Sandy writes of the challenges of planning and packing for an extended trip while taking into account the “new world” resulting from the pandemic.
During our time of Trekking the Planet, we have taken extended trips to Europe (three months), to 27 U.S. National Parks (five months), on the Pacific Crest Trail (four-and-a-half months), and around the world (14 months). So we know what it is like to plan and pack for a long journey. But planning and packing for this year’s Trekking the British Isles adventure is much different. With a pandemic ebbing and flowing, it is a whole new world of things to consider.
Pivoting to Flexibility over Planning
We tend to be planners when we travel. When we built our 2012 around the world journey to 53 countries over 14 months, we made reservations for the first 11 months of the trip before we left. We wanted to focus our time in the moment of our travels and not on researching where we would go next. Most of those plans (mainly hotels) could be canceled, but some of our travel could not.
We did have an issue during our trip with unrest in West Africa (Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana), and we had to cancel that part of the journey. In that case we lost a few hundred dollars. But mostly, the fully-planned approach has worked well for us.
With the state of the world now consisting of pandemic waves higher in some places and lower in others, we chose to be more flexible with our plans for this trip. Because we plan to be outside much of the time as we trek, we hope that we will stay healthy. But we have paid attention to more details this time around.
Our four months of hotel reservations (all booked before we left) were only made at places that we could cancel just a few days before our stays. Train, bus, and ferry travel will be booked as we go, so that we can react if things change around us or either one of us gets sick. And we have researched restaurant options with outdoor seating and take out if needed.
In 2020, we had a detailed itinerary for a British Isles trip that we ended up having to cancel. I am visual, so used Google Maps at the time to label our hotels, potential restaurants, and grocery stores for that trip. This was especially helpful on our proposed trekking routes.
Our hope was we could pick up the 2020 itinerary and my Google Map and use it to book many of the same places in 2022. As we began the replanning, we were encouraged to discover that most of the hotels we had booked were still in business. But enough places were gone that we had to remove two of our 2020 treks and replace them with other options. Most of the indoor places, such as museums, that we planned to visit in 2020 are now open again. However, many of them (at this writing) require timed tickets. So we added that to our to-do list as we travel.
Even on the treks that we kept from our 2020 trip. finding accommodations a consistent distance apart on the trail became more challenging this year. So we ended up with some trekking stages that are short (six to eight miles), followed by longer stages (17 to 19 miles) in order to end our hiking day at nearby hotels. And there will be some stages where we might have to walk one to two miles off trail to our destination for the evening.
With the trekking distances varying, I used our Gaia GPS subscription to create custom stages for us to use each day that we hike. This also ensured that we did not have any crazy elevation gains and losses on those days when we will trek 15+ miles. The completed stages will be downloaded as GPX files to Darren’s Garmin watch so that we don’t miss a turn and get lost.
Packing Considerations for the Journey
With the hotels booked, and travel and sightseeing purchases scheduled, we turned ourselves to packing. It would seem that we already have everything we need for a given trip. But the location and type of journey always dictate the gear, and this year is no different.
Traveling during potential pandemic waves meant we needed to bring gear that wouldn’t normally be on our list. We added KN95 masks, proof of vaccination, some rapid test kits, and hand sanitizer / wipes to our luggage.
As with most of our other trips, we will be traveling with carry on bags. Not only will we have lighter weight to carry while trekking, but we will also be nimbler on buses, trains, and ferries. It is always a challenge to pack when space is limited. What has worked best for me is to have solid color bottoms (in this case gray and black pants) with lightweight tops of different colors.
All our items dry quickly and can be rinsed out at night, if needed. We also have designated clothing just for trekking, which keeps other items clean for the evenings and off days. Things do wear out, so we purchased new socks, shirts, fanny packs, and hats.
With 55 days of trekking planned, we needed to ensure that we had good all-weather clothing and shoes. For our 2020 trip we bought waterproof shoes, and they have sat in our closet since we canceled that trip. They will finally get utilized on this journey. We also invested in more robust rain jackets than the ultralight ones we use for backpacking. And we will have rain pants that we can wear if necessary. Both the rain jacket and pants fold up into pouches when not needed.
When we trekked in Europe in 2018, we bought 40-liter Osprey Farpoint / Fairview Travel Backpacks. We liked the packs so much that we ditched our rolling suitcases when we got home. The Osprey packs are now the main luggage that we use for trips.
However, these packs have one flaw that we felt would be an issue on this year’s journey – they do not have side pockets for water bottles. In 2018, every time we wanted to drink water while hiking we needed to unzip the main pack pocket and take the bottle out from where our clothes were packed. It was not a good solution during any inclement weather.
So we searched for a lightweight pack that would address the problem. We settled on a REI Co-op Trail 40 Pack (women’s version here). It is roughly the same size and weight as the Osprey pack and has the water bottle pockets that we need. It also zips entirely open to make it easy to access our clothes.
As an added bonus, the REI pack comes with a rain fly (which we will definitely use), and has built in clips for our trekking poles. Some sections of our treks will be on paved roads, so it will be nice to attach the poles to the pack when not needed.
New REI pack opened up and closed
We have completed several training hikes to try out our new gear. Take a look at our short video:
As we get closer to our arrival in the British Isles, we know that this journey will feel different than in the past. But we made the decision, even with all the uncertainty in the world, to get out and explore. We are excited to experience the cultural and natural significance of travel as we venture out again.
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