There was a moment, somewhere around month three, I think it was a guesthouse in Phong Nha, where I looked at my backpack and realised I could pack the entire thing in under 2 minutes. Eyes closed. Hungover. In the dark of a eight-bed dorm at half five in the morning while someone's alarm had been going off for twenty minutes and it hadn't woken anyone.
I spent a year backpacking Southeast Asia, Thailand to the Phillipines and most of the good bits in between. Budget backpacker, the full works: hostels, overnight buses, ferries where your bag sits on the roof getting sprayed with seawater, and minivans where your pack gets wedged between strangers' luggage and a stack of boxes nobody claims. By the end of it, I'd sent home a parcel of things I didn't need, developed a packing system that actually worked, and come to the slightly philosophical conclusion that your backpack is less a piece of luggage and more a tiny, mobile home you carry on your back.
So here's what I learned. Mostly from doing it wrong first.
Choosing the Right Backpack
I travelled with an 80-litre Osprey. My mate Jim had a 65-litre. He liked to remind me, repeatedly, usually over a Chang beer, that "it's not about the size, it's about how you use it." Very proud of that one, he was.
He wasn't entirely wrong. There's a spectrum in the backpacker world: anything under 40 litres and you're on holiday, anything over 80 and you've overdone it, and somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot where you've got enough room to live but not so much that you fill it with things you'll never touch.
My 80L was, if I'm honest, a touch big. But it gave me breathing room. I could compress it down when I needed to, and on the days where I'd picked up laundry, a new pair of shorts from a night market, and three bottles of water for a long bus ride, I wasn't playing Tetris with the zip. Jim's 65L worked brilliantly for him most of the time, until it didn't. There were plenty of days I'd see him strapping a hat or a hoodie to the outside with a carabiner, bits dangling off the sides like a one-man washing line, because it just couldn't quite fit everything in. He'd never admit it, mind.
What matters more than volume is how the bag opens. Get a pack that opens fully from the front, clamshell style, like a suitcase. Top-loading bags are a nightmare when you need your wash bag at four in the morning on a sleeper bus and it's buried underneath everything you own. The full zip-around opening was the single best feature of my pack. I could see everything, grab what I needed, and close it back up without the whole thing erupting like a textile volcano.
Beyond that: comfort. A proper hip belt that takes weight off your shoulders. A rain cover, because you will get caught in monsoon rain and it will happen at the worst possible moment. And durability, because your bag is going to get dragged across splintered wooden piers, tossed into the undercarriage of overnight buses, and strapped to the back of a motorbike with bungee cords of questionable integrity.
What to look for in a backpack:
- 55–75 litres for long-term travel, enough room without overdoing it
- Front-opening (clamshell) design, you need to see and access everything
- Padded hip belt and adjustable straps, your back will thank you
- Built-in rain cover, non-negotiable in Southeast Asia
- Durable fabric, your bag will not be treated gently
What to Pack (Based on Reality, Not Fear)
Here's the thing nobody tells you before a long trip: you're not packing for a year. You're packing for about a week. Then you do laundry. Then you wear the same things again. This is the cycle. This is your life now.
Laundry is everywhere in Southeast Asia. Little shops on every tourist street will wash, dry, and fold your clothes for a couple of quid. You hand over a bag of sweaty clothes in the morning and pick up a neat, clean stack that evening.
So pack light. Pack for the climate, which for most of Southeast Asia means hot, humid, and sweaty. Cotton is your enemy: it holds moisture, takes forever to dry, and starts smelling awful within about forty minutes. Synthetic fabrics, quick-dry materials, and lightweight linen are what you want. Things that breathe. Things that dry on a hostel balcony in two hours rather than two days.
That said, bring one warm layer. This sounds mad when the average temperature is "absolutely melting," but the air conditioning on overnight buses and budget flights is set to what I can only describe as Arctic Revenge. I've been on sleeper buses in Vietnam where I was shivering under a thin blanket while the air con blasted like we were transporting organs. A lightweight hoodie saves you on those nights.
By month three, I'd sent home a jumper I never wore, a pair of jeans that were too heavy, a "nice" shirt I'd packed for going out (you go out in shorts and a vest, mate, this is Southeast Asia), and a second pair of trainers that had done nothing but take up space.
Packing rules that hold up:
- Pack for one week, not one year, laundry is cheap and everywhere
- Avoid cotton, quick-dry synthetics and linen are your friends
- Bring one warm layer for overnight buses and flights
- If you haven't worn it in three weeks, send it home
The Packing System I Developed on the Road
Nobody lands in Bangkok with a packing system. You develop one. I still remember our first night in a hostel there. I unzipped my wash bag and it was full of branded shower gels, fancy moisturisers, a full-size bottle of aftershave. Some lad in the bunk opposite took one look and just laughed. "Give it a month," he said. He wasn't wrong. By month two that wash bag had a toothbrush, a stick of deodorant, and a bar of soap. That was it. That was all I needed.
The system itself came together over those first couple of months, refined every time I packed and unpacked, and by the time I was in Cambodia it was basically gospel.
Packing cubes. Get packing cubes. I started with three and they changed everything.
