Essential Travel Gear Kit

Essential Travel Gear that May Save Your Trip

My travel gear list contains items that are small and light and will fit in a small pouch:

• Flashlight
• Toilet paper
• Hand sanitizer
• Earplugs or in ear headphones
• Plastic bag
• Plastic water container

Toilet Paper & Hand Sanitizer

Mother nature can turn against you when you least expect it. Your stomach may start to rumble a few hours after you’ve eaten at that street-side food vendor, and public toilets often do not have toilet paper or soap. Toilet paper is so light to carry that it would be a shame to be without. Just as useful is to carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer. It can keep your hands clean of nasties as well as to help to clean that lightly scraped knee of dirt.

Earplugs or Earphones

There’s also no predicting when you’ll be seated directly next to the loud speaker on the tour bus, or have noisy neighbours in your hotel room, or have to endure the chatty people on the eight hour flight to Beijing. Having earplugs or in-ear headphones is a necessity.

Plastic Bag

Keeping a spare plastic bag around is useful to store the food items that you just bought from the street corner or to put your wallet / camera / phone into when there’s a sudden rain downpour. It can also act as an emergency sickness bag in case that papaya salad you ate for lunch was just a bit too spicy. You’re likely to pick up a spare plastic bag here or there- just keep one in your bag.

Plastic Water Bottle

I carry a dedicated plastic water bottle and keep it topped up with water. By carrying a bit of water around with me, I’ve saved thousands of dollars in the cost of buying drinks and did not use up countless plastic bottles.

Flashlight

Most phones already have a flashlight built into it and that will do in a pinch. It’s readily handy when the power goes out while you’re trying to walk back to your Island hut. Paranoid me, I have three light sources:

• The light from my smartphone
• LED head torch from my hiking days- it lasts for days on a single set of batteries
• Waterproof tiny led light stashed in my toiletry kit in case I’m in the shower and the power goes out.