Footpath through the Gers, Via Podiensis, France, 2009.

A Longwalking Packing List

My 2011 Pro Forma 30-Day List – Gear, Clothing, Supplies

Creating a gear and clothing list is one of the principal ways of planning a long-distance, and crucial if you want to start off with everything essential, no extra payload, and with the minimum possible weight for your needs.

This is a detailed list of everything – all clothing, gear, equipment, and supplies – that I’m planning to use for a walk across France in 2011. Although it continues to evolve, this is the current, latest, up-to-date list. It’s grouped by what I will have, which is not necessarily how I will carry it. It includes clothing to be worn.

This is an updated list of what I used during a 12-week walk across France, the Pyrenées, and Spain, from late April to early July, 2009. For my experience and purposes, this is adequate to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, for example. (No camping gear was used, or is included.)

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South from Bergerac, chemin de Vézelay, France, 2005.

Getting Ready ~ Pre-Walk Checklist

One year timeline to the trail

If you’ve decided to leave your footprints on the sentiers de grande randonnée in France, make your own camino in Spain, or trek somewhere else, here’s a one-year timeline to keep your planning on track and your getaway gone. If you have less time before departure, do what it takes to catch up on the earlier checkpoints.

It’s time to start getting ready. There are a lot of tasks to accomplish and decisions to make in order to realize a fantastic, engaging, life-changing, healthy, robust journey over the land on foot.

Checklist ~ 12 Months

Commit. Tell your family and friends. Expressing a dream with words is the first step to making it come true. (more…)

Through the alley between two estates on the trail from Lyon to Le Puy-en-Velay, France 2009.

Making Light ~ Get Rid of It

It’s never too late to lighten up…

It’s almost inevitable, no matter how hard we try. Somehow, something extra ends up in our backpacks. A week down the trail and you start wondering, “Why did I bring this? Or maybe you just end up with something extra, which can easily happen for any number of reasons.

Depending on what it is, where you are, and who you’re with, you can easily take control of this most unwelcome situation.

Get Rid of It. You can: (more…)

Over a rural rail crossing on the trail from Lyon to Le-Puy, France 2009.

Making Light ~ Sharing the Load

It’s nice to have a friend…

I’ve started planning a long walk for 2011, probably through France. This time, I’ll be joined by my wife for part of the walk. Until now, I’ve always walked solo, so I’ve been looking at ways we can share our total load and still have everything we need.

Other than clothes, personal medications and some toiletries, it turns out that a lot of the gear can easily be shared. Of course, we’ll probably choose to each take a camera, but quite a bit can be left behind by one or the other of us. Here are some examples of things that might be shared by two people walking together on the grande randonnée trails of France, and the caminos of Spain: (more…)

Over the old Roman bridge on the trail from Lyon to Le-Puy, France 2009.

Making Light ~ the “2-Day” Rule

“What if I need it?”

One of the hardest hurdles for some novice ultralighters to overcome is mastering the art and discipline of “leaving it behind”. They worry over lists of gear and supplies that they might need, even though they think (and hope) they probably won’t. “But I might! And what if I do?”

For example, ”What if I catch a cold? Maybe I should take some cold medicine. Just in case…” “What if there are mosquitoes? Maybe I should carry repellent. Just in case…” “What if etc., etc,. etc…” (more…)

Through an ancient village gate on the trail from Lyon to Le-Puy, France 2009.

Making Light ~ Expendables

Determining consumption rate

“Expendables” are the things you carry that disappear over time as you use them. I think of “Consumables” as those supplies used in a single day, such as snacks or a picnic lunch. Buy them on your way out of town, and finish them before reaching today’s destination.

Expendables, on the other hand, are depleted at a more or less daily rate over time – things like medications, toothpaste, antiperspirant, sunscreen, and first aid supplies – for the most part, items that make up your personal, medical, toiletry, blister, and first aid kits. For many of these supplies, you can determine very accurately how much you’ll need for a given period of time, and thereby start off with no more than you’ll need. The perfect expendables list will be consumed during your trip, day by day, and exhausted on the last day. (more…)