The bottom cube held trousers and socks, the stuff I'd want if I was arriving somewhere at six in the morning after a twelve-hour bus and needed to freshen up. The middle cube was the bulk, shorts and shirts, the daily rotation. The top cube was underwear and swimwear. Small items, frequently needed, easy to grab.
And then the wash bag sat right at the very top, loose, accessible without unzipping anything else. Because when you arrive somewhere bleary-eyed and smelling of diesel, the first thing you want is a toothbrush, not to excavate your entire bag.
This system worked because it was built around access, not neatness. Early morning arrivals, late night departures, quick turnarounds between hostels and transport. You don't need a beautifully folded bag. You need to know where everything is and reach it fast.
The cube system:
- Bottom cube: trousers and socks (for freshening up on arrival)
- Middle cube: shorts and shirts (daily rotation)
- Top cube: underwear and swimwear
- Wash bag loose on top, always accessible
Where Things Live in the Bag
Think of your pack in zones. The bottom is for things you rarely need, that warm layer, the spare pair of shoes. The middle is your bulk and weight, packing cubes here, heaviest items closest to your back. The top is daily essentials: wash bag, a quick-change outfit, whatever you need immediately.
One thing that made a real difference was my bag having a zip at the bottom as well as the top. I could access the bottom compartment directly without going through the rest of the pack. On long journeys, I'd keep a clean pair of underwear and a fresh t-shirt down there, and the wash bag at the top. When I stumbled off a twelve-hour sleeper bus at some ungodly hour, I could unzip the bottom, grab a change, unzip the top for my wash bag, and feel vaguely human again within minutes. That dual access was a lifesaver.
Outer pockets are for grab-and-go stuff: chargers, headphones, a snack for the bus, a pen for immigration forms. Things you need without opening the main compartment.
And your daypack carries everything you can't afford to lose. Passport, wallet, phone, power bank. That bag never leaves your side.
The Daypack Question
Some packs come with a zip-on daypack attached. I tried one. In practice, it made the main bag bulky, the daypack was flimsy, and detaching it every time I wanted to explore was more hassle than it was worth.
A separate, standalone daypack, about 20 litres, lightweight, was one of the best decisions I made. It doubled as my carry-on for flights, my day bag for temples and beaches, and my valuables bag on transport days. When the main pack went into the luggage hold, the daypack stayed with me, on my lap or between my legs, with everything important inside.
Packing Accessories That Actually Earn Their Space
Everything in your bag should justify its presence. After twelve months, these earned their place over and over:
- Packing cubes, already covered, but genuinely non-negotiable
- Microfibre towel, dries you properly, dries itself in an hour, packs down to the size of a paperback (hostel towels are tragic)
- Dry bags and ziplock bags, your bag will get wet; on a ferry in southern Thailand I watched sea spray soak the luggage pile on deck, and everything in my dry bag was fine
- Portable laundry line and sink plug, for hand-washing bits between proper laundry runs
- Power bank (20,000mAh), charging points are unreliable on buses and sometimes nonexistent in hostels
- Padlock, for hostel lockers and your bag's zips on overnight transport; weighs nothing, solves a real problem
The Realities of Southeast Asian Transport
Your bag is not going to be treated gently. Accepting this early saves you a lot of stress.
In Vietnam, your pack goes into the undercarriage of a sleeper bus while a guy who's handled ten thousand bags that week slots it in with the tenderness of someone loading a dishwasher. On the Ha Giang Loop, it's bungee-corded to the back of a motorbike while you navigate mountain switchbacks. On Thai island ferries, bags get piled on the open deck and they get wet. On long-tail boats, your pack sits in the bottom of the hull in bilge water unless you've had the sense to use a dry bag.
These aren't complaints. This is the deal. And it's why you pack in a bag that can take a beating, wrap the important stuff in waterproof layers, and never put anything irreplaceable in your main pack.
What Not to Do
Don't pack "just in case" items. You will not need that extra pair of smart shoes, that book you've been meaning to read for three years, or a sleeping bag.
Don't bring a full-size towel. It takes up half your bag and never fully dries in tropical humidity. Microfibre. Trust me.
Don't bury your essentials. If your toothbrush requires you to unpack your entire bag, your system is broken.
Don't pack for imaginary scenarios. You're not going to a gala dinner. You're going to eat pad thai in a plastic chair on the side of a road and it's going to be one of the best meals of your life. Pack for that.
The Bit I Didn't Expect
Somewhere along the way, packing stopped being a chore and started being a kind of ritual. Wake up, cubes in, wash bag on top, zip, clip, go. I could do it without thinking.
Living out of a bag teaches you that you need very little to be happy. A few good shirts, a pair of shorts that dry fast, a towel, a toothbrush, and a passport. The rest is noise. Every item I sent home made me feel lighter, not just physically, but in some harder-to-explain way. Less stuff meant more mobility. More mobility meant more freedom. More freedom meant I could say yes to things: a last-minute boat to a smaller island, a detour through Borneo because someone at a hostel said it was incredible and they were right.
Your backpack becomes your home. Not in a sad way. In the way that home is wherever you can put your things down, brush your teeth, change into a clean shirt, and step outside into somewhere completely new.
I wouldn't trade that year for anything. And I'd pack the exact same way if I did it again tomorrow. Well, maybe a slightly smaller bag. Jim would be insufferable about it, but he'd be right.
He usually was.