Backpacking around the world: choices & tips

In this article, we share what’s in each of our backpacks for a year of travel. We’re also including the references, our tips, and our must-haves.

Preparation and thoughts before departure

🤔 We spent a lot of time and did quite a bit of research to put our backpacks together. For a year now, we’ve been preparing this project—trying day by day to break some habits and rethink what we really need…

Not always easy in our society, is it?

Criteria for choosing what to pack

There are as many ways to travel as there are travelers! Here, we’re sharing our experience and our essentials, but of course everyone needs to adapt to their own needs. As for us, we absolutely wanted our backpack to weigh 10 kg max, because we didn’t want to pay top dollar for baggage every time we flew.

At the start, we had:

Guillaume’s packing list

🧍‍♂️Guillaume has the Forclaz backpack from Decathlon: with a large 50 L pack and a smaller integrated 10 L pack. The backpack cost €110. It’s quite ergonomic and has very practical storage, with a large side opening that gives great access. The small day pack that comes with it is handy and has compartments, but it’s too small to fit the MacBook, which turned out to be inconvenient when traveling by bus and our bags have to go (or rather get thrown) into the hold! He also bought a TropicFeel “wardrobe” organizer that costs €74: it’s really practical, letting you store each item of clothing and compress everything as much as possible for guaranteed space savings. The downside is that at each end there are two plates (which optimize the compression effect) that are quite heavy on their own.

Amélie’s packing list

🧍‍♀️As for me, I reused a 50 L Decathlon backpack we already had, as well as the 35 L Decathlon backpack we also had. That helped us save money on this part. I use packing cubes found on Amazon—€14 for the set.

The toiletry bag in particular is really practical because it can hang up like a hanger and has lots of compartments.

How our backpack contents evolved

🧳 One month after we left, we met up with our friends Charlène & Laurent in Costa Rica. They were coming for 15 days of vacation and had checked luggage, so they were able to take off our hands what we barely used (two pairs of pants for me, the GoPro pole…). And they were able to bring us a few small things we’d had delivered to their place. Also, Charlène—who’s an amazing seamstress—made me a gorgeous belt bag that I never get tired of, and it now comes with me on every trip because it’s so practical!

Why the ÖKO filtered water bottle matters

💧We truly don’t regret buying our ÖKO filtered water bottle. We did a lot of research before choosing this one, and we were won over by the filter quality and the bottle’s durability. It’s become our travel must-have—we use it every day. If you’d like to know more, we wrote a dedicated article about our ÖKO filtered water bottle, and you’ll also find an ÖKO promo code: OKOGUILLAUME .

The unexpected usefulness of a clothesline

🧺 In the end, the most unlikely but essential thing we brought was a clothesline with a few clothespins!! We use it almost every week, because few places have drying racks even when there’s a washing machine!

Round-the-world backpacking: travel light

🎒 Looking back, we’re pretty happy with our packs—especially because, either way, we have to do laundry, so it doesn’t seem useful to bring more clothes. Our clothes wear out before your eyes; maybe we’ll have to replace some during the trip. We also realize that at the start you’re afraid of running out, when in the end you can always buy what you truly need locally… Plus, when we have to move around with all our bags, it can mean long minutes/hours carrying them, so we’re glad not to be over 15 kg each (both bags included). Every long journey makes us rethink any extras, and little by little we find it easier and easier to shed what we don’t need!

Specific purchases for the Inca Trail

🧤For our trip to Peru, we had to gear up specifically to be able to do the Inca Trail. So we bought hiking pants, a pair of gloves, and a buff each.

Final thoughts on travel and consumption

🤓 The round-the-world experience also inevitably changes your relationship with things—with lack, with how we Europeans relate to wealth, comfort, instant consumption, and that underlying fear of going without, which in the end is absurd.

For that, this trip is a fantastic opportunity to refocus on what matters and think for ourselves.

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