For part one of our trip through Turkey, Greece, Croatia, and Budapest, we were able to travel pretty light. Being we were lounging on the beach for most of it we did not need many clothes. Aside from the common light weight beach, casual, and running clothes, we carried a few extra items that were really useful, and a few others that were not.
For the clothes, we both chose Patagonia Capilene stuff for running. These are nice, lightweight, and dry really fast. Shoe wise for running I used a pair of stripped down New Balance MT 101 trail shoes, and Nicolette had a pair of lightweight Brookes Green Silence.
For casual, I had a few American Apparel shirts, a pair of lightweight Patagonia pants, a pair of jeans with an ever increasing knee hole, a pair of Khul hiking man-pants (there are 3/4 length capree type pants but I call them man pants), and a few other shorts for beach side and warm enjoyment. A note about Khul, the seat blew out of these pants in Chile, I emailed Khul and gave them the story, they said send the pants back and they will replace the pants, go Khul!
Nicolette had some chill casual shirts from her stock at Anthro, a Patagonia skirt and dress, light weight hiking pants from Arc'teryx, and some American Apparel stuff as well.
So we packed light, virtually no socks, and did a lot of laundry in the sink, which from time to time worked better than a European clothes washer.
Now some of the other things we had that were instrumental.
To protect the essential electronics we used a Lowepro Apex 120 AW camera bag for our Nikon d80. This little thing was great because it fits one camera with one lens, and some of the other power and memory card goodies. It was a tight fit, but fit into a small backpack nicely. This also has a waterproof jacket that unfolds from the bottom of the bag and goes over the top to keep water out. This bag is awesome.
For our 13" Macbook we used an STM Glove MacBook Laptop Sleeve, no frills, neoprene, adds a little padding for some of the bumping around. This sleeve rocks.
We are environmentally conscious, and plastic water bottles are a big problem. So we thought, hey lets bring our own bottles, buy big 5 liter jugs of purified water from the store, fill our bottles, and reduce waste! The only problem, many of the smaller towns and stores in Europe do not have 5 liter jugs, only 1.5 liter bottles. We hardly used these because we just reused 1.5 l bottles and filled them from with 5 l when we could. These did not make it to South America. We love our Siggs, they just were not useful on this part of the trip.
For foot wear, Nicolette worm her Born sandles, and I my Chacos. These were pretty much the only shoes we had for the entire trip with the exception of running shoes. When they needed to be washed, into the Mediterranean they went!
Speaking of dry we also each had a Patagonia Rain Shadow jacket (linked is a newer version, ours are a few years old). What is more to say, these keep us dry in the rain, warm when cool, are super light weight and compress into small spaces nicely.
Finally, Nicolette had a pair of cute and colorful Dirty Girl gaiters to keep dirt and rocks and junk out of her shoes on the trail. These are pretty cool, work really well, and are made by a smallish group of neat people. The system for installing these on the shoes is pretty low tech. Stick a piece of velcro to the heal, the gaiter overtop and stick it to the velcro. Works pretty well, but this requires a bit of maintenance to clean the shoe around the velcro area before application, and the velcro does have to be replaced every so often. I have a pair of REI waterproof gaiters that I forgot and kicked myself over, but in the end was sort of thankful because they would have been too heavy for the heat of the Mediterranean summer. So I was left picking volcanic rock out of my ankles :).
That was all we needed, and we honestly could not have used anything else.
For the clothes, we both chose Patagonia Capilene stuff for running. These are nice, lightweight, and dry really fast. Shoe wise for running I used a pair of stripped down New Balance MT 101 trail shoes, and Nicolette had a pair of lightweight Brookes Green Silence.
For casual, I had a few American Apparel shirts, a pair of lightweight Patagonia pants, a pair of jeans with an ever increasing knee hole, a pair of Khul hiking man-pants (there are 3/4 length capree type pants but I call them man pants), and a few other shorts for beach side and warm enjoyment. A note about Khul, the seat blew out of these pants in Chile, I emailed Khul and gave them the story, they said send the pants back and they will replace the pants, go Khul!
Nicolette had some chill casual shirts from her stock at Anthro, a Patagonia skirt and dress, light weight hiking pants from Arc'teryx, and some American Apparel stuff as well.
So we packed light, virtually no socks, and did a lot of laundry in the sink, which from time to time worked better than a European clothes washer.
Now some of the other things we had that were instrumental.
To protect the essential electronics we used a Lowepro Apex 120 AW camera bag for our Nikon d80. This little thing was great because it fits one camera with one lens, and some of the other power and memory card goodies. It was a tight fit, but fit into a small backpack nicely. This also has a waterproof jacket that unfolds from the bottom of the bag and goes over the top to keep water out. This bag is awesome.
For our 13" Macbook we used an STM Glove MacBook Laptop Sleeve, no frills, neoprene, adds a little padding for some of the bumping around. This sleeve rocks.
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| The little Lowepro that could |
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| Siggs |
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| Borns |
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| Chacos |
To keep those little odds and ends in line in our bags, I used a few Sea to Summit stuff sacks. Little things like cards, tape, knife sharpener, reusable spoons, and electronic parts all went into these little guys. These are also waterproof, so these were nice to have on a soggy long run or trek through a city to keep important stuff dry of it rained.
Speaking of dry we also each had a Patagonia Rain Shadow jacket (linked is a newer version, ours are a few years old). What is more to say, these keep us dry in the rain, warm when cool, are super light weight and compress into small spaces nicely.
Finally, Nicolette had a pair of cute and colorful Dirty Girl gaiters to keep dirt and rocks and junk out of her shoes on the trail. These are pretty cool, work really well, and are made by a smallish group of neat people. The system for installing these on the shoes is pretty low tech. Stick a piece of velcro to the heal, the gaiter overtop and stick it to the velcro. Works pretty well, but this requires a bit of maintenance to clean the shoe around the velcro area before application, and the velcro does have to be replaced every so often. I have a pair of REI waterproof gaiters that I forgot and kicked myself over, but in the end was sort of thankful because they would have been too heavy for the heat of the Mediterranean summer. So I was left picking volcanic rock out of my ankles :).
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| Modeling the dirt gaiters |
1 comment:
If I was Patogonia, or any of the other stores, I would send you new clothes for a whole year.
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