Happy Nomad Couple
RTW TRAVEL

Round the World Packing List

Round the World Packing List

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Packing – either you love it or you hate it. Either you get it done three weeks early or you leave it to last minute. Either you abide by a packing list or you throw things in a bag and hope for the best. There isn’t really an in between when it comes to packing. I lend myself to more the former style – I love it, I get it done early, and I check off all the items on my packing list to make sure I have it all. (Carlos, on the other hand, is very much the latter packer!) I like to think that if I’m prepared and well-packed for my trip, it will be a lot easier and convenient. Nothing is worse than realizing you forgot to pack socks, a jacket, deodorant, toothbrush, etc. This is quite inconvenient and maybe even costly if it’s something you already own but forgot to bring. That’s why I L O V E packing lists! If it’s comprehensive, and you follow it to a T, you shouldn’t leave anything that you need behind. 

I made this packing list for myself before we left on our Round the World trip. It’s kinda hard to predict what you’ll need since you might find yourself in many different climates, doing many different activities, around varying types of people with different societal norms etc. So this is the list I came up with to try to cover most everything that I would need to cover most situations that I thought we would come across. Keep in mind, you also want to keep your backpack as light as possible. Throughout our whole trip, our backpacks weighed around 15 kilos/33 pounds which is a lot of weight to carry on your back. If I could go back, I would probably try to decrease the amount of clothing options I brought and limit myself to one of each thing – one t shirt, one tank top, one long sleeve, one pair of jeans, etc – instead of having a few. It means you have to do laundry more often (which takes some real planning when you move around often and need to air dry your clothes!), but to have to carry less and maybe even have the option to travel with a carry-on only, it might be worth it!

I broke down the list of things you’ll need to pack into 7 categories: Clothes, Accessories, Shoes, Gear, Toiletries, Electronics, Miscellaneous.


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Clothes

As you’ll be able to see in the RTW Packing List document, I didn’t include how many of each clothing item you should bring, and that’s because this realllllly depends on your trip and what you anticipate to need clothing-wise. But I tried to include everything that I thought was a possibility for your consideration, knowing what kind of trip you’ll be taking. Keep in mind, it’s ideal to pack things that are in the same color families or are easy to mix and match so you can make different outfits. The clothing items included on the list are:

 

Accessories

Some hardcore light packers might insist that you don’t “need” to bring any accessories, and that might be true for some travelers, but it’s still worth some consideration. My thinking is that most accessories take up barely any space, but they have a valuable function that can be useful to the trip. Like a scarf can help keep me warm and change up my look (you get really bored wearing the same couple outfits over and over again). And a hat can help keep me cool. The accessories included on the list are:

  • Scarves >> There are even scarves with hidden zipper pockets for holding money and a passport!
  • Hats
  • Beanies
  • Sunglasses
  • Belts
  • Jewelry >> I wouldn’t recommend bringing anything expensive or irreplaceable!

 

Shoes

Keep in mind, shoes take up a lot of valuable space in your bag, so pick and pack them wisely! You’ll want shoes you can wear for a long time without completely falling apart on you, and that are versatile for you to wear for a number of different occasions. Also, if you plan on doing lots of adventurous activities like trekking, mountain-climbing, or anything like that, you’ll need to consider specialized shoes. And if you’re going to be staying in a lot of hostels or similar, you may want to consider particular shoes/sandals that you don’t mind wearing in the shared showers. Remember, comfort is paramount when it comes to footwear! Chances are you’ll be walking a ton, so definitely take that into consideration when choosing which shoes you’re going to take with you. The shoes included on the list are:

 

Gear

So this is where your trip planning & packing get really real! You have to have an idea of what kind of traveler you are or what kind of things you plan to do on your trip to get the right gear before you head off. I’m going to break down and explain the list of gear we recommend based on our experience from our trip:

With short trips, it’s totally acceptable to bring a large piece of rolling luggage if you want to, but for long-term traveling, you’re really going to want to consider getting a good backpack. Both of us bought REI branded 60L (Ashly) and 65L (Carlos) backpacks with included 20L daypacks. Not gonna lie, the backpacks were very big and at times, a pain to travel with. You can definitely make the trek with a smaller backpack (a lot of people travel with 40L ones instead, and swear by this Osprey one), but it’s completely up to you. We would definitely recommend trying out some backpacks before you purchase though, to get the feel for them, see how big they are, and how many different pockets there are, etc.

 

Whether your backpack comes with a day pack or not, you will definitely want to get one. They are great to use as a carry-on on a flight, and they are useful to store your most important and delicate things like your electronics. A day pack also comes in handy when you have to leave some stuff behind and want to just pack for a long day trip or carry food or equipment with you.

 

In addition to those two types of packs, we also recommend a travel wallet. I honestly don’t think we would have made it to so many places in such a short time without one – and I’m not exaggerating. Our travel wallets helped keep us organized and kept all of our most important ‘can-not-lose’ documents like our passports, visas, vaccination card, etc all in one place. Instead of putting things like this in a pocket in your day pack or backpack, keep them all together in a handy wallet so when it’s time to get through customs, board a flight, or check into a hotel, you have everything you need within easy access. Also, carry a pen in your wallet to fill out all those pesky customs forms they give you when crossing borders.

