Some tips

Being a traveler means leaving everything considered normal behind.

So long nice clean outfits without wrinkles! So long updated and edgy haircut and manicured nails! First thing in Seattle I changed some of my clothes (at Buffalo Exchange) because I realised soon after my arrival in the US that I had packed for a business trip, definitely not a 6 month cross country backpacking experience. Hell, I packed this little grey pin-striped mini-number that I never even wore in SA! What was I thinking.

This weekend I went on a camping trip to the coast of Oregon, a place called Rockaway beach. When I took out my electric toothbrush I got such condescending looks you would have blushed if you were there. No I'm not a seasoned traveler! Can you tell? This is my first time and I'm loving it! I'm considering a career change and taking up traveling permanently even though I'm lugging around this humungous black suitcase everywhere with me and have more things to carry than anyone else when I get off the train/plane/bus! Yes that's right! I'm not phased by it at all. So here's a list of things to consider for anyone out there who is considering giving it all up and taking to the road for a lengthy period of time:

1. Buy a proper backpack. No seriously. Spend the money, even if your parents gift you with their favorite suitcases that they've had for years and years and years that are bound to start falling apart on you the moment you arrive. There's a reason they are giving them to you. They are UPGRADING and you are not going on a weekend trip, no. You're going away for a LONG TIME. Think about it.

2. Leave your expensive hair straightener at home. By week 3 you will be using it as a heater late at night when you're freezing your ass off in a hostel where you need bedding and you have none. Which brings me to point 3.

3. Take a good sleeping bag.

4. Don't pack anything that you haven't worn in the last year.

5. Take as little as humanly possible. Whatever you have will now become yours to carry/lug/drag to your next location, and even when on the internet the hostel swears that they are only a 10 minute walk from the busstop, don't believe them.

6. Take good shoes. You are going to be walking/dancing/running/climbing. Hopefully lots of dancing!

7. Consider writing out a small check list of everything with you that is really important and that you don't want to leave behind. You don't want to realise at your next location (which is 16 hours on a train later) that your phone's charger is still plugged into the wall of some stranger's house. It's gone now. Let it go. Make a list.