Second trip to Bangkok, entry March 9th, 2023, previous entry was December 10th, 2019… just before travel during coronavirus!
Next… India… a country of significant monuments, population and a lot of dirt and trash… (but the photos turned out well!). I really hold a neutral opinion of the country but it does have pluses, such as the food, price, and weather forecast.
Saudi Arabia stopover and Romania stopover, my second time and meeting an old friend! My original flight from Saudi to India got canceled so i decided to stay at the airport for 1 day, then take an earlier flight. Flight on Jan. 30th, 2023. Flight to Bucharest from Athens dated Jan. 25th, 2023.
Next up in reverse, order Athens, Greece! Flight in from Tirana, Albania! Nice to be on the road again! Flight via Wizzair on Jan. 7th 2023. It was snowing in Bucharest so had to plan for winter and summer once i get to Thailand, a few stops away! Left Athens on Jan. 25th, 2023.
Stopover/Rest Albania, Tirana, visit #3 … I spent this time to retool my clothing and my gear, and replaced or added some smaller items for my next unique adventure to Greece, India, and Thailand, and the Mideast! Entry to Albania from Milan Italy on … I had to look this up.. 11/08/2022.
Next stop in reverse order.. Italy, flew to Pisa from Tenerife on an affordable on Nov. 3rd, 2022, and bussed it to Milan on Nov. 7th, 2022, where I then caught a flight to Tirana on November 8th/9th 2022. The reasoning was to spend less time in more expensive countries my two stop Italy trip did not disappoint!
Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, rewinding again (my second time in Tenerife (and 2nd time in London). I flew to Tenerife South airport from London Stansted on Sep. 9th, 2022, and from Tenerife South to Pisa on Nov. 3, 2022. Over here in Tenerife I was boondocking it for most of the 42 days that I was on the island.
Next up going in reverse the country of Poland… London was a stopover so not counting as a visit, i came from Krakow and took a flight to London, then another Ryanair flight to Tenerife. . My bus from Gdansk to Krakow was on Sep. 14th, 2022 via the Flixbus. The flight to London was on Sep. 21st giving me 7 days in Krakow… The flight to Gdansk was on Sep. 12th, 2022.
I took yet another Flixbus from Stockholm to Oslo, Norway. One of my most interesting experiencing camping in the wild woods in central Norway, I came into contact with some magnificent forests and a wild boar! I came to Oslo on Sep. 3rd 2022 from Stockholm.
Going back in time, the next country I visited was Stockholm Sweden. I came via Flixbus on August 30th, 2022. Here are some photos from Stockholm below…
Hello traveling guys and girls! Its now time to get down to brass tacks again and look at my travel planning and ill tell you what I plan on doing, when, and how, and by what modes of transport. This is for me just my personal travel plan to eastern Europe. It should be exciting and perhaps for you somewhat informative.
Now you may have heard the news that travel this summer in Europe is really going through the roof, with a lot of Americans now visiting Europe because the coronavirus restrictions have been lifted. This has caused the price of accommodation to rise if you are looking for something in a major tourist destination like Paris. So the plan for me is to stay in eastern Europe most of the time because its significantly cheaper than western locations.
So on with the plan, I did some research on the country of North Macedonia, here. It’ll be my first destination via bus. The bus will cost 20 euro/$22 USD and the good news about going by bus is that usually a traveler can get a seat on the bus the same day, so i dont plan to have to take it way ahead of time like a flight, and there is no security. Now the bad news about bus travel is that its significantly slower than airline travel. Why am I taking a bus? Because I would like to enjoy the scenery out the windows and enjoy the ride. The ride to Skopje will be 8 hours, that’s quite long for only traveling for 289 km. I figure I can cover a few major sites in North Mac in 3 to 5 days time, in fact I will probably only do Skopje and then exit the country via another bus trip.
