Backpacking Europe | Minimalist Packing Guide

In a week, I leave for a three-month backpacking trip across Europe, and today I'm going to be showing you what I'm packing. I picked the Osprey Farpoint 40L bag for this trip because its dimensions fit perfectly within the allotted carry-on dimensions of the airline that I'm flying, TAP Air Portugal. Their hand baggage policy states that bags must measure 22 by 16 by 10 inches and weigh less than 10 kilograms. Keeping within these limits not only avoids extra fees for checked luggage, but it also ensures that my bag is light and easy to carry around in the streets of Europe. So in today's video, I'll go through each item that I've included in my bag and explain the rationale why I decided to bring it along. And at the end of the video, I'll do a final weigh-in to make sure that my packed bag complies with the weight and volume restrictions. So let's get to it. So first I'm going to show you the side compartments. So at the top here, I'll have a toilet kit, which just consists of deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, and some nail clippers. I'm relying on the Hostiles to give me soap, hopefully, to shower with. The other side compartment here, a laptop compartment. Laptop is the main compartment. It's really nice, it opens up kind of like a book. This compartment here is built into the bag. This has all my underwear and socks in it. It's about a three-month trip, I think it's 70 days, so technically 10 weeks. And I'm bringing seven pairs of underwear and seven pairs of socks. Now to the meat of it, I have one, two, three packing cubes. I'll get into what's in there in a second. And then in the rest of my bag, I have this, which folds out into a tiny backpack, which will be my carry-on bag and also my day pack. Put my laptop in here to carry on. If I'm close on weight, my sunglasses in here. I have a lock for my stuff at the Hostile. Most of the Hostiles that I'm staying in have lockers, but some of them don't have padlocks, so I'm bringing this along just to make sure I can lock up my stuff. If I don't want to be carrying it around all day, I have a microfiber towel. This is really small. And I just have a hat, which will double as an eye cover if I'm trying to sleep on the plane or something, and just keep me warm. The time period I'm going for is between the end of February and early May, so I'm going to have a bit of a range there. So I definitely want some warmer stuff and some colder gear type stuff. This is my laundry bag. If my clothes get dirty, I'll put them in here and it'll be stinking up my bag. Now I'll move into the packing cubes. So again, I have three packing cubes. This first one will consist of all of my tech stuff. I want to be making videos while I'm on this trip, so this in here is my drone. I use this sock to put around it just to keep it from not breaking. I have an SD card in here, and I also have some extra SD cards that I'll get to in a second. Drone controller. And then I have this little guy, which has extra nails for my drum propellers, a little screwdriver to make sure I can screw them in. And this is what connects to my phone for my drone controller. I have like an extra 20-ish drum propellers. They tend to break a lot, especially the way I fly my drone. I'm pretty reckless. This is my charging thing. It's my laptop charger. I've got a phone charger on here. I've got my watch charger. This is for my drone. This has a couple different options. So pretty much wherever I go, I'll be able to plug this in and then I can just charge up all my stuff. This is my camera charger. This can also plug into that charger thing I was just showing. AirPods. I have bigger, over-the-ear headphones, but just to conserve space, I decided to go with the AirPods for this trip because they work pretty well. My microphone. I'm also using the camera that I'm filming with right now, so I'll show that towards the end, but I don't want to mess with it right now because it took me a while to get the camera set up in the way it is currently. This is a gum package container that I repurposed for just some miscellaneous tech stuff. This is an external hard drive so I can upload all my footage and pictures that I take throughout the trip. Extra SD cards. 128 gigabyte SD card in my camera and then a 64 gigabyte one in my drone. Then I just have an extra. This one's for my drone. This is an extra for my camera. Just a backup. USB converter for my laptop. How I can get pictures and videos onto my laptop. So yeah, that's the first ShakePak packing kit. My sister got me these for my birthday. These are really lightweight and pretty nice so far. I guess I can't do a full review yet because I haven't gone, but now moving into the clothes that I'm bringing. Right here are all of the clothes for these 70 days. So I have two pairs of pants. These I'll likely be wearing onto the plane, but I'm just gonna do the weigh-in with these in there just to be on the safe side, I guess. The goal here is kind of to have them be simple pants that kind of match with everything. So black pants and tan pants, khakis, a swimsuit because again, I'm going from late February to early May and I'll be in Greece and Croatia and Italy. So hopefully then I can get in the water at some point. The average temperature for most of the trip is the lows seem like 50 and the highs around 70. So again, that's kind of the temperature range that I'm going for. Khaki shorts, pretty lightweight. Another pair of athletic shorts. Three pairs of athletic shorts. So one, two, three pairs of athletic shorts and then these khaki shorts that are also kind of really lightweight and athletic fit. For shirts, I have first a raincoat. This is super lightweight. This is by Hurley. The long-sleeve shirt, again, really lightweight. It's kind of a theme here. Two long-sleeve shirts. The second one, I have one, two, three, four t-shirts. These are all like athletic type fit, but they also kind of have a casual look to them. So multipurpose again. I chose all these shirts in colors just because all of them kind of match together. So it can create a lot of different outfits. And then I have a dressier shirt. So yeah, that is everything that I'm packing in that bag. Most of it's athletic material, so it's really lightweight and simple. And then also, these are the shoes that I'll be wearing. These are the Hoka Clifton 8s, I believe. Yep. This is the only pair of shoes that I'm going to have the whole trip. I just didn't feel that I had enough space to do sandals or flip-flops or anything. Hopefully, the hostile showers aren't too gross. Then I'll be wearing this onto the plane. This is just my fanny pack. So in here, I'll have my passport, wallet, a little charging card, and then a battery for that. And then I'll only have my phone in there. Oh, and finally, I will be wearing onto the plane this jacket to keep me warm in case it does get a little bit colder. But I also have packed my bag with this in it. And it doesn't overflow or anything, and everything still fits. All right, now to demonstrate that there is a method to my madness, I'm going to show you how many different outfits I have with this seemingly limited wardrobe. And again, for reference, most of the time that I'll be in Europe, the temperature will be between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. So here's outfit one. All right, so while I could show every single last possible outfit combination, I think you get the point. Basically, all of my shirts go with all of my pants and shorts. And all the colors are simple, so it's easy to kind of mix and match. And I have a lot of different outfits just out of a few pieces of clothing. But now I'm going to show you my outfit if it does get really cold. So if it got really cold, I'd wear one of my pairs of pants, one of my long sleeve shirts, a golf jacket. I also throw on this coat. Basically, that just gives me a lot of flexibility. And if it does go under 50 degrees, it goes to like 30 or 40, I have a relatively pretty warm outfit. Now I'll do a final measurement check and a final weigh-in to make sure that my bag stays under the allotted measurements so I don't have to pay extra money. All right, so for the plane, I'll be taking out my laptop so I can work on some stuff and to reduce some weights. Laptop will go into this bag that I showed earlier, water bottle in here. This will be my personal item. I forget exactly what these dimensions are. I think it was 16 and we're at 15 and a half. And I think it was by 16 by like 8-ish or at 8-ish by 5. So this will be my personal item. For this bag, the cool thing about this is that all these straps can be zipped away. That's a bit smaller and actually count as a carry-on. Length, I believe we're allowed 22 inches. I can't really see it. 21 and a half is perfect. By width, again, I believe 16 inches. Looks like we're good. I'm gonna make sure it's flat for this one. We're allowed 10 inches, which we're under. And let's go weigh. So then on the plane, I will have my fanny pack, my jacket. This is my personal item. This is my carry-on. Let's make sure that both stay under the weight and we're good to go. This is by no means scientific, but first I'm gonna weigh myself. 191 pounds under that. I'm gonna put this on my head. 207. 207, so we're six pounds under or so. I'll put the exact calculations up there. I don't feel like doing it right now. And same thing for this. I was in 191. As long as we're not 195.4. I have 4.4 pounds allowed. So we're under on that too. So we're jawing. Thanks for watching. That's gonna conclude the video. Thanks, Jack. If you enjoyed watching this video, I'd really appreciate it if you would consider subscribing. I leave for my trip in three days and I'm planning on periodically posting content as I go. And also, I've never done anything like this before. It's my first time backpacking and also my first time traveling alone. So hopefully I will give you lots of insights, especially if you are planning on doing a trip like this now or in the future. So yeah, subscribe. Peace.