More Hours of Fun with Handy Carrying Handle!
New adventures are breeding grounds for big and weighty mistakes
Just like the words on the packaging suggested, this was going to be rad. We were going to have “More hours of fun.” Hell yeah! All made possible with this big thing over here with its “Handy Carrying Handle.” We’ll even have these cool “No Cholesterol” snacks when we get hungry!
Such were the words on the packaging that appealed to my teenage self getting ready for my first self-led backpacking trip. We didn’t own any gear but thankfully our parents did. All we needed to do was just borrow one of their cars and most of their backpacking gear, fill up the gas tank with their credit card, and stop at the grocery store to buy some food with the cash they’d given us. We’d be all set to head out down the road on our own little adventure - just us, free from the support of our parents! Let’s hear it for some independence!
Somehow instinctively we knew we’d need a few critical things, mostly because the stuff was sitting right there in the spot where my dad stored all his camping supplies. Thankfully the mystery of how to get it all safely into the woods was solved by a bunch of old tattered cardboard boxes which not only provided a convenient way to carry it all, but also to keep everything from getting scratched up, which Dad would surely notice. The boxes even provided some reading material for when we got bored: “Stretches days to give more hours of fun. A life saver for emergency use.” Perfect!
But the old man didn’t have everything at the ready. Perishables and consumables would be up to us. Browsing through the store, we could see that most things came in only one size. How convenient that someone had already figured out how much people needed to take on trips like this!
The rectangular shaped things dropped perfectly into the corners of our backpacks. The round ones were a bit more challenging and kind of had to be jammed in there in the middle. These were mostly things like the jars and cans of super yummy snacks that we bought with “our” cash.
Do we really need to bring all this stuff for just one night? We couldn’t imagine how big our backpacks would have to be for a multi-day trip. All this stuff barely fit in what we had first thought were more-than-big-enough bags. Good thing the trusty backpacks had big old waist belts, unlike our school backpacks. If we tipped over backwards hiking up the trail, at least the ginormous bags would stay with us as we all tumbled down the hill like top heavy dominoes. If we survived the fall, we had everything we’d need to survive. Well, at least for one night.
It probably comes to no one’s surprise that we didn’t make it anywhere close to our chosen destination. With all the stuff we took with us, wherever we got was far enough. Our shoulders, hips, backs, in fact our whole bodies were killing us. We couldn’t hike another inch. Camping right there off the side of the trail would have to do.
It’s funny that as uneventful as this inaugural night was out in the sticks, I often think back on this trip when packing up for an adventure. I knew that we must have hiked out to the car with almost all of the supplies we had started with. This surely was my first lesson in how quickly things add up when it comes to weight and space in a backpack.
To keep you from making the same mistakes, I offer one word of advice to you folks: repackaging. There is perhaps no better way to shed pounds from your pack or to save precious space in the tiny backpack that you’ve hopefully learned to bring by now. One universal truth with most consumer products, whether big or small, is that they all seem to come encased with way too much plastic and cardboard.
As an American consumers, we are often appalled at how much unnecessary packaging comes with all the products we buy and how wasteful it all is when all that extra stuff just goes straight to the landfill after spending only a few seconds in our hands. Do yourself a favor when it comes to packing up for your next trip, and shed all those useless exterior cardboard shells, plastic encasements, and other nonsensical wasteful fluff. It’ll all just take up way too much of your limited valuable space should you choose to carry it all with you like I did on that first backpack trip.
To reduce bulk, I’m a big fan of consolidating my stuff into reusable nylon ditty bags and Ziploc freezer bags. Yes, some of these bags can be wasteful too but are made less so if you reuse them multiple times.
As for weight savings, one of the main purposes of repackaging is to take only the amount of something that you actually might need. Some of this will come with experience but some is intuitive. If a big jar of your favorite snack will last for months at home in the cupboard, do you really need to take the whole thing for an overnight trip? And is glass really necessary?
Pare down as much as you can and seek solace that out on the road (as opposed to the wilderness) you’ll likely be able to replenish most of your consumables. If you’ll be traveling to world cities, remember that we’re all human and that many people across the globe are built just like you and me and that you should be able to find just about anything you might need. That being said, for such things like critical prescription medicines and other super important critical personal supplies, ignore my advice and take everything you might need for your entire trip at the outset (or if you’re heading out to somewhere off the radar, take it all; there’s rarely a resupply in the wilderness).
With respect to space, the strategy in repackaging is to strip something down to its most basic form and then try to trim it down even further. A good example of this would be the probiotic I take. A three month supply comes in a box like this:
A full box weighs in at 99 grams and is 935 cubic centimeters in volume. Tossing out the box, you can reduce it down to this:
Without the cardboard, the stack sizes up to something slightly smaller at 85 grams and 762 cubic centimeters, 14% and 18% reductions in weight and volume, respectively. Much to the bewilderment of family and friends that I take the time and energy to do this, I then reduce it down even more to save on weight and space in my pack.
Having removed all the excess packaging and trimming up the backing material, this three month supply measures up to only 28 grams and 360 cubic centimeters, a whopping 61% reduction in weight and a 71% reduction in volume from the original packaging.
If you practice such consolidating techniques with all the things you take, you’ll likely be amazed at the compounding effect of just how small your pile of gear becomes, measured both in weight and volume. If I had only known this trick way back as a teen, we might have just made all the way up the trail to our destination with gobs of time to spare and nary a sore shoulder or hip.
Applying the wondrous trick of repackaging with all of its reducing and trimming techniques, it’s my hope that you too can pare it all down to less than 10 pounds in a 20 liter backpack for your next trip abroad.
Happy travels to you all.