Now let me check the prices for the second bus fare. The good news here is that the cost of the second trip to Sofia, Bulgaria will be $21 and takes 3 hours and 45 minutes. So far I’ve heard a few bad things about Sofia as a tourist destination. The city is supposedly heavily disorganized but I’m fine with this. There are a few seriously instagrammable sites including the cathedral that I mentioned in my research here. Over in Bulgaria I’ll definitely be spending a bit more time in the country and cover perhaps 3 or 4 cities and locations. I want to see Varna and perhaps Sunny beach, Plovdiv, and Ruse near the border. So we can give this country 1 to 2 weeks worth of time. So this puts me exiting Bulgaria around July 25th to August 1.
*** Note that with bus travel, I wont be planning any hard and fast flight dates, as I think its more convenient to just play it by ear. If i like a country perhaps ill stay a touch longer, and if not, then leave a bit sooner, train will also be considered as a mode of transport ***
The next country after this will be Romania. I’ve actually heard some cool things about the coast, a place called Vama Veche, which is a hippy hang out along the Black Sea in Romania that is not a very far distance from the country of Bulgaria. I would like to stay here at least a few nights and possibly longer and may use my tent, to save a few bucks, we will see. I also definitely want to check out the region of Transylvania although its not Halloween yet! I always thought the myth of Dracula was interesting. So thats 1 to 2 weeks in Romania then ill be switching to Hungary via bus, i just recently checked some prices on Flixbus, and this company is more than reasonable. I was looking at Flixbus between Bucharest and Budapest and the price is 30 euro, about $33 USD.
Future destinations… I do plan on continuing to move around Europe after Hungary, I’ll go to Slovakia then Poland. In Poland the prices are more than reasonable for hostels. After this I may head to a place like Sweden or Finland, then at the conclusion of my north tour, I’m going to head for Italy! Stay tuned, thanks. Map for reference:
Hey traveling guys and gals! I have just returned back to Tirana, Albania this week and one of the calls to action before I leave again is to sort out which types of socks I want to travel with on my next backpacking adventure! I currently have a selection of both wool (which is an animal based fiber), polyester (a synthetic fiber), and cotton, (a plant based fiber). All 3 have their advantages but all 3 have disadvantages to use.
Polyester Socks – my experience. Most recently, my polyester socks have developed holes in the heels after only 1 month of usage, walking in boots. Now these are cheapie socks TBH! I bought these for only 10 dirham ($1) in Morocco, actually 6 pairs total. I had the same problem with two pairs of polyester socks that I bought in Tirana Albania 6 months ago, unfortunately! These I bought for a price of $3 if I’m not mistaken, also cheap. So I think its probably necessary to switch. The advantage of polyester as a fabric is that the fabric acts as a good insulator and also is quick drying! however I guess my hiking as well as my feet are just too tough for these socks! Next! Weight 2.5 oz per pair! Price $1 to $3 per pair!
Wool Socks – my experience. Now wool is a really tough indestructible material, and I do love these for my feet! But I am now going to discuss some of the disadvantages of this material. Over in Spain I tossed two pairs of wool socks because of the stink! oops yes a little bit embarrassing, but at the time I had no way to clean or disinfect the socks because I was on the road. All 3 types suffer from this problem so this may be a different issue, related to my usage or cleanliness as opposed to the material.
Now on to the advantages of wool, it is a really good insulator if you are hiking in winter! Very good, I will be taking my wool hat to Sweden. its also good at wicking away moisture as opposed to cotton. Now for the disadvantages. Its heavy heavy! You may have seen my lighterpack blog post related to attempting to DECREASE the weight of my backpack, not increase obviously! Wool socks come in at about 5 oz per pair as opposed to 2.5 oz for polyester. Here’s another problem with wool socks, they are really expensive!!! Not good for a lowly budget backpacker like me who sleeps in a tent! Cost is between $5 and $25 a pair. Weight 5oz per pair! Cost $5 to $25 per pair!
