necessary.
Battery-powered items are next on the suspicion list, save for the flashlight (torch) which no one should be without. Batteries run low and are expensive if you can ever find good (alkaline) ones. Indian batteries will run a Walkman for about 10 minutes, a flashlight for maybe 30 minutes. A new calculator should last up to a year, but good solar-powered models (without a clock) are a better alternative. I will point out the disadvantages of radios and personal tape players, but many travelers take them along, regardless.
Aerosol Cans -- These are the height of wasted space in a rucksack. In my opinion most of the stuff in them is also unnecessary. Anything in a large or aerosol can should be replaced with something much smaller, or forgotten about altogether. Replace tin cans with plastic bottles whenever possible.
Glass -- Glass containers of most any kind are right out, unless you just can't find an alternative for a tiny medicine bottle. I will suggest two alternatives to glass mirrors, somewhere down there, below.
Sharing
Aside from what you take for yourself, you will often meet travelers who are much less well-prepared than you are. I usually take a few extras of the things I don't expect to use often; it can be gratifying for both of you when you are able to give up an extra safety pin, some Lomotil, or a dab of antibiotic when little emergencies arise. But you should not feel obliged to provide quantities of precious insect repellent, sunscreen, a water bottle, or other items which you have already carried half way around the world, just because someone else has left home unprepared. When you find too many others beginning to depend on the contents of your rucksack for their daily needs, you will become more secretive about using some of these precious things; it also indicates that you have done a pretty damned good job of packing!
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