hey there we're Nicole and mico we are full-time Travelers and in today's video we are going to
be sharing with you our best Packing Tips and hacks for your next trip by the way we will
link all the products that we talk about down in the description below our first tip has to do with
overpacking so we find that the easiest place to over pack is with our clothing So to avoid that we
have packed essentially a capsule wardrobe which is basically just like all of our clothing can be
mixed and matched and layered together we get this done by generally using neutral colors or
solid colors or colors without a lot of pattern sometimes we have some pieces of clothing that
have pattern and like bright colors just to like Spruce things up a bit but generally speaking I'm
usually in the black or a white shirt basically the point of the capsule wardrobe is so that
all of your tops can go with all of your bottoms and everything can just be mixed and matched and
building on this the other way we really save space is by only packing for a week of course
if you're traveling for less than a week pack for less than a week but if you're traveling for more
than one week just pack for one week and don't forget you can also do your own laundry by hand
Nicole and I do this we have a bucket and we also have a clothesline and so sometimes we just take a
day to do laundry inside our hotel or Airbnb and just have clothing strung up all around the room
it's a little bit messy and chaotic but it works for us and the other important thing to keep in
mind is that you can buy everything you need on the road especially for things like toiletries
and first aid kits and new clothing like those are really easy items to just pick up along
the way as you need them so don't feel like you need to leave your home country with everything
you're going to need for the entire length of your trip you're going to need new toothpaste
that's okay you can buy it wherever you're going and speaking about clothing our next tip is about
this Wonder fiber called Merino wool now you've probably heard it online everybody loves Merino
wool and we do too we believe that it's great for certain things and not great for others we made a
whole video where we talked about our kind of love and hate relationship for merino wool will we love
that it's antimicrobial we love that like you can just wear it almost endlessly it doesn't really
get wrinkly it doesn't smell it's easy to clean quick to dry all really good things what we hate
about it is the wear we have just found that the Merino wool clothing that we've had wears through
so quickly and it's really disappointing when you spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on
a product and it wears through in a few months so yeah a quick tip right there is that Merino wool
is amazing but our second follow-up tip is you don't need it yeah you can get by with let's say
alternative fibers that are like half the cost you don't necessarily need to spend hundreds of
dollars on a week-long trip just because every vlogger out there said that you need merino wool
so don't worry it is great for some technical things like I find it's awesome for like skiing
yeah you know hiking but if you're on a long-term trip you can get Merina wool but honestly a
t-shirt from Walmart that that works for us for a 20th of the cost it is fine all right the next tip
is about compression sacks so I got a compression sack that I absolutely love I've learned that what
this is best for is actually for like all the clothing that I have that doesn't really match
the environment I'm in so when I go to a warmer country I'll put all of my clothes that are meant
for cold climates in here because I don't get into this thing every day it's super annoying
to use but it's a great way to like just really compress my clothing and keep it really small for
when I just I just throw in my bag and I don't look at it for like two months because we're
somewhere really nice and hot but I still need the clothes because we might be going somewhere cold
later okay what about packing cubes there's lots to talk about packing cubes yes or no I'm a I'm
sorry I'm a packing Cube lover I do too I actually don't understand how you can go without packing
cubes actually wait for backpacks yes some packing cubes yeah for sure we live out of backpacks so we
need packing cubes otherwise it would just be like this gaping hole with like I can't imagine all
your clothes all your socks all your underwear toiletries and tech and cameras just mixing in
it would be a disaster but we definitely use our packing cubes for all of our clothing to make sure
everything stays really nice and organized if you had a piece of luggage I could see like one
side is all your clothes and you can fold them up properly and make it look nice this is an example
of a compression packing Cube so not only does it obviously hold all my clothing but then there's
a second zipper that I can wrap around it all to make it nice and thin and Tiny now what this does
though is make it really tight and like firm you know Mico hates that yeah I hate that so I keep my
I have a similar type by Eagle Creek I like it just laying my clothes flat and then also just
making sure that it's got a little bit of room to like squeeze into the crevices of my backpack okay
another big debate actually is rolling clothes or not rolling your clothes yeah we differ on
this too actually we do so I would say a tip for packing is to roll your clothing I think it saves