Cotton Socks – my experience. Now cotton is kind of an in between choice. Its cheap enough to be easy to replace often, also it doesnt wear out like the polyester socks that I have been having trouble with. Cotton isnt really super expensive like wool, perhaps $3 a pair for boot socks. They are not as good an insulator as wool, but a few advantages are that they are tougher than polyester. In the past ive had a few pairs of cotton socks that have lasted more or less foreever, even with tons of constant walking and usage. The weight is more or less in between wool and polyester. Weight: 3.0 oz per pair, Price $3 per pair!
Conclusion, for my choice id like to get some socks that last me awhile, so ill definitely be looking to replace my polyester socks with Wool or cotton. I may take some of both on my next trip. Stay tuned!!!
Hello traveling guys and girls! Thinking of taking your beloved bicycle on a plane? I can give you some advice on this subject. I decided to take my set of wheels to Thailand from New York City. it can be a bit unwieldly and expensive but i did get it done and it can be exhilarating if you enjoy cycling the streets in a new city or while you are on a beach vacation on your home set of wheels! Whether you are going for a week or like me going for 3 months. I’m a daily cyclist so for me it may be worth the stretch of moving it around. Here my bicycle sits with me in Albania and 30 months on the road!
A few tips, first of all, you will need to dissemble your bicycle if its NOT a foldable bicycle. Granted lets first get into the foldable types. These are those types with small little wheels that have foldable frames as well. These you can put into a regular sized case that looks similar to a full size airline suitcase, so 62 linear inches or less. You do not even need to inform the airline that you are bringing the bicycle as it will be just inside its own piece of luggage, so much easier. However if you are like me and you are a relatively serious cyclist, you want a pure real bicycle, then you need to keep reading!
A regular bicycle is too big to be taken as a normal piece of luggage especially if its fully assembled so be prepared to these following things… take off the front wheel. On my Trek FK 2 this is simple, just unclamp the front skewer and pull it out. in order to make it smaller you will also need to take off the rear wheel, chain, pedals, seat, seat post, handlebars and the front fork, a little of work ehh??!! Yes it is a bit of work. Now we need to discuss the case or the piece of luggage that you are going to put the bicycle inside of…
For me this was kinda hard to figure out, as I didn’t want to spent the money to pay for the expensive hard bicycle case that would surely be counted as an oversized luggage item. I bought a soft large storage bag for the bicycle, the kind that might only last a few trips, more on this in a bit. So the bag was about 50 inches wide, by 12 inches deep by 30 inches top to bottom that gives you an idea its a pretty big bag!
A budget carry case for a full sized bicycle looks something like this:
budget bicycle travel bag
On the outside of the bag, I attached 2 compression straps that brought down the size of the bag a bit. Here’s the good news about using a collapsible bag to move your bicycle in – the airline didn’t charge me an oversized luggage fee. Sometimes the airlines will charge you for sporting equipment, but some will charge you for having an extra piece of luggage as well as for the oversized fee. So this total for an intercontinental flight might be $200 for the extra bag and $200 for the oversized bag; in the next paragraph we can check EVAs prices. This is what a more expensive wheeled bicycle case might look like, for example EVOC:
Airline fees, bicycle as luggage: Fees vary, but for me as an international traveler, I was looking first at intercontinental fees on airlines like Singapore Airlines and EVA, as I was first going to be flying from NYC to southeast Asia. These vary from reasonable $100 to $200 to really ridiculous (check some of the Mideast airlines). Regarding EVA air, the airline divides the world up into different zones and because i personally flew from zone 6 to zone 2 (NYC to southeast Asia) this is a charge of $260 for the bicycle, which is not unreasonable, as I already had two pieces of hard-sided jumbo luggage. EVA offers a passenger 2 pieces of 50 lb luggage plus a carry on of 15 lb for free. Unfortunately it looks like EVA air is increasing prices this fall. Take a look at baggage charges here on EVAs site..
Hello traveling guys and girls! I can detail for you, some of my life living in Montenegro as an American expat in this blog post. I moved to Montenegro last summer after having spent a few months in Belgrade, Serbia which I loved. I came to visit Montenegro on a tourist visa from August for almost 3 months of time, so not your typical 1 week or weekend vacationer.
