Gear update: three months into the round the world trip

Warning: this is a geeky post about what we have with us on the trip, as a follow-up to the original. What is working well and what we have adjusted so far. Even if you scroll right to the bottom, you will not find pictures of spectacular sunsets here.

We may only be three months into the twelve month trip, but we have already put our stuff through quite a test, including:

• Upwards of forty trains and planes, including two sleeper trains

• Over a week in a desert

• Several boats of varying watertightness

• A number of tuk tuks

• Slung on the roof of a taxi in Aswan

We packed for all the seasons from hot to cold, from dry to temperate, and all types of activities. So far we have been exclusively in warm climates, so the warm weather gear hasn’t been tested except to say it has packed down very small in its dry bag. This is what it looked like as we set out:

Does it all still fit?

Very much so, yes. Across all the flights we have checked Helen’s pack in twice and the other big packs in once, where we were on a point to point with a budget airline. So overall, we have been hand baggage only all the way. Packing has panned out generally how we thought, with us using our packable day sacks to hold the things we need on the move as our personal item on planes and other transport.

Clothing and other individual stuff

In general, everything is going remarkably well on the ‘stuff’ front. Before we left we posted a list of what we set out with. To keep things simple I’ve retained those lists and made notes of stand out winners, and also where changes have been made.

Item	Qty	Notes
Main pack	1 each	Jim – Peak Design Travel Backpack 45l Helen – Cotopaxi Allpa travel pack 35l Rafe – Tom Bihn Synapse 25l Dessa – Cotopaxi Batac 24l These have all gone very well indeed except Rafe’s. This is very sad for me as I am a Tom Bihn fan (and will inevitably call into them in Seattle to stock up later in the trip). But the Synapse was overloaded and he struggled to carry it any distance. It doesn’t have a backstay nor a hipbelt (you can get both as accessories). We thought we might use it as an additional day sack but never did. So it is not the bag’s fault, it’s ours. We sent it home from Cairo for a large sum by UPS (and, remarkably, it arrived) – it’s still a great bag, there’s no way we would bin it. We replaced it with this from Decathlon in New Cairo. It’s worked very well, with its clamshell opening and square shape. Jim’s pack did double duty as ballast for one end of a clothes line in the desert – see photo
Packable day bag	1 each	Jim – Patagonia ultralight black hole 20l daypack Helen – Patagonia ultralight black hole tote Both of these are getting heavy use and holding up well for now
Kindle	1 each	As predicted for the kids, plenty of watching other people do everyday things on youtube whilst shouting about it
Phone	1 each	Helen’s Google Pixel 3a started having charging issues and finally gave up in Bangkok. I spent a happy afternoon at the MBK Center trying to get it repaired twice but failing. In the end I bought a second hand Oppo 6z 5G which is working well so far. Both phones, Jim’s a Pixel 6, have paired perfectly with the below mentioned GoPro for all photo and video needs.
Wallet	1 each
Passport	1 each
International driving license	1 each
Sun hat	1 each	Rafe is quite enjoying wearing Jim’s old Tilley hemp hat. Might need to get him his own at some point.