space and I really need the space Mico doesn't roll his clothes no I don't really need the
space and I don't know I find it annoying to roll clothes I just like laying it flat rolling it does
make it again like a bit more firm it's a bit more compact it's like really tight yeah and I think
that you don't like that yeah that's true before YouTube we had we were traveling full time with
like a 38 liter backpack so space was definitely a lot more of an issue and I did roll my clothes
a lot more but like since we got bigger backpacks to carry all the camera gear and all that stuff
um I don't find that it's really as necessary so if your tight on space roll your clothes if not
you know just live your life Roll free Roll free okay okay so one problem I do have though because
I roll my clothing is a lot of wrinkles oh yeah I think my clothes wrinkle a lot more because I
roll them than Mico's do laying flat but I came up with like the most ingenious solution okay so
my tip if you're dealing with any wrinkly clothes for no matter how you pack is actually to get like
a tiny little bottle that has a spray nozzle on it anytime you've got wrinkly clothes just Spritz
it with water from the tap hang it up to dry or just like give it a little swoosh whatever you
call that you know and it'll like de-wrinkle it's like magic and I don't need any fancy products I
don't need anything from the store you don't need heat either don't need heat I wouldn't say it's
like perfect like you're not going to like a fancy dinner with it but like nine times out of ten if
you just want to de-wrinkle your clothes because you're heading out and seeing the city um a little
spritzer bottle thingy Nicole certified water spritzer de-wrinkler that works just fine all
right the next hot debate we'll talk about is to do with photos so is it better to bring a phone
to take photos or should you bring like a real fancy camera the phones these days definitely
have a good argument because like the newest phones are great cameras they're slim they're
easy to pack you don't have to really worry about it you need your phone anyway you need your phone
anyway so that is great for us I think a real camera is better I mean obviously we're biased we
make YouTube videos but we actually started when we first started traveling full-time the first
six months we only had our phone cameras and we actually really regret it we did some incredible
things like I mean the thing that comes to mind is we hiked Everest Base Camp yeah with our cell
phone camera and now I look back I'm like why did we just bring a cell phone for like Everest Base
Camp it's actually such a shame if you're going to beautiful places and seeing beautiful things like
you need a beautiful way to capture them these days and so I really regret that like sure we got
nice photos on our phone but like they're phone cameras or their phone photos you can tell you
can really tell and I think about bringing those back and maybe framing them one day if we have a
home again and like it's just not gonna look the same as if we took a proper camera if you have
the space of course the money cameras are not cheap if you've already got one lying around at
home or maybe you can borrow one from a friend we do highly recommend you get a proper camera this
next tip is a little bit random um we like the heroclip this is just like a carabiner slash hook
two in one and it doesn't really seem like like it would make any difference in your travels but
we've actually used it a lot more than we expected either just Mico uses it all the time yeah all the
time hanging up like a backpack that you don't want on the floor or hanging up some clothing
because you don't have any hangers hanging up our laundry line actually yeah it's surprisingly
handy and it's really tiny and I I don't know I personally that's my tip we use it all the time
all right another packing hack that I specifically use is actually to not bring things intentionally
from your home country so you can buy them on the road as a souvenir for yourself I left for
a couple years of travel with no jewelry and the whole point of that was so that I could get things
along the way on the road that I love that now remind me of those countries that I bought those
items in and I get to wear them right they're like I get to show them off and show people the
cool things that I've got and then tell the story about where I've been and I know a lot of people
also do this with clothing I think right so if you bring a few less items than you think you need get
yourself a nice dress or a t-shirt or something along those lines on the road when you're out and
about and then it's something you need and it's a souvenir another really big space saving tip for
me has been to make the change from liquid shampoo and conditioner and body wash to solid shampoo
conditioner and bar soap Game Changer Game Changer it especially for somebody with longer hair like I
just go through way less shampoo and conditioner when it's in bar form it lasts me way way longer
and same with of course body wash now we just use bar shampoo it's cheap you can get it everywhere
it's better for the environment and then we also have these incredible Matador soap packs
that we absolutely love that keep all of our soap products our bar soap Products Dry so after we've
used either my shampoo or conditioner or our bar soap we just pop it into the matador soap pack as
wet as it wants to be and it dries on the go no matter what we're doing it's like magic I don't
