Over the last few weeks we’ve been buying most of the kit we’ll need for the trip. We’re sticking to a single rucksack each and trying to go as light as possible, however this is tricky given the amount of things we need.
The most expensive items have been:
- Sleeping bags, as we went for super light Snugpack Traveller (£40 each). We are also taking silk sheet sleeping bags, which worked out at about £12 each.
- Rucksacks. Managed to get two excellent Berghaus sacks from TK Maxx for £70 each.
- Trekking shoes. I went for Scarpa XCR (£85) and Becs picked up some Keens for a bargain £40.
- MP3 players. We’ve decided to take one each and opted for the 30GB Creative Zen Touch. It’s an old model but robust & reliable with good battery life. £75 each (with a spare battery) from Ebay.
- Stuff like mosquito nets (£15 each), travel towels (£15 each), bag locks (£20 total) really mounts up as well.
- Clothes. Getting these hasn’t been too bad as we are using some of our walking stuff. However I needed a couple of shirts and trousers and Becs needed a fleece and t-shirts.
The amount of electronic stuff we are taking is a bit mad: two mp3 players, two cameras, two phones. It’s not the device themselves, more the power/USB cables that take up the space. For data storage, we are taking a range of memory cards and backing up to CD and uploading to Flickr when we can. We’ve been fairly good at picking up bargains from shops and Ebay.
Our kit list/budget will also include jabs, which will be around £250 each and insurance, which will be around £140 each.