 

We recommend a mosquito net if you are going to places with lots of mosquitoes, especially if malaria is present in the area. The mosquito net we have is easy to transport since it comes in a little drawstring bag and we used it a whole lot more than we thought we would. You may not need to use it, but it’s piece of mind to have it, in case your accommodations don’t. Malaria is really serious, so we took it upon ourselves to make sure we were protected.

 

Sleeping bag liners are kind of a must if you’re planning on sleeping in cheap, grungy hostels, on trains or buses, maybe even in airports. They keep you from having to touch/sleep on gross surfaces. My favorite part about the sleeping bag liners we have is that it has a pocket to insert a pillow into so I never have to put my face on any questionable surfaces. We also used it a few times to keep warm when we had to sleep in less than ideal places for a night like a train in Zimbabwe and the Santiago, Chile airport during a layover.

 

Microfiber towels are great for travelers because they are small, lightweight, and quick-drying. If you are on the move frequently, you will need a towel that dries soon after use so you don’t have to carry around a wet towel and so it doesn’t get that mildewy smell.

 

We recommend bringing two types of water bottles if you can because not only are reusable water bottles more eco-friendly than constantly buying bottled water, but they will also save you money in the long run. We recommend bringing a Lifestraw filtered bottle and some type of foldable water bottle like this platypus one we had. The Lifestraw bottle will filter unclean water and make it drinkable for you in case you don’t trust the tap in certain countries and it’s good just as a precaution in general. And the foldable water bottle is awesome because when empty, it takes up barely any room and you can take it wherever. Halfway through the trip, we also acquired a third bottle, a thermos to keep water warm so we could make instant soup on the go, and take coffee and tea with us. 

 

Goggles aren’t really necessary, and it really depends on your trip and if you’re interested in water activities such as snorkeling, but it could be any easy way to come prepared if the opportunity presents itself and you want to wear a pair. We ended up buying goggles about halfway through our trip and I wish we would have had them from the start since we love snorkeling so much.

 

I personally would not be able to travel without my travel pillow. It’s often used to support your head and neck while sleeping on airplanes, which is great, but I use it for so much more than that. I used it when we stayed in hostels that didn’t give us enough pillows, I used it the night we slept in the back of a car while roadtripping through Australia, and I used it to keep guys from man-spreading on airplanes like this. Travel pillows really are the real travel MVP.

 

Please don’t leave on a long term trip without a basic first aid kit!! The reason being is that you never know when you might need a bandaid or some anti-bacterial wipe or something to hold you over until you can get professional help. It’s just one of those things that you hope you never need, but you’ll be so relieved to have it, if you do end up needing it. We ended up using ours quite a few times for things like cuts and scrapes when falling off a bike or slipping. 


 

Toiletries

There’s no right or wrong answer to what amount or types of toiletries you bring, this part of the list is more to act as a reminder of the things you could consider bringing. If you’re staying in a lot of hostels or accommodations with shared bathrooms, a toiletry organizer is really convenient to be able to bring all your toiletries to the shower or bathroom easily. Also, if you haven’t discovered the greatness that is shampoo bars (non-liquid), this trip would be the perfect opportunity to try them (I’m totally addicted now)! The toiletries included on the list are:

 

Electronics

This category, like Toiletries, is meant to act more like a reminder of things you could consider bringing or purchasing before your trip. They are not by any means necessities. But I will say, having things like my amazing 360 camera, a GoPro, and a small portable tripod on hand makes documenting the best moments of the trip better and easier. If you do travel with any electronics, DO NOT FORGET TO BRING THE CHARGER! You probably could just buy one wherever you’re going if you forget it, but if you have one at home, that’s just a waste of money. If you’re traveling as a pair, a headphone splitter is always a good idea. They only cost a few bucks and they make it so you and your fellow traveler can listen to the same music or movie without having to only have one earbud each. Believe me, it makes a difference. Also, if you’re going to countries with various different electric outlets and/or outputs, get an all-in-one travel adapter before you leave so you don’t have to keep buying a new bulky one every time you enter a country with a new type of outlet. The electronics included on the list are:

 

Miscellaneous

Even though the name of the category makes this stuff sound all hodge podge and unimportant, these are some of the most important things you’ll bring with you on your trip that you WILL NOT want to forget! All the other stuff included on the list is:

  • Passport & IDs

Of course, you’ll need your passport and any other identification you’ll want to bring. Having a back up from of ID to your passport is always a good idea. We brought our state driver’s licenses. 

  • Passport photos

If you can get extra passport photos done before you leave, you’ll save yourself the stress of having to find a place to get it done when applying for new visas. (Insider Tip: Instead of paying for expensive passport photos, get them done as wallet sized photos, then cut them down to the appropriate size. You’ll save a bunch of money that way.)