Now Montenegro does have its charms especially if you like the ocean. The primary industry here near the coast is tourism. First, a few things about Montenegro, it is a very small country, mountainous and located along the Adriatic sea across from Italy and within the former Yugoslavia. The population is about 620,000 people so it’s extremely small for a country. It borders on Albania which is the country I moved to afterwards. The capital Podgorica is a smallish big city that is located on a plain away from the ocean near the center of the country. It’s not even close to the size of Belgrade so it can barely be called a city at 156,000 vs. 1.37 million.
Getting to Ulcinj, Montenegro. I took an interesting bus ride from Belgrade to Podgorica to Ulcinj. It was memorable for several reasons. Namely because of the number of hills and mountains we passed in the night. It was an overnight bus and I was seriously afraid that the bus driver would drive off one of the 100s of cliffs we passed. It was a 12 hours long ride, more about driving here in Montenegro later. From Belgrade, many Serbians go to visit Ulcinj and many parts of Montenegro for summer vacation via plane or by car. A traveler can fly into either Podgorica or Tivat which is along the northern part of the coast. Ulcinj is actually a very small beach town along the very south portion of Montenegro. Here it is affordable even for the hottest and most popular part of the summer and this is what drew me to it. Go to the north, and it’s much more expensive to rent for August. the same is true for Croatia, prices up there are pretty ridiculous unless you want to visit in the winter.
Now there are certain things that were memorable about my trip over to Ulcinj and the surrounding areas, here we have a tourist town on a hill with many beaches around. There is a small castle/fortress area, the rocky beach area, the Little Beach at the center of town, and what is called Ada Bojana Velicka Plaza, which is translated to big beach, which is a huge flat beach about 2 miles south of town and doesn’t have any mountains. On the other side of this is Ada Bojana which is a nudist island, memorable for its own reasons, and I’ll get to this later.
So, just a few notes about my moving there, I took the bus to Budva Montenegro but there is also apparently a bus to Ulcinj from Belgrade, you just can’t buy the tickets online. I mentioned the hills earlier, that was a bit scary and the second issue was my luggage, 3 big jumbo suitcases, a backpack, and a bicycle, quite a haul. I was able to get these into a taxi in Belgrade, then get them to the bus station, then aboard the bus for roughly $2 per bag, so only $6 total, flying with these items is much more costly. After I arrived in Budva, which is a cute upscale area, a little more so than Ulcinj, I then hired a local taxi driver to take me to Ulcinj, this cost me a bit more $$$. It took about 1 hour’s time and cost $50. The taxi driver helped me with my bags going into a guest house in Ulcinj.
I spent the summer time, a few weeks/months in Ulcinj and going to the beaches here, cycling, droning with my Mini 2, boating, and hanging around the beach doing just summer stuff. I didn’t do any fishing here but I am considering buying a pole, since I do have a small rubber boat inside my luggage – one of the reasons that I have so much luggage. I also spent some time hanging out in the local cheap restaurants that are not a bad price for a burger. Here is a vid I filmed along the main drag… uploaded YouTube.
ulcinj near big beach
After my time was up in Ulcinj I actually moved to two different locations, I spent one month at a guest house in Ulcinj, and didn’t really like the owner too much, but the price was decent for the room type. I switched to another place over in Ada Bojana Velicka Plaza that was more expensive, for about 2 weeks, and after this I moved to a place called Sutomore, Montenegro which also has its charms, this was in September to October of 2021, and I’ll tell you why it was memorable. Sutomore is a small beach town that is up the coast of Montenegro about 30 minutes in between Budva and Ulcinj. The taxi driver who drove me from Budva to Ulcinj was badmouthing Sutomore because it was the cheapest place you can rent along the coast in Montenegro.
