Carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders…
Books are my downfall. I always carry too many books.
I carry a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide for wherever I am going (sometimes one of each), a couple (OK, let�s be honest, a FEW) books to read, a map or two, a dictionary for the local language, some magazines, a week-old copy of the International Herald-Tribune..
And of course a camera and some rolls of film.
OK, and a Discman. And a few discs.
A big bottle of water. A toiletry kit from Outdoor Research.
A roll of the most luxurious TP I can buy. With Aloe!
A pair of pongey Tevas, some Thorlo wicking socks, a hat, my bathers (rather staid ones, mind you) some cotton-rayon short sleeve shirts with buttons, some �once-were-white� undies, a lightweight Goretex shell, a polar fleece jumper, and, and�
It just keeps going on, doesn�t it? When will I learn?
I have been doing this for many years and never seem to get it. My pack is too heavy. My pack is always too heavy and the reason I carry so much crap is simple:
Because I can.
I can carry too much because the pack carries too much.
My pack is too big and I fill it.
(And since I have about as much sense as a lizard, I never seem to learn.)
My usual pack for these trips is the (long out of production) Galileo L4600 made by The North Face. It is a nice, rugged pack but it is too damn big. For my last trip to another continent, I chose a slightly smaller pack from the same company. No longer did I have trouble dashing to a waiting train or climbing to the fifth floor of whatever seedy hotel that the LP guide had sent me to (where I would be spending a sleepless night listening to bleating city busses).
I still carried most everything as before, though I limited myself to only a couple of books and only one guidebook. I had enough socks and undies, still looked vaguely presentable upon check-in and no longer was recognizable by the wheezing sound that I emitted as I wrestled with a pack roughly the size of a small Buick.
It only took me about twenty years to figure this out.