  • Credit cards & cash

This one is obvious as you’re going to have to pay for things as you go. We don’t get any money exchanged before we head off because the exchange rate at an ATM in the currency you need is most likely going to be far better than what you can get in your home country. We use the Charles Schwab ATM card which doesn’t charge any foreign transaction fees and credits back any ATM fees incurred at the end of every month. It saved us over $300.00 USD on our trip! We also use the Chase Sapphire credit card which has no foreign transaction fees and you earn double points on all travel spend. We earned hundreds of dollars worth of points during our trip! And lastly, we always carry some back-up/emergency U.S. Dollars on us, that we only use if we have to. There were a few times where we had no other way to pay for things (like when the ATMs in Zimbabwe didn’t have any money!), so we had to dig into this emergency fund. But we always make sure to replenish it with U.S. Dollars again as soon as we can in case of future emergencies. 

  • Information folder

An information folder will hold all your important documents that you need to have on hand in case of emergencies. In our folders, we kept our signed Power of Attorney contracts in which we gave our financial and health rights over to our moms in case anything happened to us (it’s a little morbid, but another thing we wanted to have in place just in case), our World Nomads travel insurance information, yellow fever vaccine cards, and extra copies of our passports, IDs, and credit cards. It’s very important to make sure no one gets a hold of these documents and that you don’t lose them. I always traveled with them in my carry-on daypack bag. 

  • Prescriptions & medicine

Whatever medicine you take regularly while you are at home, make sure to bring it with you. Also, if you visited a travel doctor before departing, get the prescriptions they suggest before leaving. Make sure to leave everything in the bottle it was prescribed in and/or bring a copy of the prescription just in case. 

  • Condoms/birth control

If there’s any chance you’re going to have sex, always be prepared with protection in whatever form(s) necessary. 

Packing cubes were my saving grace when we had to hurry and get going quickly. They helped me stay organized, I could always find what I was looking for, and I could use them to pack just a few days of clothes in my daypack if I was leaving my big backpack behind for a few days (like during the Machu Pichhu trek). They also compress things a bit, so I could shove a few more items of clothing than I would have without them. After this trip, I became a firm believer in the power of packing cubes. 

These are so important! Travel locks are different than normal locks. TSA have the ability to open these locks if they need to look inside your bag, but they keep everybody else out. We had two travel locks each, one for our big backpacks and one for our daybags. And not only can they keep your bags locked, but they can double as your lock if you’re staying in a hostel with lockers. 

  • Utensils

This may seem weird, but we traveled with utensils for two reasons: 1. in case we bought food and were given no utensils to eat with (yes, it happened many times at food stands) and 2. to cut down on unnecessary plastic waste. They don’t take up much room and they came in handy more times than I could count, so I’d definitely recommend grabbing some before taking off.

  • Spices & snacks

Ok snacks are an obvious one, you might get hungry, so why not pack a few goodies from home for the road. But why would I suggest you bring spices? Well if you’re on a budget like we were, you’ll probably be doing some cooking at your accommodations instead of always eating out. And if you’re like us, you like your food to be tasty. And depending on where you travel to, they might not always have the spices you like or are accustomed to at home. And lastly, even if you can purchase the spices on your trip, why not save a few bucks and raid a friend or relative’s (or your own) spice rack before you go instead of having to buy large packs? No joke, we bought a pack of oregano that lasted us our whole 9.5 month trip and we are still trying to use the rest at home now. 

  • Rubberbands

Rubberbands were something I grabbed on my way out of door to the airport to embark on our RTW journey. I didn’t know why I would need them yet, something inside me just said to take some ‘just in case’ (can you tell I like to be prepared for many scenarios?). And let me tell you, ‘just in case’ happened way more frequently than I thought it would. We used rubber bands to close open food bags to maintain freshness, to hold things together, as a hair tie when I lost one, as a mosquito bracelet when mine fell off, and a multitude of other things that I would have never thought possible if I wouldn’t have grabbed those handy rubberbands before we departed. 

  • Ziploc bags

And lastly, Ziploc bags. Another item I wasn’t sure what the need was for at the time we left. But we ended up using them a lot as well. Mostly to store food again – to keep in the fridge, to take with us out in the day, and to move from one destination to another. But I also used ziploc bags as tiny packing cubes within my larger packing cubes to keep together my undergarments. We used ziploc bags to keep our phones in when it rained also. For the small amount of space they take up, they are invaluable. 

 

Think we left anything important off the list? Let us know in the comments! 

Download the printable RTW Packing List!

RTW packing list

Also check out our other resources for packing and staying organized on your trip!

⇒ How to Stay Organized While Traveling

⇒ Cartagena Packing List

You can also check out our RTW Packing List on Amazon.com!

Still need help packing for your upcoming trip? Let us know your questions in the comments!

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Ashly
Ashly

Ashly is the founder of reversible travel clothing brand, SPLICE clothing, and half of the budget travel couple, Happy Nomad Couple. She is from Las Vegas, USA and has been to 32 countries on 6 continents. She’s the mastermind behind this blog and does most of the traveling planning and dreaming for her & Carlos.

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