Wayfinder Ali

Traveling Light - How to pack for International Travel [Infographic]

For the past several years, I have been traveling abroad working as an outdoor educator. I live (literally) out of a backpack. The places I go vary from luxurious hotels to bamboo huts with no modern amenities. I am in jungles, on mountains and by the sea. My bags get dropped, dragged, strapped to trucks, tractors and even elephants now and then. I've endured carrying too much stuff and missing an important item, having emerged with a method that works. I hope that my tips and tricks will make your packing easier, more efficient and effective. To help us all pack better, I've created this flow chart.

Does it work for you?

Here is a photo of what I packed for a 6 month trip to Asia. Everything fit in those two bags. The blue backpack was my carry-on and my laptop bag was my "personal item" and fit under the seat.

Grains of Salt......Things to know before we continue.....

I have an unhealthy obsession with tiny things. Seriously I have the worlds tiniest, and cutest, tin of Tiger Balm, among other things like nail clippers and tweezers and pens and......
You should never have more than two bags. One on your back and one on your front. Otherwise you'll be miserable trying to carry everything around on subways and in airports. I have broken this rule, mainly when I knew I would have an apartment to live in. Getting from the airport to the apartment and back was not fun....
I don't trust the airlines and therefore make every attempt to not check anything. Many of the tips in this series will be aimed at getting everything into a carry-on and "personal bag", and capitalizing on the carry-on allotments.
I am an adventure instructor. My travel focus is more of a cross between a tourist backpacker and a wilderness instructor. None of my bags have wheels and fashion is not a top priority. If you're planning to spend a year in southeast Asia keep reading. If you're planning a shopping spree in Paris, some tips may not fit your trip.
I generally go for overkill. Why use a regular stuff sack when I could use a waterproof one?

Ready to get started? Check out these two posts for men's and women's travel clothes.

My first experience with acupuncture and cupping

I've always been curious about acupuncture. So many people tell me how awesome it is and how well it works. I've been having problems over the past year with what is probably a torn meniscus in my left knee and tendonitis in my right shoulder. I figured I should go ahead do it while I happen to be where it was invented -China. (ok, well technically I am in Hong Kong..)

Relaxing full of needles. It doesn't even hurt!

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Is Cambodia really safe for tourists?

Cambodia is much more dangerous than I realized. Here in our nice guest house with wifi, I was curious about how often tourists are robbed or attacked. I heard that Phnom Penh is way more dangerous than where I am in Siem Reap, but I didn't realize how widespread the crime and violence truly is. From where I sit, Cambodia is a friendly and relatively safe place, with pickpockets and scam artists trying to get a couple bucks being the most common kinds of crime. I found a blog- Traveling Mark- by a blogger who has spent 5 months in Cambodia. At first I dismissed him as racist- he calls all Cambodians lazy and says they will all scam you when an opportunity arises. But then I kept reading. Unfortunately it seems that my view is extremely sheltered and superficial.

http://www.travelingmark.com/cambodia/is-travel-to-cambodia-safe-personal-experience/

Yangshuo cooking school

The Yangshuo cooking school was an awesome experience. The school has beautiful views- we ate our dinner in an open air dining area overlooking large rice fields, gardens and big beautiful mountains. The teachers there speak very good English and taught us both Chinese cooking techniques and local Yangshuo specialties.

The cooking set-up is two long tables of students facing each other. Each student has a single burner gas stove and all the tools he or she needs. The teacher is at the head of the two rows. We gathered by her as she demonstrated each dish before we made it. When it was our turn, she talked us through it as we cooked.

We made a total of five dishes. Pictured here are stir fried bok choy, eggplant Yangshuo style, stir fried pork with carrots, green beans with bell pepper, and steamed chicken with goji berries, Chinese dates with rice wine. We also made minced pork dumplings but they were the appetizer and I ate them before I thought to take a photo.

The cooking class at the Yangshuo Cooking School taught me the secret to really good eggplant and how easy it is to make really diverse food with just a wok and a few ingredients. I'm excited to share the flavors of Yangshuo with my friends and family when I get home.

Climbing in Yangshuo

The sleeper train pulled into a city I can't remember the name of and I was actually well rested. From there, we walked through the warm mist to the bus station where we could get on a bus heading to Yangshuo.

When the Karst mountains first appeared on the bus ride, I thought we were there, but Yangshuo is not at the beginning of the range. The Karst mountains seem to just go on forever. The landscape is absolutely captivating. The mountains look like fingers reaching out of a pool. I had a similar feeling to the ones I had Yosemite and in the North Carolina mountains- hugged and protected by the steep surrounding mountains. Unlike North Carolina, the land between them is flat and slow moving rivers wind between the towers. This flat, lush land is perfect for agriculture.

Once in Yangshuo, we headed to the staff flat and climbed up to the roof. Even on a hazy day, the view was stunning.

We had the rest of the day to ourselves, so we decided to spend a couple of hours climbing. Tony, Fernando and I piled into a taxi to head to the closest crag- The Wine Bottle. The approach was easy but extremely muddy and I almost fell countless times. Wine Bottle is a nice crag, and we had the place to ourselves. The only problem was, there is the "Butterfly Cave" across the valley. The Butterfly Cave is a big tourist trap and there are loads and loads of buses dropping off and picking up tourists so we found it annoyingly loud. Sometimes it was hard to communicate with the climber because of all the honking.

This is the view from the top of the climb:

Looking down at Tony and Fernando:

After climbing we had a HUGE meal at a really awesome Chinese restaurant and then enjoyed the scene from the roof again. They illuminate the mountains at night, and although it is completely unnatural and probably ruins stargazing, it really is awesome. Because of those lights, everyone can enjoy the beauty of those mountains even at night.

Overnight Train to Yangshuo, China

Last week, I was lucky enough to be sent to China for a Dragonfly program. I got to visit Yangshuo, a place that has been on my list for quite a while. Yangshuo is in a valley surrounded by the stunning Karst mountains. Yangshuo is world famous for its beauty and also world class rock climbing. More on that later :)

To get there, we left Hong Kong via the MTR and crossed the border into China where we hopped on an overnight "hard sleeper" train. This was my first overnight train experience! I thought the train was very nice and clean and relatively quiet. There are six people sleeping per little doorless "room" so it is quite tight. The middle and top bunks are too low to properly sit up in. Often people snore, babies cry, people fart and smoking is allowed in the spaces between cars so much of the experience depends on who is around you. Lucky for us, we didn't experience too much of that and I had a good night's sleep.

Here is a photo of Tony's bed. Don't let the GoPro fool you, it is not as spacious as it looks.

My bunk

In the above photos, the train is very empty. When we got on, there weren't many people at all. That all changed when we pulled into Guangzhou and our peaceful train filled to the brim with people. A family from the UK pilled into the compartment next to mine and we started chatting and sharing snacks. They even took a selfie with me. There is also a Chinese lady in the photo who I think realized what was going on and decided to smile too.

We did experience some banging and bumping when the train started moving and came to a stop and a few other random times. I think it probably had something to do with the hydraulics between the cars but I'm not sure. The first time it happened, I was unnerved but I got used to it. On the way back we rode with the school kids. One of the teachers was a bit freaked out by it. She has been on many overnight trains in Europe and they are very smooth with no jolting. I guess the trains in China are safe. No one seemed upset or nervous and it happened both on the way there and on the way back, so I guess the bumping is normal.

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