Everything We Pack for a Month in Asia, After Ten Years of Refining

We do not write a packing list before each trip. Alex and I each maintain one master list in a Google Doc, organised by category, and we tailor it for the specific trip we are about to take. The list has been running for years. It gets refined after every trip: things we forgot are added, things we never used are removed, things that broke get replaced with better versions.

This is the same discipline we apply to trip planning generally. We wrote separately about how every trip we take starts as a Google Doc, and the packing list is a subset of that broader principle: prepare the artefact once, refine it forever, tailor it per journey. The absence of a list-from-scratch step at the start of each trip removes an entire category of forgetting.

What the master list contains.

The master list is organised into categories that stay constant across every trip. Clothing, tech, toiletries, medication, documents, kit. Within each category, items are grouped by type (tops, bottoms, layers, shoes, underwear, sleepwear for clothing; chargers, adaptors, headphones, cables for tech; and so on). Each item has a rough quantity next to it, and a note where useful (which brand, why it's on the list, or a conditional like "only for cold weather").

The list is not aspirational. It contains only items that have earned their place through actually being used. If we packed something on the last trip and did not use it, it either comes off the master list or gets flagged as trip-conditional.

How we tailor for each trip.

Before a trip, we copy the master list into a new document and adapt it. A month in Asia looks different from a week in Portugal, which looks different from a fortnight in the Alps. The tailoring is where the master list earns its usefulness, because you are not making decisions from scratch, you are making tick-or-cross decisions against a stable structure.

A month in Asia, specifically.

For a month in Asia, our current list means one checked bag each (23kg limit, we come in well under) and one cabin bag each that must survive twenty-four hours independently if the checked bag goes missing at Chek Lap Kok or Suvarnabhumi. The cabin bag has one full change of clothes, all critical medication, all electronics, and the documents.

The specifics of the Asia tailoring:

• Clothes for five days, plus one buffer set. Most of Asia has fast, cheap laundry. In Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Yogyakarta, Kuala Lumpur, laundry costs around £3 per kilo and is turned around in twenty-four hours. Packing for two weeks of clothing changes when the maths says washing every five days is significantly lighter than carrying it.
• Twice the underwear. The one place we do not economise. Fourteen pairs each, because socks and underwear are the first things to go wrong in tropical heat, and washing daily rather than carrying daily is the wrong trade.
• Layers for altitude, not for cold. Asia is not Europe. The layer we bring is not a jumper for London evenings. It is a light fleece for volcano summits at dawn (Bromo, Ijen, Batur), and a light waterproof for monsoon-season afternoons.
• The shoe question. Two pairs each. One pair of trail runners for hiking, walking, and the occasional temple day. One pair of flip-flops or sandals for beaches, hotel rooms, and the humidity. Anything heavier than trail runners is a mistake in Asia.
• The medication kit is the single most important category. Imodium, Buscopan, oral rehydration salts, a thermometer, paracetamol, ibuprofen, plasters, antihistamines, mosquito repellent, prescription antibiotics, malaria tablets if the region requires them. A small kit that has resolved multiple bad nights over the years. Assume you will need it. Pack it accordingly.
• The power situation. A five-outlet power strip, because Asian hotel rooms often have one or two accessible outlets and we travel with a laptop, two phones, an e-reader, a camera, and rechargeable devices. The power strip solves the outlet problem for the whole room in one plug.

The lessons the list has taught us over the years.

Pack less than you think. Wash more than you plan to. The maths favours it in Asia every time.

The cabin bag matters more than the checked bag. The airline can lose the big one; you need to survive without it.

Buy quality once. A trail runner that lasts eight trips is cheaper per trip than a cheap shoe that lasts two. The same logic applies to the bag itself, the fleece, the power strip.

Test the list before the trip that matters. Take it on a weekend first. What you forgot on the weekend, you would have forgotten on the month.

Refine after every trip. Add what you missed. Remove what you carried and did not use. The list gets better the more you use it.

Maintain the list. Tailor per trip. Wash more, pack less.