Your backpack looks big - but it's an illusion.

Once you start packing, it shrinks. The longer your trip, the smaller the backpack. Or so it seems.

Backpacks Ready for TravelClothes, medicines, safety gadgets, flat water bottles with special spouts, crampons in case there's ice, hiking boots in case there's mud, special socks for winter and special socks for summer, windbreakers, rain gear, mosquito nets, industrial strength DEET, shampoo, photographer's vest, latest high-tech digital camera, antibacterial soap, wrinkle-free washable blouse, first aid kit...

There's a justification for each and every one.

Until you try to carry it on your back, and that's the acid test.

I want to take it all, but I can't. So I pretend. First I lay everything out on a bed (or two) and let it sit for a few days. Then I start packing. This brings home the finiteness of a backpack's size.

Stuff as I may, it won't all fit and so I begin to prune. One item of each, not two. I can always buy more on the road. Only what I need, not what I want, I keep telling myself.

Women on the Road

I look for multipurpose uses in everything - a sarong can be a skirt, a flashlight can be a self-defense weapon, shampoo can be soap, dental floss can be a clothesline.

Then I reduce. How can I make things smaller? I roll, press, flatten, cut, divide. I don't take anything that means something to me.

But there are some things I can't leave behind. Like dental floss. Like a bandanna I can also use as a bandage, or the universal sink plug for all those foreign sinks that let all the water through.

There's my rubber doorstop, to keep unwelcome guests out, and a nailbrush, great for nails but also for getting stubborn stains out of clothes.

Yes, there are essentials. But you know what? If someone walked off with my backpack, there's nothing in it I couldn't replace. And that's the beauty of a backpack.

You don't have that much to lose if you pack it right.

How do you pack your backpack?

Have a backpacking question for our Woman on the Road? Post your questions here for Leyla and she'll answer them in a future post.

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