Category Archives: Planning

Hello, all! Today was a day of preparation.  We spent the day at home organizing and ironing out details.  For example, suspending cell phone service, alerting credit cards that we’re leaving the country, and making sure we have a bunch of cool travel apps on my iPod.  But also, we packed our backpacks and made sure we had everything.  So, here it comes, a detailed list of everything in my backpack that will live with me for the next six months, or, at least until it’s done or broken. 

In my backpack:

So this is what the innards of my backpack will look like at any given moment.  Obviously, some of it will be on my person.  Now, let’s break it down:

These are pack it cubes by eagle creek.  They are made of a super light weight material and they are translucent, so you can kind of see what’s inside.  But, let me show you what’s inside:

These are all my clothes.

2 lightweight quick dry dresses (1 Patagonia, 1 random)

1 long underwear (Smartwool) shirt

2 pairs quick dry pants (1 North Face, 1 Exofficio)

1 short sleeved Patagonia merino wool shirt

1 long sleeved Patagonia merino wool shirt

1 convertible long/short sleeve Columbia shirt

1 Patagonia rain jacket (will also be used as windbreaker)

1 Exofficio undershirt

1 bikini

8 pair Patagonia quick dry underwear

2 bras (1 Patagonia, 1 Travelsmith)

1 sports bra (brand unknown)

8 pairs Smartwool quick dry socks

1 pair of Columbia shoes

1 pair of Teva sandals

That is all I’m bringing to wear.  Since i had such a hard time finding information about ladies’ undergarments for travel online, I’m going to show you just how seductive they can be:

So, here it is.  I bought, wore, and returned so many bras and underwear to land with these.  The Patagonia underwear is amazing. You can do anything in it.  I’ve been using it at the gym and it stays put.  They, also, dry really fast so I could, potentially, wash them in a sink and wear then shortly thereafter.  Te he…  The bras were difficult.  I don’t think there are enough options out there for travel bras that are quick dry and functional.  But most of all, they need to be cuter.  They are not sexy at all.  Someone needs to get on top of that.  

Then, there’s my bathroom kit.  All of the stuff on the right easily fits into the beautiful Eddie Bauer bag on the left.  I’d give you a breakdown of what is in it, but I believe it is quite self explanatory.  If you have any questions, go ahead and ask.

Make up? A topic of contention with many of my lady friends.  This is all of my make up I will be bringing.

That is all.  It may be too much and some may be tossed/donated along the way.

This is my fun stuff bag.  It includes:

A journal (blue)

Deck of cards

Earbuds

iPod touch

Kindle

Sunglasses

dice

belt

headlamp

Cocoon travel sheets

Agenda 

PacSafe purse/wallet with my important documents

We have prescriptions in a water tight bag, but I haven’t shown those.  If you would like to see our super cool medication organizer, for things like pills to combat malaria, Delhi belly, and altitude, see our earlier posts. 

And that is my backpack’s innards.  It really was a lot of work to come to these decisions.  If you have any questions at all, just throw them at me!

Let me take a moment to talk about our current schedule, which is quite flexible.  This Friday, June 29 we fly from Denver, Colorado to New York City.  We leave NYC in the evening on July 1.  From NYC we land in Verona, Italy the morning of July 2.  We spend the day in Verona, but that evening we fly to Madrid, Spain where we will stay with my amazing friend, Alberto.  We get to spend three whole days in Madrid before taking a train to Pamplona on Friday, July 6 in the morning, in order to catch the opening ceremonies of the Festival of San Fermin (also known as the running of the bulls).  We have a couple of days, probably just two, in Pamplona, before we head to Barcelona.  The plan is to spend the day of July 8 in Barcelona, and fly out from Barcelona on the morning of July 9 on our way to Venice, Italy.  That is when our schedule becomes less scheduled.  We have from July 9 through August 16 to make our way from Venice, through Croatia, then Greece, then Turkey.  The ‘plan’ is to spend about two to three weeks in each before catching a flight from Istanbul to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) on August 16.  Our time in Tanzania lasts through September 1 and includes about a week of Safari and a week on the island of Zanzibar.  From Tanzania we fly to Delhi, India on September 2.  We make our way from Delhi to Varanasi, where we cross over to Kathmandu, Nepal to meet our guide on September 25 to begin our 12 day trek through the Himalayans.  We then fly from Kathmandu to Osaka on October 9.  We have until October 28 to visit Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe.  On October 29 we leave Japan for Bangkok, Thailand.  We have through November 20 to see as much of thailand as we can.  We head to Singapore on Nov 20.  Then we have until December 29 to explore Singapore, Bali, and anything and everything in between.  We make it back to Denver in the evening on December 29.  

I hope that was at least a little easy to follow.  I wanted to give you guys a clearer picture, now that we have some definite plans.  Visitors? We’d love to see any friends along the way!  We’ll be with my sister in Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey, and then Seth’s parents will be joining us in Japan, but other than that you have our attention! 

