“How much are you going to bring?”

“What are you going to pack?”

“How are you going to pack?”

These are the most common questions we received leading up to the trip. Our response has been quite simple up to a few days ago: We have no clue.

And now, after everything is crammed and shoved into bags, and safely past the dreaded weigh-in, we know!

Packing is my least favorite part of every trip, so I’m quite happy that this feat has been accomplished. This was a HUGE check mark off the to-do list. Well, it would have been except we kept adding things up to the very moment we left. Anyway, the answer to the most common question is here. We’ve been working on a list for the last few months of what we need to bring on the trip: electronics and their respective plugs, phones, passports, etc which helped out a TON to not forget little things like power cords. However, when it came time to pack, things like “how many pairs of underwear do you bring for five months?” really threw us for a loop. I like to have more than enough, which is difficult to do given the length of our stay. Nick bought some serious traveler boxers that say they’ll last for 6 weeks; which sounds a bit extreme, but we’ll put them to the test.

We brought a grand total of four bags for five months. The first bag is a suitcase with diving fins and American candy (Twix!) inside that we’ll use in Madagascar. After a bit of back and forth, a hotel in Johannesburg agreed to hold this bag for us from this Friday until when we need them in April. A massive thank you goes out to this hotel for being willing to accommodate our zany request. Hopefully this actually works out, because being able to re-kit ourselves for each country and their adventures is pretty crucial.

The remaining three bags will be with us for the duration of our stay in ZA. The smallest is my backpack filled with things that you wouldn’t want thrown around in storage, such as cameras and passports.

The other two bags our Nick and my backpacking backpacks. They’re 85 and 65 liters respectively and we’ve managed to shove carefully place the following in them:

• First aid kit
• Mask and Snorkel for each of us
• 2 Sleeping bags
• 2 sleeping pads
• 2 plates
• 2 utensil sets (Thanks Ben & Michelle for the Christmas gift!)
• Shampoo/Conditioner/Deo/lotion/Q-tips/razors/etc
• Tent
• 2 wetsuits (mine is a full, Nick’s is a shortie)
• jump rope (gotta be working on my fitness)
• GoalZero solar panel charging kit
• Permethrin Spray
• Water filter

Before we get into the clothing, I’d like to preface this with the fact that men’s clothing is SO much more versatile that women’s. Nick’s wearing his hiking pants and one of his trail shirts through the airport, and they fit him so nicely it looks like he could go into work. In fact, he’s worn his hiking gear to work before. So one outfit can cover him on a nice dinner out or gallivanting on the trail. Baggies can double as shorts if needed while my bathing suits are not as versatile. Granted, kini’s don’t take up as much room as baggies do. Still, I just wanted to share some of the struggles I went through while meticulously picking through my clothing options and settling on the exact items I wanted to bring. And now, without further ado, the clothing list (yes, we are planning on doing laundry fairly often).

Clothing

And that’s it! In an upcoming post we’ll detail why we brought some of the equipment we brought such as our water filter, GoalZero solar panel charging kit and the super boxers. We’ll see how useful it will be and we’ll keep you updated of how well it worked out!