Everyone travels in their own style, but having been there, I would suggest you limit yourself to one large backpack for clothes, personal effects, etc and one day pack for camera gear and a rain jacket. The big pack goes into bus or boat luggage stash and the daypack always stays with me. When you get to your hostel/hotel, leave the big pack there and explore with the daypack. When going from bus to hotel, wear the big backpack normally and carry the daypack in front of you strapped on backwards. That eliminates most of the slash and dash threat to your camera gear. Bring only one week worth of clothes and then wash them at the end of the week. If you bring too much stuff and you'll be miserable carrying it everywhere. Bring the minimum amount of camera gear you can get by with, but have a spare for critical stuff like the camera body. I would ditch the laptop and carry 2 microdrives for duplicate backup. Keep one with you in the daypack and leave one in the large backpack. Do the same with a spare camera body if you are carrying one. Always keep them separate if possible. Cover the tripod in a trashbag when not using it so people don't know you have expensive camera gear with you. I keep the camera hidden when I'm not actually shooting. I put dry sacks inside both packs so stuff was protected from unexpected water spills and rain. Make sure you have outlet adaptors for all of the countries you plan to visit. Hope that helps!
Gear management on a long trip
in Travel
Posted
Dave,
Everyone travels in their own style, but having been there, I would suggest you limit yourself to one large backpack for clothes, personal effects, etc and one day pack for camera gear and a rain jacket. The big pack goes into bus or boat luggage stash and the daypack always stays with me. When you get to your hostel/hotel, leave the big pack there and explore with the daypack. When going from bus to hotel, wear the big backpack normally and carry the daypack in front of you strapped on backwards. That eliminates most of the slash and dash threat to your camera gear. Bring only one week worth of clothes and then wash them at the end of the week. If you bring too much stuff and you'll be miserable carrying it everywhere. Bring the minimum amount of camera gear you can get by with, but have a spare for critical stuff like the camera body. I would ditch the laptop and carry 2 microdrives for duplicate backup. Keep one with you in the daypack and leave one in the large backpack. Do the same with a spare camera body if you are carrying one. Always keep them separate if possible. Cover the tripod in a trashbag when not using it so people don't know you have expensive camera gear with you. I keep the camera hidden when I'm not actually shooting. I put dry sacks inside both packs so stuff was protected from unexpected water spills and rain. Make sure you have outlet adaptors for all of the countries you plan to visit. Hope that helps!