Two years ago I traveled in SE Asia for just under three months. The topic of what to bring comes up often enough that I thought I’d write a post about it, if only for my easy reference in the future.

I was nudged to write this by a friend who asked: If you could only bring three things with you on a trip, what would they be? My quick, flip answer was: money, a camera and a toothbrush. But writing this just now, I replaced toothbrush with shoes. Oh, how fickle a packer I am! When I was preparing to go on my trip, a friend sent me an extensive packing list. The picture above shows me with my luggage: a medium-sized internal frame backpack as well as a small daypack on the ground, plus my moneybag and camera around my shoulder. And you should know I am a towering five feet one inches tall, so that should give you some idea of the size of my pack. I think it weighed about 15 pounds when I left the US. I did end up buying another tote halfway through my trip to carry all the things I ended up buying (pounds of pepper in Kampot!). If I had to do it over again, I would have left the books behind and probably tried to just load them all on an e-reader. Books are HEAVY!

Here is her list, complete with notes: