Alright. This blog is for all of you who are curious about what I have been hauling on my back for these 9 months, and for future racers concerning what I think is essential.
We are now entering month 9, and I have had a lot of time thinking about necessities on the race, and what is actually worth carrying. Travel days are LONG, exausting and sometimes we have to carry our packs a significant amount of time, so the smaller and lighter the better. On most airlines you also have to keep the weight below 50 pounds, and some smaller lines require it to be less. Along this journey I’ve become more and more minimal, so I left home with my pack around 40 pounds, and now I’m around 30 for my big pack.
My big pack is a 65 liter Teton, and my day pack is a 24L Patagonia.
Here’s my list of MUST-HAVE items in my opinion. ( please keep in mind, every country requires different dress codes and they have different temperatures. These are things to take into consideration before packing! These are things that I’ve learned from my experience on the field, but everyone’s will be different.
My route:
Draganesti, Romania- September. Was pretty chilly.
Rivne, Ukraine- October. It was fall time, and rained quite a bit- I wore all of my layers everyday.
Santiago, Chile- november and december.
Veryyy warm, I wore shorts almost every day.
Cusco, Peru- January. Cusco has a very high elevation because it’s in the mountains, so once again it was pretty cold.
PacasMayo, Peru-February. A little beach town, pretty warm again. But they had a nice breeze from the ocean!
Sielmat, India-march and April . mild tempuratures, I wore pants almost everyday with a t-shirt. Colder evenings. We moved around to different villages so the temperature changed as well.
Nepal- kathmandu, may. Decent tempuratures, stricter dress code.)
LEXI’S MUST HAVES:
-obviously, a big pack. I recommend getting fitted at a hiking/outdoors store. I decided to just order mine online, and it is nice and works for me, but it’s not perfectly fitted to my body-type.
-smaller day pack. This is definetly personal preference, but I like my 24 Liter because its nicer to carry around with me, and forced me to bring less onto the race.
-nice pillow. Mine is a home goods memory foam travel pillow.
–sleeping pad. This could be your bed for 9 months depending on ministry, so don’t go cheap. I have the Kymlit static V2 and I LOVE it. I’ve used it quite a bit on my race and it is still in great condition.
–sleeping bag and or blanket. My race has been a warmer one and I love the cold ( living in the north has prepared me well) so I actually sent my sleeping bag home and I’m just using a blanket. Once again, this depends on your route and preference.
- PSA. ALL FUTURE RACERS. bring clothes you actually love and wear at home. Yes, they could get dirty or ruined but this isn’t a 2 week trip.. It’s almost a year. I can promise you that you will want to wear clothes that you like to wear at home. This is a big mistake I made- bring some of your favorites!
( for my route I have a long sleeve sweatshirt, a flannel, a denim button up, 5-6 t-shirts, one skirt, one tanktop, 2 pairs of shorts, undergarments, one pair of socks, a pair of adidas sweatpants and one pair of black jeans.)
-eaglecreek stuff sacks for your clothes. I have a small, medium and large. I also recommend a drawstring stuff sack for dirty laundry.
-1 or 2 quick dry sea- to-summit towels. I prefer too, but you can get by with just one.
–tennis shoes. If you like to workout, run or play games a lot, this one is nice! Especially for hiking, construction and things like that. A bunch of people on my Squad didn’t bring them, but I wear them to workout in every couple days.
–NICE hiking /rugged sandal. Most people swear by chacos, but I personally love my pair of tevas. Besides my tennies they are my only pair of shoes so I wear them everyday and they are in excellent condition.
-Tent. Personally I bought a cheep one off Amazon and it’s working great- I’ve tented about a month and a half of the race.
-converter/adapter/extension cord.
I got a bigger one so I could charge multiple devices at once and I love it.
-Polaroid camera. If you have one, bring it along! It is such a fun way to love on hosts and friends in countries by giving them a picture to hold on to!
- Meds. This is also depending on if you are prone to colds or not, but I suggest the standard stuff like: daytime cold and flu, anti-diareaal, sleeping meds, benadryl ( for allergies if you have them) ibuprofen, pepto, etc.
-BRING EMERGEN-C.
This is essential people. If you start to feel like you’re getting a cold, this WILL knock it out. I also recomment dehydration tablets.
-2 pairs of earbuds, a few charging cords, and wall ports. They are so easy to lose and the race can be really rough on these things, so being some extra.
Randoms: earplugs, headlamp, rainjacket, tent footprint, chapstick, makeup, etc.
Extra things that are ESSENTIAL to me, but not to everyone:
-a nice journal, quality pens and paperback book. Books are super fun to trade around and read. I love journaling and drawing so I brought around 10 of my favorite pens.
-watercolors! Super easy to travel with and so fun to use on encouraging notes for my squad and also just to relax with.
- “open-when” letters from friends suporters and family back home. If you’re a sap for nostalgic things like I am, I recommend this. They are so fun to look forward to, and makes the distance a bit more bearable.
-INSTANT COFFEE. If your an addict like I am, this really comes in handy every single day when the caffine headache comes in. Not all places you go with have coffee accessible, so just in case!
-fuzzy socks!
–nalgene or your water bottle of choice.
-purse, if you wear one at home. I missed mine and ended up buying one along the way cause I wanted to feel normal haha.
That’s all! I hope this blog was interesting for you. But seriously, future racers. Do your research, only bring the essentials and remember that you can and will probally have to buy things along the way, and that’s okay! Don’t freak out about packing- the Lord will provide all you need.