know how it dries it I don't know how either it feels like total magic but it's absolutely a Game
Changer and it really allows me to just use my brush shampoo and conditioner without any fuss
so the next tip is if you're somebody who's going to be on a trip where you're expecting to be in a
lot of let's say like hostels or shared bathrooms or even just airbnbs we always pack shower shoes
and that's because we don't always trust what's on the floor when you're taking a shower so I
just wear like regular flip-flops super cheap super easy super easy to pack so typically we
use our flip-flops as like an indoor shoe we wear them inside our apartments in the shower
um but then when needed we also can just wear them to the beach now to keep all of our stuff clean
when we have things like wet shower shoes or dirty sneakers we also highly recommend you get some
shoe covers we love shoe covers because it doesn't matter what condition our shoes are in we can pack
them away and put them into our backpacks and if needed you can wash the shoe covers so if they do
get really muddy or something just chuck them in the wash get them clean again that said we haven't
washed ours in like a long time like ever but you could but you could if you wanted that's important
okay another quick tip is if you are packing shoes inside your backpack or luggage don't
forget there's a little bit of space inside your shoe small things like socks or underwear or like
bulky tiny things like that are weird to pack like a like a universal travel adapter Nicole always
puts that in there I put a GoPro inside my shoe there's always a little bit of space there if you
need it be sure to bring with you a reusable tote we absolutely love our reusable tote most of the
time we use it when we're getting on like a bus or a plane and we want to bring with us some of those
bulkier items like extra sweaters I bring extra socks lots of extra snacks snacks always snacks
um and it's not going to fit in our little day packs or we don't want them to be jam-packed
and full because they're not a lot of fun to use when they're that full so we just bring the tote
bag we stick everything extra in there and then we keep it with us right above us on a plane or
a train you can also use it as a great beach bag and you can also use it as a grocery bag so that
you don't have to use as much plastic this next tip is for travelers who are expecting to be in
beach destinations if there's a lot of sand in your future and water we highly recommend you get
yourself a dry bag now we got a dry bag just while we were on the road and we actually are using it
a lot more than I expected especially because we're on boats a lot and sometimes they don't
tell you but just water just splashes up on you depending on the kind of boat you're in so having
an actual dry bag to kind of keep our clothing and like camera stuff dry is definitely very useful
possibly my favorite thing I pack is my scarf I use this for every sort of occasion I use this
as a pillow on the beach I use this as a mat on the beach mostly I use it as a blanket on travel
days and I also use it as a cover either for my shoulders or my legs if we're going to temples
and I want to wear shorts I absolutely love this thing I highly suggest that if you are a woman and
you get something like this to have with you or for someone who gets really cold bring this with
you as well something we recommend for anybody traveling with a backpack is a backpack cover
and the reason for this is twofold so firstly a backpack cover is usually a rain cover as well
so when you get wet you just stick it on keep all your stuff dry but honestly what we use our
covers more for is actually when we check in our backpacks on either a flight or like underneath
a bus or actually even honestly in a lot of taxis we cover our backpack with our pack cover to keep
it from getting dirty it can be surprisingly dirty uh when you put things inside the luggage
hold of a bus I have no idea why but things always come out a lot dirtier than when they went in and
then for a plane as well you don't necessarily want all those straps to be flailing around or
causing any issues get caught or anything like that so having like a pack cover to just tighten
everything up is absolutely essential this next tip is actually kind of exciting because it's one
that we've never heard before but we've kind of recently discovered ourselves and it's to
do with all the popular Buzz with AI right now so right now there are a lot of cool websites
out there that generate information for you from AI or artificial intelligence we've used the one
that's really popular it's called chat GPT and you can actually ask it very specific things that will
help you prepare and plan for your trip so for example if you are going to the Amazon you can ask
chat gpt I'm going to the Amazon I'll be there for two weeks what should I pack and it'll actually
give you a pretty decent list of all the things that you should pack for a two-week trip to the
Amazon yeah I definitely don't think it's perfect I think you're going to need to do a little bit
more other research as well look at blogs or Vlogs or what have you but it's a really cool place to
start to get an idea specifically for trips that are really particular and are going to require
some specific gear like the Amazon or a really big hike maybe to Everest Base Camp or something
like that if you're interested in a more detailed overview of everything that we pack to travel head
down in the description for our full packing video and packing list thanks for watching