Packing for long-term travel is unique because you have to consider what you may need over a long period of time rather than what you can do without for a few weeks. Questions arise, like Will I need allergy meds? How many books should I bring? How many tank tops do I really need? Is...

The pile in the back of the closet Petrified, excited, invigorated, exhilarated, daunted...I felt them all in the weeks leading up to my first round the world journey. So many emotions, so little time. All the planning for this idea of taking a hiatus from the everyday was thrilling, yet frightening. From visa applications to...

"The first thing you do when you arrive in a strange city and want to get lost is put your bags away. Getting lost involves -- requires -- intense wandering, and a suitcase or heavy backpack is only going to slow you down and make you long for a hotel, a shower, and a change...

If you travel with kids then you’re well familiar with the gear overload that is all too easy to find yourself saddled with. Of course there’s the clothes and the toys, but by the time you add a carseat, playpen, stroller and perhaps a portable feeding chair, it’s bordering on the ridiculous. No wonder so...

"What do I bring?" is a vexing question that most first-time expats face. You don't want to bring something and carry it when you could just buy it on the ground. On the flip side, you don't want to be stuck without an item you really need. Nick and Tim from The Elevator Life ,...

When you drop off your baggage at the check-in counter, it sets off a modern Rube Goldberg-like system to keep your stuff on track. Bags are sent along conveyors, scanned, sorted and carried by humans to the right plane. Yet a recent article stated that 26 million checked bags go missing every year . The...

"We found in the course of our journey the conveniences of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen;...

Vagabonders can be masters of packing methods, as well as knowing which items are absolutely necessary and which can be left behind. Recently, a Lifehacker article ( Unusual Items Worth Packing on your Next Vacation ) suggests some additional things to consider stashing in your bag before your next big trip. Some of the items...

Claire Litton wrote earlier this week about traveling low-res as a genuine option to lugging all those i-products around. The timing was right on the heels of my recent digital breakdown. I probably should have known better than to plan to do a few social media updates and minor editing tasks while I was spending...

The “pack light” mantra has been beaten into travelers who don’t have personal jets. It’s a good practice, too. Have you been following Rolf’s No Baggage Challenge ? It’s much easier to pack light when you can leave toiletries at home and just buy inexpensive replacements in your destination. It can also be simple, depending...

Almost everyone who's planning a round-the-world or other long-term trip comes upon one part of the process that serves as their stumbling block. For some, they're paralyzed by the different options for multi-stop tickets and can't figure out which one suits them best. For others, settling on just one itinerary and knowing they'll skip some...

The idea of packing light is nothing new. Henry David Thoreau famously explored simple living . Rick Steves advocates one 20-pound bag . Many airlines now penalize travelers with even one checked bag by imposing a baggage fee . And in this BootsnAll interview , Rolf suggests that a small pack keeps the traveler from...

Since I am in the process of moving to Australia, I'm in a frenzy of figuring out what to bring, how to get it there, why i want it, and what the heck I'm doing. Although I'll be studying at a university in Perth for at least a year, shipping furniture cross-continentally is ultimately pointless;...

OK, I’ll say it. I actually like packing for a trip. From figuring out which bag to use, to cracking open my closet, to deciding if the laptop comes along or gets to rest—it helps me kind of warm up for travel. I don’t always need warming up. Sometimes, the suitcase never gets fully unpacked,...

Whether I'll be away for a week or a month, I always follow this rule: take only one bag with you. This may seem like an extreme rule, but there are just too many benefits to traveling light. The most obvious benefit is the convenience. If you'll be traveling by plane, you just have one...

Everyone needs to pack, no matter where you're going. And if you're anything like me, you use lots of scraps of paper, or maybe one page of your journal, criss-crossed with scribblings, and then you forget something anyway. On my last trip out of the country, I forgot earplugs; "No big deal," I thought. "I...