My time in Sutomore Montenegro. When I arrived here the summer was winding down and it was interesting to see the place becoming quieter into the fall, in my mind this was memorable. Sutomore I would describe as charming in the fall. I stayed in an Airbnb up a hill about 1/3 of a mile from the beach. It was a super affordable price, one of the lowest prices I’ve paid for a monthly rental for a private room with A/C, tv, its own private bathroom, and a fridge! Here i spent my time at the beach or inside the restaurants on my laptop as I’m somewhat of a digital nomad/pro tourist and social media fiend. I also used to play with the strays along the beach one of whom was adorable. One town south, is a place called Bar, Montenegro.
sutomore montenegro
Bar, Montenegro and the fall season. In order to get to Bar, you must either hitchhike or take a local private bus for about $1. You can’t walk along the roadside because there’s not one and there is no sidewalk, there are also big trucks that come barreling down the windy roads without looking, did I mention hills and curves? So once one hitchhikes his way over to Bar, there’s a bit more of a town there, including some shipping centers, a waterfront, sports facilities, and bigger resorts that cater to cruise ship customers. there is also a port for loading and unloading. You can see this video that I took in Bar which I uploaded to Youtube here! You can see how it’s kind of deserted in the Fall, enjoy.
Moving… Later in the fall it became very dark and rainy here in Montenegro, and beach season ended. Over in Sutomore many of the business shut down for the season, and hardly anything was left. on October 20th I made the choice to relocate to Tirana, Albania. I hired a private taxi driver to drive me from Sutomore to Tirana for about 120 Euro, it was a smooth trip, and I needed to get a Rapid covid test to enter Albania, and passed the border by land.
Hey traveling guys and gals! With this post I am going to update my followers on how I plan on revamping my one bag backpack with stuff for summer, and dumping some of my winter garments back into storage over in Albania! I am quite eager to change my wardrobe and lighten up the load!
For starters, you may want to check my original packing post to get an idea of what I am packing, its the Pacsafe Exp 45 backpack.
For starters, here are a few items that I am going to either replace, dispose of, or put into storage in my home away from home, storage unit: My heavy winter coat. This heavy, bulky coat weighs 3.3 lbs. Its by Jack & Jones, its a great coat for winter, but definitely too bulky for summer travel. Ill be replacing this coat with a light windbreaker plus an top of long underwear for men as I may be some areas that are still chilly for summer, namely Scandanavia! This will be a savings of around 2 lbs.
In terms of clothing, I plan on leaving behind one of my pairs of cotton blue jeans, which tend to be very heavy and weigh down in high humidity areas (1.5 to 2 lbs so about 24 to 32 oz!). I may be replacing this with some polyester hiking pants and definitely at least two pairs of shorts. Next, I’ll be revamping my underwear collection by replacing my heavy cotton boxers with polyester boxer briefs (big boxers are bulkier). I am still going to pack 4 outfits. Here is my current set up broken out by item categories and their weights. You can see that it contains a bit of everything. *** SLIGHT CORRECTION HERE, my drone container weighs more than I thought it did about 14 oz, and I didn’t have the Mini 2 drone plus controller broken out as separate items ****
Here is my new set up, its a bit smaller, notice that the base weight has decreased by two lbs. I personally am comfortable carrying a pack that weighs about 20 lbs., although getting down to 15 lb. would also be a plus. One other item that I’ve chosen to eliminate is my power bank which I rarely use that weighs 12 oz. Its an Anker at 23,000 MAH. I just dont have time to charge it often, so out it goes! I will be adding a pair of water shoes for walking around rocky beaches which I love! Packing is personal so it really depends on your interests as to what items you really need and want. Here is the new list:
Greetings guys and gals! I just moved to London 7 days ago. I am an American from New York city. I spent a lot of time living on the Upper East Side on 91st Street, in Brooklyn in Park Slope and Bay Ridge so i really know my way around the city. over here in London, I have to say i am quite pleased that the price of life compares favorably to the cost of living in New York City and other places in the United States. Here is my analysis of the Cost of living London vs. New York….
Wilessden, London, UK
I am a budget traveler. So just to tell you a bit more about my goals, I am actually just doing a 3 week layover in London. I want to see a few sites here and there my first time, with a plan to come back later to live in the country awhile as a tourist. Additionally I am going to tell you a few secrets for saving a few bucks in London if you don’t mind roughing it a bit on basic living expenses. Of course, London has a lot of high end expensive places to spend money and it has its share of billionaires and mansions that we see on TV.