Cap	1 each
Belt	1 each	I’ve been swanning through airport security with my Arcade Belt (midnighter slim, black on black obvs) with no metal in it
Swimming goggles	1 each	One pair was broken and replaced. This will happen again, it is one of life’s constants. That new pair was then left on a beach but, remarkably, found the following morning below the high water mark. The same pair were also left at a friend’s house in Oman and then returned before we left for the airport. a truly charmed piece of kit.
Swimmers	1 each	These are getting some very hard use but holding up well so far, despite some heavy chlorine in some pools. Dessa’s Patagonias have faded though.
Rash vest	1 each	Have proved invaluable enabling the kids to dash into the sea whilst shunning the dreaded sunscreen.
T-Shirt	2 each	Merino isn’t perhaps as hard wearing as some synthetics, and also Jim has lost so much weight he might be described now as both ‘svelte’ and a size ‘medium’. But they continue to be awesome. Suspect we may be visiting icebreaker in New Zealand to refresh these.
Long sleeve t-shirt	1 each
Long sleeve shirt	1 each
Hoody / fleece	1 each
Insulated jacket	1 each
Rain jacket	1 each
Trousers / dress	1 each	Helen bought a pair of lightweight wrap trousers from the market in Siem Reap. A bargain.
Running shorts	1 each
General shorts	1 each
Socks	3 pair each	Darn Tough socks continue to be epic. Not a loose thread on them
Underwear	3 each
Buff	1 each
Gloves	1 each
Warm hat	1 each
Flip flops	1 each	You know when you see one shoe left by the roadside and wonder how anyone could lose a single shoe? This happened to Helen in Ras Al Hadd. Our 4×4 was a little too packed full and it must have dropped out of the door when we stopped. Tragic, although they were a 17 year old pair of Abercrombie flip flops. Maybe their time was up. As yet, unreplaced.
Shoes / boots	1 each	It turns out the Vivobarefoot shoes are not only light and comfy, they float. Which has proven useful more than once Rafe outgrew / destroyed his old trainers so we swapped them out for hiking shoes from Decathlon in Turin. These have proved brilliant so far
Running trainers	1 each	Jim’s old Nike Free Run Flyknits, which crucially fold flat, are holding up admirably given how much of an athlete he is.
Headphones	1 each	Odessa’s ancient kids Sony headphones failed. It had nothing to do with her chewing the cable. We bought a pair of kids JBL 310s in Singapore during a fun and lengthy trip to the Sim Lim Center and they are good so far (and come with stickers, so she loves them)
Water bottle	1 each	Its certainly been good to be able to fill our Vapur’s airside at airports. In Europe, we smugly filled our bottles with water from the abundant public water fountains. In countries where the tap water is not as good quality, we’ve bought 6 litre bottles of drinking water to decant, trying to limit our plastic waste.
Bag tracker	1 each
Travel towel	2 between us	I wasn’t convinced we would need these as they are quite large to pack. I was very wrong (Helen was right, will I ever learn?!). We’ve used these Packtowls a lot. We’ve got one Beach xxl size and one Body xl size with us.
Face mask	1 each	These have had a fair bit of use, first on crossing from France into Spain where they were unexpectedly required, even for the kids, and on all public transport in South East Asia.
Ear plugs	1 each

