Five Weeks, Four Continents: How I Packed

The Skymaster mostly contained clothes.  It is a great bag, weighing just over 1Kg, opens flat for easy packing, with two nicely sized compartments with mesh covers inside and a single front pocket with organiser features.  Comfortable backstraps slip into a zipped section on the back, and there is a not-very-good shoulder strap – it slips off, and is too short to use cross-body, but hardware is solid.  Compression straps in main compartment and outside.

I use homemade packing folders to reduce wrinkles, and compress the contents.  A thin, flexible chopping board acts as a folding template and stiffens the bundle. This time I took two, tops in one and pants, skirt and long dress in another. Shoes go into bags made from the same ripstop nylon, and underwear into mesh bags.  My bathers and a thin microfibre towel are in a ziplock bag, with all the air squeezed out..

Main Compartment

Inside lid

Umbrella, waterbottle, washing/mending pack, spare glasses,extra ziplocks and padlock and cable go in the front pocket.

Everything else – itinerary & paperwork (white), toiletries & medications(solid pink), paranoia pack(clear), grooming pack(patterned pink),  jewellery roll(bright blue), iPad, iPhone, wires etc in a mesh bag, neckpouch, wallet(actually a small zipped coinpurse) goes into the ancient black leather messenger-style handbag.  Wipes and mini medpack(aspirin, antihistamine, antispasmodic, antichuck, bandaids and zovirax live there permanently) Nearly forgot the sarong – so it was tied on too.

Neckpouch has passport, drivers licence, load&go debit card, 28Degrees credit card, and $100US.  I wore this around my neck and tucked inside my dress when in the  airport, then changed it to completely under clothes in the plane.  coinpurse had a second load&go and both US and Oz currency , and attaches to a ring I sewed inside my handbag,