In the next few days I will be posting the exact contents of our backpacks.  And, no, there will not be curling irons or eyelash curlers.  C’mon people, what’s with the curling?

So, part of our trip prep is to move out of our apartment.  Luckily we don’t have to break our lease to leave, but it just so happens that our lease expires exactly one month from the day we plan to leave LA.  So, what to do? Fortunately, my parents are locals and both have spare bedrooms.  As of right now the plan is to spend about 2 weeks at my dad’s place, followed by 2 weeks at my mom’s.  I’m not sure how you guys feel about the issue, but for us, moving sucks!  The process of boxing things up and living in my very own box city is not exactly appealing.  For example, I am sitting on my couch (which is for sale BTW) and I can’t see the front door, or the kitchen, due to the enormous pile of boxes.  So, we are going to be moving boxes for the next few weekends.

Then there’s the fact that we have to be completely sure when we pack something that we are not going to need it on the trip.  This has led to a few re-opening of boxes to retrieve accidentally packed items. So, last night we packed everything into our packs to be sure we still had everything and to keep all our gear contained.  We’re golden.  It’s getting so close, it’s so exciting!

Ok guys, I need your help.  My predicament is whether or not to bring a pair of jeans on this trip.  Initial response is, “no, jeans are heavy and don’t dry quickly, which can quickly lead to a musty smell throughout your bag.”  Also, you might add, “Berkley, you’re going to be traveling through a lot of hot, hot climates and jeans won’t be comfortable, especially when it’s humid.”  But, here’s my thing… I live in jeans.  I love a dress, but there will be places (with malaria carrying mosquitoes and the like) where I can not wear a dress.  And if I’m thinking about how I look, at all, I like how I look wearing jeans more than when I’m wearing pants of a different material.  GAH! I’m so torn!  I need social input! Please tell me your thoughts!

So, as it turned out, these were our savior after some intense hiking.  This weekend Seth and I decided to put our newly acquired gear to the test and go backpacking.  For those of you who know our camping/vacation record, we always end up having an adventure.  Be it a monsoon with hurricane grade wind in Monterrey that shuts down the town, dust storms in the Mojave desert, or deathly heat outside of Phoenix, Arizona in the Tonto National Forest, we always end up with a story to tell.

This time the story takes place in the Sespe Wilderness in the Los Padres National Forest.  The plan was to make it to Willet Hot Springs, and possibly make our way all the way up to Sespe Hot Springs.  We set off with our back packs filled with only what we needed. This wasn’t going to be one of our gourmet camping trips with grill pans and beer, we brought boil in bag freeze dried food. Not even tents, we brought our bivy sacks.  Anyhoo, we set off on Friday morning into the wilderness in our newly worn in boots, minimalist backpacks, and Mochi.  We had a few river crossings where we had to hop across rocks and some where we needed to wade across.   Mochi was pretty good at river rock hopping, but wasn’t too keen on wading. Seth ended up carrying her, as she paddled in mid air. Pretty funny.  We were over half way to the hot springs when Seth’s feet started hurting.  He was already dealing with a blister when we began so we patched him up with some moleskin and we kept going.  Then my feet began to hurt.  Like I mentioned to every soul who fit me for boots, I need a big toe box because my feet swell when I do physical activity.  My toes were being squished together.

Even so, we were having a good time.  The weather was nice and warm with a cool breeze here and there.  And Mochi was having a blast.  She did not have to look far to find a butterfly or lizard to chase.  Eventually I spot something I thought was a bearded dragon.  Seth, being the quick and coordinated one, was able to catch it for a closer look.  The little critter didn’t seem to be bothered and it turned out to be a horny toad. He was super calm and posed nicely for pictures. Pretty cool. We ended up finding a few others along our trip, but this one was the coolest because he was the first.

Speaking of critters, he wasn’t the only little guy we ran into.  We came across frogs, bats, a California kingsnake, a garter snake, and skinks.  Mochi found the skinks.  There was a hollowed out log where we ended up camping that was apparently filled with skinks.  Mochi nabbed a few of their tails and the wriggling sent her wild!

Back to the adventure.  The last 4 miles of the hike to the hot springs was a lot of up and down terrain.  By that point our feet were in pretty bad shape.  Not a difficult hike, but our feet were causing much difficulty.  For Seth, the pain was lessened when we were going downhill, because the pressure was off his heels.  For me, the uphill climbs provided a touch of relief because it eased the pressure in my toes.  So it was a lose lose situation.  We made it to the Willet Campground with a few hours of sunlight left to spare.  When we asked some skinny dippers where the hot springs were, she pointed the way, but mentioned that her and her 12 buddies were staying at the sight by the spring.  We were in pretty bad shape but we decided to keep going in search of a campsite away from all the people.  We made it about a mile or two more over the next ridge and just as I was about to collapse from pain Seth found an awesome campsite.  There were makeshift benches of logs on piles of rocks and a fire pit and on top of that it was right by the river.  Plus, we were past the hot springs so no one was heading our way.

