Day 31. Paris – Boston. THE END! (Plus our packing list)

So we finally had to say goodbye to Europe (+ Morocco). Are you curious how much and what did we actually carried around on our backpacks?

Tada!! These are all the things that we took to Boston. Sadly the rest of the stuff was never shipped from Jakarta to Boston due to the ridiculous cost of the shipment (can you believe they asked us $2500???? go to sea!).

Our motto is too keep things as light and as useful as possible with many small travel size and/or dual functionality items. We also opted to carry backpacks instead of a suitcase because we didn’t want the hassle when going up and down the stairs. As it turned out, many streets in Europe are cobbled street, dragging your suitcase through these would be hard and annoyingly loud. Backpaking means that space and weight is premium so its not suited for shopping trips, but we’re broke anyways. The only luxury items we bought were fridge magnets from (almost) every town we visited, a couple of on sale shirts (Massimo Dutti ) ) and a tea set from Morocco.

If you are planning to do a little backpacking too, maybe you can extract some inspiration from my packing list below.

CLOTHES:

• Jeans                        1pp
• Long pants that can be converted to shorts        1pp
• Shorts                        3pp
• Socks                        3pp
• Underwear                6pp (travel underwears are very easy to wash)
• Tshirts                        4pp (mostly dry fits, including 1 long sleeve)
• Nice dress shirt        1 (Aldi)
• Nice dress                1 (Fida: choose one that you can wear nice or casual)
• Rainjacket                1pp
• Swimsuit                1pp
• Sweater                        1pp
• Scarf                        1 (Very handy especially in Morrocco)
• Sandals                        1pp
• Sneakers                1pp
• Nice shoes                1pp (optional.. avoid if you can because of the extra weight)
• Sunglasses                1pp
• Quickdry travel/sport towels        1pp
• Mukenah/SajadahHats

MEDICINE

• Panadol
• Flu (Decolgen)
• Seasick pills (Antimo)
• Diarea pills (Diatab)
• Bandaids
• Vitamins
• Antacids
• Personal medications
• Alcohol swabs

TOILETRIES

• Sewing kit
• Toothpaste & Toothbrush & Floss (small travel set)
• Soap & shampoo                 (small travel set from previous hotel stays)
• Hand disinfectant
• Kleenex/Tissue
• Razor                                 (although Aldi never used this)
• Deodorants
• Sunblock
• Detergent in a ziploc         (very useful)
• Insect repellant
• Tweezers
• Feminine napkins
• Comb
• Talcum powder

GADGETS

• Camera/batteries/charger
• Ear plugs
• Extra memory cards
• Small pen & journal
• Playing cards (gaple juga boleeeeh)
• Ipod + charger
• Laptop + charger                (with installed skype!)
• Swiss army knife
• Small flashlight 1pp
• Small tripod                        (gorillapod, highly recommended)
• Water heater                        (just the coil)
• Travel hair dryer                 (very useful)
• Watch                                (waterproof ones of course)
• Handphone                        (Quad band + 3G to work everywhere. Or an Iphone, which is way cooler haha)
• Predownloaded apple applications!!!!! (soo many of them soo useful… including language & travel guide) *iklan*

BAGS

• Backpack        + Rain covers (Aldi’s 60 liter plus my 45 liters)
• Day pack                1pp
• Money belt
• Collapsable bags        (I used several chicobags)

IMPORTANTS

• Passport
• Driver license + International Drivers Permit
• ATM & Credit Cards
• ISIC card (wasn’t very useful… usually university student id is enough)
• Locks for backpack
• Compass
• Copies of all important docs + emergency contact/medical info stored in all bags

OTHERS

• Extra ziploc bags
• Spoon/fork set
• 2 cups                                (stackable with lids for easy packing)
• Clothing line                         (very useful)
• Sleeping bag                        (buy the smallest you can find, spend some $$, we also shared ours because we’re that small! haha)
• Rubber bands                (very handy)
• Reading material                1 book pp to be exchanged at used book stores when finished
• Indomie/abon/sachet sambal        (optional but advisable he he)
• Travel guides                        (best to photocopy so it’s easy to carry around and makes you look less like a tourist)

*pp = per person