If you're a backpacker like me who prefers to leave the Samsonite at home and only pack what you can carry, then you've probably been faced with the dilemma of how much clothing to bring with you on a long trip. The two previous schools of thought seemed to be either the Noah method (pack two of everything along with a jumbo-sized bottle of Woolite) or the Quasimodo method, where you pack enough fresh clothes for each day and travel as the best-dressed hunchback anyone's ever seen. Even if you've discovered a happy middle ground and manage to pack moderately, after two weeks of travel the added weight of your new souvenirs is still usually enough to cause your backpack to pin you to the ground with it's Volkswagen-sized bulk.
After several years of experiments that ran the gamut from packing everything I owned to washing out my lone pair of socks in a hostel sink every night, I finally stumbled across the right solution for me. Environmentalists, plug your ears as I whisper the remedy to the clothing dilemma; don't recycle, just throw away.
The idea of disposable clothing first came to me at the end of a three-week trip to Europe. As I spread my belongings out on the bed of a small hotel in Austria, I realized that I would have to cram my fragile souvenirs in with my dirty, wadded up clothing in order to get everything into one bag. Noticing that two of my t-shirts were pretty worn-out after nearly a month of traveling the continent, I decided to leave them in the room to create more space in my backpack. The souvenirs fit fine and everything survived the journey home.
For my next trip, a long tour of Japan this time, I purposefully packed several shirts that were a little too old or a little too small along with a pair of jeans that would soon be ready for the donations bin. I discarded the clothing gradually over the course of the trip so that despite the fact that I was buying new items during the journey, the weight of my bag stayed roughly the same---and thus a new mindset of traveling was born.
If you're spending a month in a hot climate such as Mexico or the Caribbean, you can probably roll your shorts and t-shirts as tight as Cuban cigars and never worry about needing extra space in your backpack. But for an extended stay in places like northern Europe or Canada where warmer, bulkier clothing is a must, you have to pack smart or suffer the weighty consequences of a full backpack. A search through your closet should yield a few old long-sleeved shirts that still fit, and you can layer these on top of old t-shirts and shrunken turtlenecks that are one step away from that round hamper from which no laundry ever returns.
Even if you're a frequent traveler who just threw away your last old shirt on your previous trip, new provisions are as close as your nearest thrift store. For a recent trip to Ireland, I spent about an hour scouring the racks and came away with two plaid shirts from the Gap, another one from Land's End, and a thick, quilted jacket from Sears. (Note: When shopping for used clothing, I always buy items one or two sizes larger than I usually wear since normal shrinking has probably already taken place.) The total cost of my warm and only slightly worn ensemble was a mere ten dollars and by the end of my two-week trip the clothing had been discarded and replaced with a hundred dollar's worth of souvenirs, with my backpack weighing no more than when I first left home.
The next time you load up your backpack for a vacation, remember this formula; pack smart, pack light and pack disposable. |
