Simon Monk shares his top tips for packing and making sure your passport is valid for long enough, before you go!
How Long is Your Passport Valid For?
This is a really simple one: make sure your passport is valid for at least 6 months AND has at least 10 whole empty pages available for visa stamps.
Why?
I was working in Japan once after an extended overseas trip, had to go to Korea to get a working visa and didn't give this a second thought. I arrived at the Japanese embassy, they looked at me in disgust, and said they couldn't possibly put their visa on the half page I had available. As with beaurocrats worldwide, pleading was like pissing in the wind.
It began to look like I was screwed with a very fruitless and expensive weekend in Seoul.
That evening in the YHA I was thumbing through my passport, noticed the old Nepalese visa from a year earlier, and wondered what sort of glue was available in Nepal. A kettle, some steam and a pair of tweezers soon offered me a nice clean page. Back to the embassy and in the blink of an eye, I was sorted.
Lesson of the day: this is definitely NOT a course of action I would reccommend as tinkering with your passport is very much a no no and is likely to get you into all sorts of trouble at home.
Things to Consider When You're Packing
I have travelled with everything from climbing rucksacks on a long haul trip across India to just a tiny day pack for 4 weeks in Cambodia. My advice, like many before me is to travel light! Now of course, this might mean either of the above, so you have to consider:
- Where are you going?
- What is the climate like?
- What are you going to do?
- What can I buy along the way?
- What can't I buy along the way?
Then, having made your choice, you have to consider how valuable any of this stuff is to you. I usually travel with the idea that I don't take anything I'm not prepared to lose (or have stolen) and leave those items behind.
Now consider what it will be like to lug that 25Kg at lunchtime when it is 40 degrees in the shade and lose at least another one third of it. Now you are getting closer.
Bag Security
Then think about security and dangling straps. Does my nice new pack look, well, rather nice and expensive? Think about people who might have barely eaten for a month, put yourself in their shoes and ask what you'd do in their situation? That isn't being harsh, it is often just reality. I've had stuff stolen before. It isn't nice, but get over it. Do you padlock your backpack and advertise you have something to steal? Or do you make your pack look, well, kinda grubby and let them go after another traveller? (that is a rhetorical question).
How Many Purchases Will You Make?
And finally, consider what you might buy on the way. Apart from various replenishables like t-shirts and thongs etc, consider all the lovely booty out there just waiting for you to take it home, so leave about a third of an empty pack of space. Trust me: you'll need it!
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