The first thing I did was take off my boots.  That was a surprise.  I had blisters on almost all of my toes, with monsters on my pinky toes.  To add insult to injury, it looked as though I might lose my left pinky toenail.  Gees.  I hobbled over to the river to soak my feet while Seth took pictures before we lost all sunlight.  The river felt so good.

After a good soak we started a fire and cooked up some delicious Santa Fe Chicken and Peppered Steak and rice in a bag.  The Santa Fe Chicken by Backpackers Pantry was pretty good.  Then we boiled up some water to drink and basically hit the sack!

The next morning, after very little sleep, we were ready to hike the day away.  Mochi was a little worn out.  Not only did she over exert herself the day before, but she was up all night keeping watch, barking or growling at anything that moved.  After some coffee we taped up my toes and Seth’s heels, then headed up to the hot springs.  The hot spring was lukewarm at best, and to be completely honest, it was kind of gross looking.  Murky like.  It wasn’t worth us getting all wet to be in tepid water in the heat of the day.  So we decided to do some hiking back towards the car and find a cool campsite along the way to spend the night.

We began to hike in a bit of pain, but our spirits were high.  Though in a bit of pain, we were still having fun.  A little before hitting the halfway point Seth noticed rain clouds heading towards us.  So much for our forecast of 0% rain.  Thank you to the California weathermen. We decided that staying the night would not be in our cards.  At a bit of a hobbler’s pace we made it to the first big river crossing and had to/got to take off our boots.  The relief was amazing, but what we found was unnerving.  We were in pretty bad shape.  The cool water of the river felt good on our feet.  But, there was no way we were putting those boots back on.  We slapped on our flip flops and trudged along.

Flip flops are difficult to walk in when they are wet.  They get slippery and this is a precarious situation while carrying packs up and down rocky terrain. But, we were managing.  Then, about 4.2 miles  to go (we checked) Mochi decided she was done walking.  “You go on! Just leave me here!” her eyes told us.  Gah! Rather than leave our dog in the wilderness, we arranged the Crazy Creek on the back of Seth’s pack so that she was carryable and she started nodding off to the rhythmic beat of Seth’s pace.  

This was not going to work.  20 extra pounds dangling off the back of Seth’s pack was not a good situation.  So, what do mothers do with their children? They swaddle them to their chests.  This is kinda similar, right?

Then, as if hiking up and down rocky terrain, through rivers, in flip flops, carrying 35+ pounds, and trading off the doggie hammock wasn’t enough, the wind began to pick up and the heavens decided to open.  With our forecast of 0% chance of rain we hadn’t packed rain gear. Now, our feet were in pain from being blistered, and our body was beginning to ache from the situation (i.e. hiking in slippery flip flops with lots of weight).  A few more river crossings later, and we finally made it to the car.  Luckily we brought extra shirts.

We blasted the heat and headed home.  After stopping at Mulberry Street Pizza in Sherman Oaks to say hello to my dad (and grub on some well deserved lasagna pizza) we were in our humble abode.  We washed Mochi, then ourselves, tended to our wounds, and hopped into bed.  Sleep hurt, and waking up hurt too. We’re both pretty stiff and I’m gonna lose one, if not two, of my pinky toe nails.

The moral of this story is, forget the boots. Flip flops will do.  Needless to say, we’re both returning our boots once we can walk without waddling.

As for the rest of our gear, everything was pretty stellar.  Our pants (Seth=Rock Guide from Patagonia, Berkley=Horizon Tempest by North Face) were awesome,drying quickly and super comfortable.  Our backpacks (Seth=Baltoro by Gregory, Berkley=ACT Lite SL by Deuter) were comfortable and held all our stuff.  Both packs have lots of handy loops to hook things to the outside if needed (like unworn boots and dogs with low morale).  The travel towels by McNett were  super absorbent once the rain began.  Seth’s Capilene shirt by Patagonia was light and breathable and dries extremely fast.  My Merino Silkweight by Patagonia was a favorite of mine too. I didn’t feel it on me, wet or dry.  I’ve decided on two bras (so far). For this trip I used my coolmax travel bra by Travelsmith and it was perfect. I didn’t feel it on me and it wicked really well.  My underwear by Patagonia were awesome, as usual, and Seth is still liking his Champion skivvies.  As you can see, our cameras are rocking the house.  The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 takes great photos and Seth has been doing a lot of experimenting with exposure time and HDRI, and it’s turning out great.  And, our Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS3 is perfect and portable and the GPS feature is awesome.  Though we found some pitfalls, it’s better to do the testing out here when we have a comfy bed and all the amenities to recuperate.  This is why you don’t buy new gear for a big trip!