Cost of Food London vs. New York … In London you will find that grocery stores tend to be much cheaper than restaurants with the starting prices for 1 meal about 5 GBP ($6.27), in the USA its probably $7 to $10 even for fast food, and just to compare with my previous experience in southeast Asia living in the countries of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, over there you may find 1 meal for sale for $1 to $1.40, meaning a plate of food, with rice, meat and vegetables. The quality is hit or miss but I have to get the nod to Thai food as being the tastiest, most affordable and easiest to obtain in the world I’ve seen so far.
London vs New York, discount food stores
Now here is the good news on London if you are on a seriously tight budget you can use this as your baseline. I did see meals in food stores for less than 1 GBP, or about $1.28 at todays exchange rates. A few examples, a carton of prepared noodles, packet of hot dogs, or 1 can of beans for even as low as 50 pence or 1/1 of a GBP. Sometimes you will find that the local grocery stores at the end of the day will mark down sandwiches and other prepared meals to much below there original prices. Now just to compare with NYC, prices can be much steeper for individual items, such as $3.99 or even $5.99 and its hard to find items for less than $1 or 1 GBP in the States.
Grocery stores in London.. Here are a few of the major chains and they all seem to be of the discount variety… Sainsburys, Tesco Express. Another one is Morrisons, this one is cheaper. A few others are Iceland and Pound Stretcher, as well as B & M home store. The last two are of the serious discount variety with some canned items like sardines, and beans costing as little as 30 pence. Tesco and Sainsburys, of which there are many do have discounted items below 1 GBP. Over in NYC we have places like Whole Foods (aka whole paycheck) and D’agostino, which are definitely not of the budget variety.
London discount store
Rent, hotels & hostels… I personally am not doing a long term stay at present in London, but I did take a look at rooms that were available for rental on Airbnb and Facebook. Of course, the further from the city that you go, the lower the price, and most of all London is safe. One neighborhood I took a look at is Willesden in north London, its more of a working class hood, that is not too far away from Notting Hill, about 2 miles, its also pretty rustic and cool looking with some nice bars. Around here you may be able to find a room for rent for about 400 to 600 GBP and a full studio for perhaps 600 GBP to 800 GBP, which is comparable to cities in the USA, granted this is not a full apartment.
In NYC, Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx, you can probably find a room for $700 to $900 or a small studio for $1000 to $1500. I was living in Brooklyn for around this price of $1500 a month, which is present exchange rates is 1200 GBP. Hostels and hotel rooms in London are noticeably cheaper with the lowest I saw advertised as $13 a night, whereas in NYC I saw something for $50. NYC definitely has the more expensive real estate.
Cost of transportation London vs. New York .. Here its just more about an equal cost when comparing London to New York. In the NYC the classic subway ride is $2.75 no matter how far you go. The buses in NYC are the same price when you swipe the yellow metro card. You are also allowed one transfer between and subway for free and bus to bus.
Over here in London, in order to save money, I use the Oyster card which is cashless card that i bought that can be used to swipe on double decker London buses and the Tube. The tube is actually a bit more expensive than the subway in NYC because here we go by zones. So for example my airport ride on the tube was zone 6 to zone 1. Zone 1 is the central zone in London.
When im in London i always take the city buses because its only 1.3 GBP per ride one way no matter how far you go. The bus lines are straightforward and i use my GPS on my cell to see where exactly we are on the map. in order to get from central London to Willesden through Notting Hill its about 45 minutes to 1 hours time, but this is also comparable to a NYC subway ride to central Brooklyn.! enjoy London, questions welcome!
Hey traveling guys and girls! Today i’ll detail a few items i just bought today and why. Decathlon is one of my favorite discount lightweight travel and outdoor stores that is mostly in Europe, southeast Asia, and north Africa! i am not even sure if they have a store in the USA, but know that there is one in Belgrade, Serbia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Marrakech, Morocco, and Madrid, Spain because i visited all of these stores!
