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Packing Light

Luggage 

 

We wanted to go with a backpack, rather than a roller-board, and it had to meet the most stringent guidelines of the various airlines we’d be flying.  We liked the Rick Steves bags but wanted something that keep wandering pickpocket fingers out of our things, so we went with Pacsafe’s Venturesafe EXP45 Anti-Theft Carry-On Travel Backpacks. This 45-liter bag comes with a steel mesh, a solid tamper-proof zipper, and a steel leash that allows you to lock it to a pipe. At 3 pounds 12 ounces it was a little heavy but very sturdy and had lots of inner zip compartments. I’d highly recommend this bag. We bought ours on sale on eBags.com for about $135. They also have an excellent guide showing the carry-on limitations of all the airlines.

 

Packing Cubes

 

I like order.  If we were living out of a suitcase for two weeks, without packing cubes, our clothes would have become a twisted mess.  Yet with our set of Eagle Creek packing cubes (purchased on the cheap from Sierra Trading Post) everything remained neatly in its place.  Clean kept separate from dirty.  Socks separate from shirts.  It was like having a chest of drawers in your suitcase.  Highly recommended accessory.

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Daypacks

 

Dawn bought a Derek Alexander brandy-colored leather top zip shoulder bag to use as a daypack.  She liked the thick leather strap and top zipper that could be secured with a lock.  It had lots of room inside, but it felt bulky when we were hiking in Switzerland.  Unfortunately, the lining started to fray within the first few days of use, so it went back to the store as soon as we got back from the trip.

 

I used an unstructured, olive green Eddie Bauer Packable day pack which was light, folded into its own zippered pouch and did the job.  It was made of a parachute-type nylon material with two zip compartments and adjustable shoulder straps.   It did the job, but I never felt that my camera or sunglasses were safe when stored in it.  The price wasn’t bad -- $17 shipped on eBay.

On our next trip we’ll both probably look for a better option in daypacks.

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Travel items

 

We read a lot about the types of things to bring along on one of Rick’s tours.  Here are a few of the items we found most useful:

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  1. Digital Camera:  I took my Sony RX100 Mark III along with two 64GB memory cards, extra batteries and a small padded case (such as the Lowepro Tahoe CS20).  It worked great, but I still took a few iPhone pictures just to capture the GPS location.

  2. Money Belt: Although we never encountered pickpockets in Europe, we felt better using the Rick Steves money belts.  

  3. Packable Hat:  I took a Buff packable baseball hat that took up very little room and was comfortable to wear.

  4. Moleskine Notebook: The gold standard in travel journals.  Just the right size, great quality paper and a nice page marker.

  5. Sporks:  We didn’t use these much, but they came in handy on our picnic lunch while hiking in Switzerland.

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