The Detailed List: General and random stuff

This will be spread across all of our bags

Item	Notes
Washing line	Extremely useful on balconies and in deserts for drying swimmers and washing
Lightweight caribiner	Have proved extremely useful. When traveling they clip our Tiles inside our bags. They’ve also been used for lots of other things. We’ve got three lightweight s-biners from NiteIze one in each size
Folding cup
Spork
First aid kit	Have got through a number of band aids so far.
Soap bar	No liquids on us. We started out with a Dr Bronner’s bar but have found it hard to find on the road. Lush bars have stepped into the breach, smell divine, but softer and don’t last as well as the Dr Bs.
Soap bar pouch	Brilliant this, it really works. Wet soap goes in, and dryness ensues – the Matador flatpak soap case is utter genius.
Face cloth
Dry sack	Bringing two of these Ortleib dry bags with valves, a small one and a medium one, has been one of our best decisions. We’ve used the smaller one on the move with the winter insulated jackets, hats and gloves in compressed down small. The medium one has been used countless times for returning from beaches with wet gear etc.
Inflatable globe	Afraid we have let this go. We were going to use it in videos for youtube charting our progress, and play with it in pools. In general, I haven’t had time for editing much video (will do it when we return). And we can get a $1 ball in most places.
Folding football	A fold flat football? Oh yes. Because Rafe wants to constantly boot things around. Check out the Foooty.
Ground sheet	The Matador pocket ground sheet is another thing that has seen a lot of use. More so recently as we’ve been on more beaches. It has pegged corners but also has pockets to use sand as anchorage, and it folds not much larger than a credit card.
Travel power adapter	The Zendure Passport 3 is going strong, powering everything often all at once
GoPro	Before setting out we toyed with also bringing a dedicated compact camera. We didn’t, and we don’t regret it. The GoPro Hero 9 Black is rugged and always on hand – surely the core requirement of a camera. It is perfect for this sort of trip. Still photos are not great, but that’s where our phones step in with good results.
Cables
Laptop	A Dell XPS 13 Plus. A mixed bag so far. Decent balance of size, weight and power though the battery life isn’t great. Been doing light 4k and 5k video editing (using Cyberlink Powerdirector), family movie watching etc. BUT it has had two issues. The audio failed but that was a config issue. The second is a bigger problem – the lefthand of the two USB-C ports has failed in hardware. This is going to need a replacement motherboard, likely in Perth Australia. Under warranty, but hassle I don’t need. What has been excellent is Dell UK Premium Support, over whatsapp mostly.
Keyboard and mouse	Glad we packed our trusted Microsoft Surface Arc mouse, and a Moko universal foldable keyboard. Used these a lot.
Portable battery bank	Particularly useful when away from power for a day or more- overnight trains etc. and when Rafe has run down all the phone batteries listening to audio books and playing Pokemon.
Travel router	This has worked well in most places. We’ve got a gl.inet beryl which we connect up to the local network. It means we don’t need to connect on each device, it VPNs to the UK, and it secures our subnet seamlessly. All of which is of course very very important.
Small speaker	The JBL Go 2 has lifted us with tunes constantly. Surprising how much music can make a difference to the mood. The Go 2 packs square, small and light. Might look at the JBL Go 3 if the buttons work better.
Small games	We have three tiny Hasbro games- Cluedo, Monopoly and Game of Life. Cluedo has definitely been used the most as it’s a quicker game with minimal set up. Bringing just the pigs from pass the pigs was a master stroke- hours of fun while waiting for dinner or a plane. Yahtzee has also been a hit and only requires five dice, a pencil and some clever strategic counting (and good maths practice for the kids).
Silicone straw	100% useful for the kids. 100% chance of being left behind on a cafe within the first week – we’ve not lost them yet!
Folding food box with lid	Yep – we tend to use this and the sporks a lot when staying in cities where we can self cater and eating out is expensive. We also used it a lot in the Omani desert.
Torch	We’ve used this a lot – it’s a little Fenix E01. As a safety light walking down unlit highways, and often to shine a light on a splinter or suspected tick.
Keychain knife	I’ve long carried a little Victorinox Classic SD through the airports of the world. It’s got everything you actually need – scissors, a little knife. Entirely TSA compliant. Chances of it getting confiscated on this trip? = 100%. Although it hasn’t been confiscated so far. We got close though transiting Doha. They took it out and asked if we were going to the US. We weren’t and I suspect that saved this little beauty’s bacon.
Keychain tool	We’ve used the screwdriver on the Gerber Shard several times already, once when the gas struts failed on the roof tent, threatening to strand us in the Omani desert unable to drive…
Corkscrew	The True Utility stealth corkscrew made it through airport security. But we didn’t use it. We sent this home along with Rafe’s backpack from Cairo. We’ve either been in dry countries or other people have been opening the wine!
Eye masks
Pens, pencils and paper	Still more here than Jim thinks is necessary, and paper is pretty heavy- but Dessa loves a spot of colouring and it’s all been used for Worldschool.
Sleeping bag liners	Another item I thought we wouldn’t need, and again I was wrong and repent. We’ve used these on all the sleeper trains. Odessa has also used hers sleeping on cobbled together sofas / cushion beds in hotel rooms not designed for four people.
Headphone splitter	A new item bought for more than one cares to remember at Muscat airport. Allows Odessa and Rafe to watch the same idiot on YouTube at the same time.
Car cigarette lighter USB charger	Another new item bought again for an extortionate amount at Nizwa in Oman. Needed to charge everything on the go, especially the phone with the nav and the tunes on it.