Backpacking essentials: 5 things I cant live without when traveling
As we are now on our third long term trip the gear that we take with us has become more refined over the years. Aside from the essentials such as clothes, shoes, medical kit etc there are five things that I would always pack or use every time we travel now. This is a personal list but all of them to me are now truly essential items that I wouldn’t travel without. In no particular order here is my top 5.
1. Swiss Army Knife
If there is one item that has got us out of a pickle more than anything else it is the humble Swiss army/camping knife.
I use it now and again at home but usually when you are comfortable at home you have better, more specific tools at your disposal. When on the road though the Swiss army knife really comes into its own.
Need to tie something up, struggling to cut the string or rope? The knife is your best friend. Need to open that tin of beans for your breakfast and the $1 Chinese made tin opener has just broken? get your knife out. Need a screwdriver to change a fuse in a plug, who you gonna call? Swiss army knife.
It’s used almost on a daily basis when away, You would be surprised how many small things that would have been an issue are resolved in seconds thanks to my trusty knife. Absolutely indispensable, everywhere I go my knife goes with me.
2. Head torch
This is a really basic one but it’s a must on anyone’s list, a good head torch is priceless particularly when camping. Head torches are great.
I can’t emphasize enough that when buying one you should spend the few extra pennies on making sure that you get a good quality/brand torch that will last you for years. I’ve had my torch for about 5 years now and it’s been worth every penny spent.
Mine is a Petzl Zipka and I spent around £20 on it. It’s 80 Lumens and has a battery life of around 120 hours, more than enough for any long term camping trip. It has a range of about 50 metres and it also has a real neat little touch in that the inside of the reflector is coated with fluorescent paint so that when you turn the torch off it still gives out a low amount of light for around 10 minutes. If your going camping and you don’t yet have a head torch then go out and get one, you wont regret it.
3. Oomph
This one is a personal favourite. Most likely not essential for everybody but ask Dani what I’m like on a morning without coffee and it’s easy to see that the Oomph is a truly essential item for me. So what’s an Oomph you ask?
Oomph is the brainchild of Matthew Deasy, a Manchester based inventor.
In 2017 he secured £40k funding from Jenny Campbell on the TV show Dragons Den.
The Oomph is a portable, single container coffee machine and it is a beautiful and thoughtful piece of design.
The pot comes in two parts. Slide off the top section, put your coffee grounds in the bottom of the lower section. Fill to the line with boiling water then push the top section all the way down and twist.
Micro holes in the system force the hot water through, past the grounds leaving the used grounds in the bottom. Pop open the little spout at the top and pour.
It’s as simple as that. Quickly rinse it out and your ready to go again. It’s the size of a usual drinks container and it’s the first thing out of my bag every morning. Good work Matthew lad, take a bow.
4. Google offline maps + GPS
If the US government and Airforce have done one good thing for the benefit of others it is the invention of GPS or Global Positioning System to give it it’s full title.
Combine GPS with Google offline maps and you have an excellent free tool at your disposal.
Not many people realise that you can download sections of map via Google to use offline when you have no data connection. The GPS system itself doesn’t need data to work either so when you put the two together you have maps and your position on the planet to within a couple of meters…..all for free!
When using Google maps you can star or flag anywhere in the world and it is saved to your offline map section provided you have saved a section that covers what you want.
This has proved absolutely priceless to us, in particular when we were riding through Vietnam and also in Canada where mobile/data covers just a small fraction of the country and comes at a substantial cost.
We park up somewhere that has free WiFi, decide what places of interest we fancy checking out and then flag them on our offline map.
And that’s it, off you go on your merry way, confident that you know where you are heading and where you are. It even allows you to still use the sat-nav option within Google maps for driving instructions despite being offline. The only function you miss is real time traffic updates but hey what do you expect for free and zero data signal.
5. Starling bank account (or other app based digital account)
My normal Bank account in the UK is fine when I’m back home. It does what it needs to do and I’ve used the same Bank for years. Go abroad though and things fall apart quickly.
Costs to withdraw your hard earned travel funds escalate at a rapid rate and you can encounter withdrawal/fraud issues at inconvenient times.
When we came to buy the camper van in Vancouver we had to withdraw a lot of money. We have a Starling account each and were able to withdraw easily however when we needed some extra funds due to daily withdrawal limits we turned to our UK account but were unable to withdraw.
I was then locked out of my mobile banking app so unable to transfer any additional funds across into our Starling accounts. To rectify this I had to load my Skype account with credit and spend over an hour on the phone to my banks fraud team in order to regain access to my account.
It was a painful experience and one I don’t want to repeat. I certainly appreciate my bank being vigilant when it comes to fraud on my account but at the same time these days I shouldn’t have to encounter problems just because I’m in a different country.
My bank also adds on it’s own charges when I make withdrawals abroad.
A set fee is applied for a non-sterling withdrawal and also an exchange rate that favors the bank not myself. I worked out that on our last trip we spent approximately £600 just to withdraw our own hard earned funds.
Now with our Starling accounts the only fees that we pay are those imposed on us by the local ATM machines we are using. Starling applies no fees of it’s own and also gives you a true and fair exchange rate.
These kind of new digital type accounts are a breath of fresh air when traveling. If you don’t have one already I recommend you get one now.
