A couple of things right off the bat:
- I might be crazy.
- This is only a test.
I’ve mentioned that there’s an experiment in the works. Or rather, an adventure! That’s better. To quote a true adventurer, Alastair Humphreys, he who rode a bike around the world: “a good measure for deciding an adventure is you’re both excited and scared. You don’t know if it’s the best or stupidest idea ever.” I’m not sure if what we’re planning counts as a great or stupid idea, or even if it counts as a grand adventure, but we’re all in.
So what’s the plan you might ask? You might as well, everyone else is. Heck, we keep asking too. All we know for the moment is we’re heading out in a few weeks. Destination and length of travel: unknown. Rough idea: modern nomadism. We’ve done long travel and have kept things loose before, but we’ve always had a basic plan: a trajectory and more or less of a end date; with lined-up visas and some long stays locked in. This time it’s wide open. The calendar is cleared. Annual doctors, dentist visits and assorted bureaucratic miscellania are checked off. Nothing is pending.
The open-ended, don’t know where we’re going part isn’t too crazy. We’ve done similar things, this is just pushing it a bit more. There is not even an outline this time. I’ve been spinning scenarios and eyeing up long train routes, that’s it. But we will have to plan as we go along, just not too far ahead of ourselves. That’s the nature of travel now. Gone are the days of showing up at an airport and getting on the next flight out, not to mention merely waltzing into town and into a hotel room. But we are leaving without preconceived notions of where we might end up. We do have a couple of places to be and people to meet up with at the beginning, but there are large swaths of time and space in between.
What’s the crazy part then, you might ask? This: our total kit will be two 40l backpacks plus a day pack for the ipad, e-reader, lunch and other things we’ll want handy in transit. This is the part I’m not sure is genius or folly. We want to be as unencumbered as is reasonable, if not as possible.
It would be so much easier to pack if we would just set some boundaries. But I really want to go into this without knowing, with as many options as wide open as possible. This means packing for all seasons. Cold or heat, rain or shine. We’ve test packed three times already, drilling down and analyzing the smallest details. There’s no room for extras. Everything has to be necessary and ideally double duty. Plus, I’m setting a strict weight limit of 9 kg. I don’t want to dread picking it all up and moving on because dread brings inertia. We’re weighing everything. Seriously, even underwear and socks. Even our luggage tags! Every ounce counts, everything adds up. With two backpacks, we can have nothing superfluous, nothing just in case. Or rather we can, merely at the price of carrying it on our backs, of being weighted down. I’m hoping the flexibility and ease of movement will more than make up for the scantness of our possessions.
What is making the cut? Only absolute necessities, and every one of those has been hard thought over and put through the wringer. Mark has to travel with a CPAP machine now because breathing is high on his list of priorities. But the lovely French healthcare system came through and gave him a mini machine for traveling. It’s the size of a small kitten! Which is to say, it fits in the palm of Mark’s hand.
Mark’s other burden is his size 13w feet. He can’t just buy shoes as needed. He’s schlepping 2 extra pairs. Another large, but necessary item is a yoga mat, plus some exercise bands. If I’m in it for the long haul, I have to be able to haul.
Our clothing choices are quite restricted. We will have 2 possible outfits for cold, temperate, or warm climates. This means one worn, one being washed. We will each have a light jacket plus a puffer, plus raincoats. Layers will be the name of this game.
This whole mess is exciting and daunting. But instead of an adventure, maybe I’ll get all highfalutin and call it a quest. Why not? My quest, my rules. A quest implies mystery, a quest seeks the answer to a question. This being: can I get this relentless, restless curiosity out of my system?
The point of all this is to put my wanderlust daydreaming to the test. I don’t just love to travel, I love thinking about and planning to travel. I love test packing, I love reading about traveling with one bag, I love spinning itineraries. I love getting on a train and getting off in a new city. My favorite thing to read lately are tales of people who said screw it and went on a big screwball adventure, people who blew it up and went awol. How much I’ll enjoy such tales when I’m far from the comforts of home is an open question.
By removing any fixed points and outside factors (within our control), the limiting factor will be me. Or rather, us. When we can just keep going, will we? At what point will a familiar bed and known stomping grounds be the winning choice? What will make us say, ok, enough? Will it be our circumscribed kit and comforts? Or the not-knowing where we’ll be? The rule of this quest is to rule nothing out until the question is answered.
Excited. Scared. Game on!
Maer
