The philosophy for a trip like this is that if you can pack for a week, you can pack for a year. I’m bringing about 8 days worth of clothes and plan to do laundry frequently.
As scary as the prospect might be of not having enough, I’m even more afraid of my bag being too heavy or burdensome. Real people live their normal daily lives in the places we’re visiting, so if I really feel the lack of something I’ll just buy it there. Same goes for toiletries, I’m keeping everything carry-on sized to refill when I’m there. I’m nervous about finding my somewhat particular type of contact solution, but outside of that it feels pretty liberating to not worry about bringing an extended supply of every little thing I might need.
The goods
Here is a list of everything that will be in my Tortuga backpack as well as everything I’ll be carrying on me, both pictured below…
Everything I’m packing! 
What I’ll have on me (underwear not pictured)
For those of a more male persuasion, here is the same list for Jack and a picture of his stuff:
Footwear
A lot of people have asked me about shoes: we’re both planning to primarily walk on our Teva sandals. That’s it for Jack, but for longer walks I’ll be switching it up with a pair of well-worn walking shoes I know I like. We figure that for the infrequent more intensive hikes we can rent shoes and for the even rarer fancy meals maybe my ugly sandals will get a pass because they are black; Jack might have to sit those nights out ;). We also have cheap-o flip-flops for those nasty shared hostel showers.
Backpacks
Our “packs” clock in at 19.8 lb each and have a capacity of 35 liters. That’s not huge for a “round the world” backpacking trip, but we wanted to pass all international carry-on limits. And it’s not crazy: we’ve read about people setting out with almost half this size. I expected to feel restricted and cramped but at this point I actually have more space in my bag that I’m choosing not to fill because who needs the extra weight?
The bags are made for exactly this kind of travel so they fully unzip on 3 sides like a suitcase for easy packing and have all sorts of cool features like a padded laptop compartment that can be locked and a bottom strap that transfers a lot of the weight from your back to your legs/hips. They feel like a new toy, I’m looking forward to using them.
This sounds liberating, come to think of it, we actually don’t need so many cloths and shoes which we gather, we end up wearing just few most of the time.
Look forward to read more. Love you. Dad
This is so wild and so awesome! I’m secretly super jealous and wish that I had the guts to do something like this. This will be something you remember for the rest of your lives for sure. Excited to follow along :)