My sam­ple bag — hey, I’m French after all!

In a week, we will be in Panamá. Phew.

I’m still work­ing until Wednes­day and my to-do lists don’t seen to get any smaller. I don’t have any big chore to do, it’s mostly a bunch of lit­tle tasks I have to com­plete before we leave. After all, we will be gone for a few months.

I can’t wait to get rid of my win­ter jacket and to walk bare feet again (on sec­ond thought, I might just as well wear san­dals). To go out for a smoke with­out putting my gloves, my scarf and my hat on. Oh… see­ing the sun…

I’m look­ing for­ward to pack­ing my bag and go. I haven’t prac­tice the art of pack­ing in a while though, and trust me, when you go trav­el­ing for a few months… you need to pack right. For exam­ple, this is a list of small objects I always carry with me when traveling:

Tiger Balm: a small pot of Tiger Balm doesn’t take much room and it’s very use­ful for headaches, mus­cu­lar pains, motion sick­ness, cold… and to stop scratch­ing mos­qui­toes bites! Some hate the smell, I like it.

Plas­tic san­dals aka Flip-flops: I never travel with­out a pair of cheap plas­tic san­dals. First of all, they are always handy to go to the beach or to walk to the cor­ner store. But mostly I use them in com­mu­nal show­ers… I don’t mind hos­tels at all, but I’m not going bare feet. Ever.

A Sarong: a sarong is a large piece of fab­ric, orig­i­nally from South Asia and South East Asia. I bought mine in Aus­tralia and it is a traveler’s best friend. First of all, sarongs are pretty, usu­ally dec­o­rated with bright col­ors. They are light and easy to wash and to carry. I use mine as a towel or as a skirt on the beach, as a light blan­ket on the bus or in the plane, as a cur­tain (espe­cially if I’m sleep­ing in a lower bunk bed)… heck, I could prob­a­bly use it as a para­chute as well if I wanted to!

A small sewing kit: it sounds use­less, espe­cially given the fact that I’m not exactly the best seam­stress around, but I like to be able to sew a but­ton back on a shirt if needed. Plus, sewing kits often comes with small scis­sors, nee­dles and safety pins, all of them use­ful for quick fixes. I bought a new sewing kit in Bei­jing this sum­mer, and the lit­tle wooden box (on which it is writ­ten in per­fect ching­lish  “friend is peo­ple”) that fits in the palm of my hand will be per­fect.

A bag full of cos­metic sam­ples: I love beauty sam­ples. I’m French, remem­ber? When­ever I buy beauty prod­ucts, I always ask for sam­ple from the brand. I keep them all in a big bag and use them when I travel. Because they are so small, I can carry them in the plane and dis­card them after use. I mostly col­lect cream, sham­poo, soap and cleanser sam­ples because these are the prod­ucts I use the most. Sam­ples are also great if you run out of a prod­uct, you can still use sam­ples as a backup until the next super­mar­ket shop­ping. It does take some dis­ci­pline to not dig into the bag before going trav­el­ing though…!

A plas­tic fork & knife or chop­sticks: Always travel with either. For these lazy days where we make tuna sand­wiches or cup noo­dles in the hotel room… Cut­lery is often avail­able in hos­tels but rarely in basic hotels.

Tea Bags: you may think tea is avail­able every­where but I beg to dif­fer. Tea is never avail­able when you really need it, how­ever, hot water almost always is. Tea bags don’t take room and can be a life sav­ior…

A roll of toi­let paper: once again, you may think it can be found any­where. Once again, I beg to dif­fer. I’m not even going to get into details here, but trust me: always carry some spare toi­let papers if you are not stay­ing in four stars hotels.

Alco­hol: nope, don’t drink this kind. I’m talk­ing about rub­bing alco­hol, a sol­vent con­tain­ing a con­cen­tra­tion of 70–91% iso­propyl alco­hol and water. It great to relieve itches, painful mus­cles, and above all, as an exter­nal first aid antiseptic.

Believ­ing me, despite car­ry­ing all that, my back­pack usu­ally only weights between 10–12 kilos (20−24 pounds). You will see next week!

How about you? Any­thing spe­cial you carry with you when back­pack­ing abroad?

Related arti­cles:

1. 10 More Things I Can’t Travel Without
2. My Travel ABC
3. Travel Sto­ries