Before we started our world trip I wrote a blog about what we packed for a trip with a kid to different countries with all seasons. Now that our trip is over, I like to look back and see how we packed. What were our favorite products? Did we bring things which we didn’t use? Did we bring too much? You’ll read it in this blog.
If you like to read again what all we took, you can find the blog here:
Our favorite/ most used products
Below you’ll find a list with the best products we took on our trip, besides photos, computers, camera’s and the baby carrier (without a carrier no holiday). Here we go!
For sure on number 1: the safe bag from PacSafe
I’m not sure how long we haved owned this bag, but we love it! All our electronics fit in this bag (2 Macbooks, a Nikon D750 with a 35mm lens, an Ipad, our external harddrives (4) and our Olympus camera with lens. There is always a place to attach the bag too, even in our car we could attach it to a ring in the car. We never had to worry about our stuff and we could even leave it in the car. Which we only did on travel days and alwasy out of sight (of course), because at home it’s always. It doesn’t matter if you go away for the weekend, or a year, this is must have when traveling!
We had so much fun (and still) with our speaker. Or well, the first one we had broke, so we got a second one. This one is more robus and also water proof. We have something like this one. We also got an trial at Deezer and this combination was great. Except for off line music you can also listen to audio books. Favorites were the sountracks of Trolls, Frozen and Moana/Vaiana and the audio books of Dikkie Dik and Woezen en Pip. It has been a life saver at many (long) moment in the car, but also in the supermarket and sometimes we just used it to dance in the street 😉 It was the first time we brought something like this, and for sure not the last time.
3. A powerbank
Also the first time for us bringing a power bank, but we are hooked! This is such a usefull thing. Especially when you go camping, or when you are on the couch being lazy and the nearest hook up point is 6m away (really that happens a lot abroad :p ). We choose for the smallest powerbank with the strongest capacity, so it could charge more devices. Also for the Ipad ideal if you have a long travel day (you can’t charge an Ipad in the car itself, because there is not enough power. Something we found out this trip, you are welcome 😉 )
Yes you can laugh all you want, but this is the most worn item what I took with me! (except for the lsat 2.5 months in the tropics). In the U.S. and Canada you often have to take off your shoes when you enter a house (which I prefer to do anyway) and then it’s so nice to have house shoes! Even in summer when the A/C is on a freezing temperature. I took black ones (the link goes to beige), because you can’t see when they are dirty 😉 I wore them so much in our year away, that the wool was worn out on certain places. I was so happy I brought them, but of course they are completely useless if you are going to the tropics 😉
This might not be necessary for everyone, but for us it was essential. Liv sleeps in a bed with us, which in theory means she can fall out. Besides that she is a sleep walker and this way we are always on time and we are much more relaxed. We slept in so many different places and sometimes in huge houses, that we really liked having this.
6. My scarf
It might be a weird item to mention, but I used this so much! Not only because it was cold a lot, but also as a towel on the beach when we didn’t have anything else, as a booger cleaner for Liv (who had a lot of colds…) and as a cover up when we went to an Islamic country (which we didn’t plan beforehand). I don’t have the same as the link, but something similar and grey: it goes with everything! If you check out our Instagram page, you’ll see I wear it a lot haha. Essential item.
Unnecessary items
Every trip I fall for it again: I think that I’ll find it (very) important that I bring things in which I look good. In the meantime I know that if you go to Asia for example, that “hip” has a totally different meaning than here and that when you are backpacking, being hip is not really handy. It’s so much better to be practical. Because we went to Western countries this time, I got tempted again and I took my way to expensive leather boots. After a half year the conclusion was that I wore them twice (and only because I made myself). I left them half way with a Dutch couple and this way they came back to me months later. 🙂 Didn’t miss them once in the meantime.
Believe me: if you are traveling around you want stuff to be practical. That doesn’t mean you have to look like a slob, so this time I packed practical, but nice. This time I didn’t pack those dull hiking boots that I have worn for years, but I bought some really cool boots: Panama Jacks. I loved them. Not only for hiking but this in general. It was nice to have a pair of shoes that look good on you and are practical 🙂 By they way I really like Timberlands too and this color goes with everything!
Did we pack too much?
Because we had a car for 9,5 months out of 12, it was easy to leave stuff in the car that we didn’t use a lot, of putting our winter clothes there in summer and the other way around. We hardly had to buy new items a long the way (not even for Liv) so that was perfect! If I look back I could have packed a little better but in general I’m really happy with all we took! 🙂
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