Here are a few things i bought today that i really like… number one is Quechua polyester/cotton blend short sleeve shirt that is very breathable for summer an exercising. The temps over here in Marrakech are getting a bit warm at 80F during the afternoon and i must say this shirt is really breathable and lightweight. It came in at 3.5 ounces for a men’s size large. They carry several variety and the price is reasonable at 59 MAD or roughly 5.9 euros. You can find these here at Morocco’s Decathlon website. The store is located about 4 miles north of central Marrakech accessible by the #37 bus or using a taxi or horse drawn carriage.
Item #2 i bought for today’s trip to Decathlon is this, a men’s eyeglasses case that is lightweight. I actually saw this at the store in Madrid and had planned to purchase this at a date, the weight is only 43 grams or 1.5 oz. my other eyeglasses case weighs 2.5 oz, so the savings is a bit, but if you are a full-time traveler and solo vagabond, the savings is worth it. ill be discarding my original case.
Quechua lightweight eye case
The next lightweight/ultralight item i bought is a foldable spork, spoon-fork combo that i can use to eat while im away from my kitchen. Many times ive stayed in hotel rooms without a kitchen and traveling in a city far from home, i can use the foldable spoon to eat food i buy at the grocery store. The spoon weighs about .4oz or 11 grams so plenty small enough to fit inside my backpack along with a few other tools.
Hi traveling guys and girls! In this post I’m going to offer you some advice on how as a man I packed my one bag Pacsafe EXP45 carry on sized backpack for months of travel! I am currently on month 4 and will be headed back to home base soon! I am particularly interested in “ultra-light” items! I am not a long distance hiker per se, but am a long term traveler with some occasional outdoor stents and having a light bag just makes things easier.
Here you can see what I am wearing and what is packed inside my Pacsafe EXP 45 cut proof bag. My bag when packed weighs 21 lbs whereas i am wearing 11.29 lbs worth of items, including my shoes which weigh near to 3 lbs, a pair of jeans that is about 1 lb 12 oz, an undershirt, and long sleeve button down shirt – for these items of course i would be wearing them regardless of whether i was traveling or not.
The Pacsafe bag itself weighs 3 lbs 6 oz. Inside the Pacsafe bag, ive got 1 stuff sack from Decathlon that is 20 liters and it helps to squeeze down the size of clothing items. ive also got another packing cube that is in the shape of a rectangle. Ive also got two toiletry bags for holding tools and items, such as a toothbrush etc. Granted these items could have been better planned as well and i may change them in the future.
For electronics I have a laptop which is a 14 inch Acer Swift that weighs 2.7 lbs. They do manufacture more lightweight laptops that are smaller for example tablets and the Microsoft surface pro. The Swift has been a great machine its slim and compact as well as reliable so i decided to go with it. You can see that my electronics weigh a total of 5.79 lbs, this includes a DJI mini 2 drone, cords, cases, and a charging brick of 23,000 mah by Anker that i can use when i am away from an electric outlet.
Next you can see that i packed a two person tent for camping. Ill get into where I use the tent versus stay inside of hotels, Airbnb’s and youth hostels. The tent weighs 3.6 lbs and takes up a space about 16″ by 5″ so maybe about 20 % of the inside of the inner portion of the bag.
Lighterpack export
For clothing, I am particularly interested in replacing my cotton shorts with blended or strictly polyester/nylon manufactured clothing because these items are slimmer as well as more lightweight. I currently have one pair of nylon shorts that weigh 8 oz with a belt attached, these are by Mckinley. Jeans tend to weigh much more than shorts, around 1.5 to 2.5 lbs. I would recommend packing these sparingly. I also wore a winter coat because I left for Spain in December. When I return to Albania I’ll trade in this coat for a lightweight jacket. The winter coat is bulky and weighs 3.3 lbs. One plus of having the stuff sack from Decathlon is that my coat can be rolled up into a small ball and compressed in the sack in about the size of 6″ by 8″ or so.
