Buying travel gear & clothes: 10 essential items with entirely different budgets

Joe E takes the budgets and plans of Nick and Ant, no relation to us BootBoyz, really, no I swear, and maps out their essentials and what they cost: 10 essential items with entirely different budgets.

The exercise is the useful part, more than any single item on either list. Two people going to the same continent for the same length of time, one spending freely and one not, and the gap between the two kits turning out to be smaller and stranger than you would guess.

What has actually changed in twenty years is narrower than the gear industry would like. Fabric got lighter, packs got a little better at carrying weight, and a phone replaced the camera, the guidebook, the map, the torch, the alarm clock and the phrasebook, which between them were a couple of kilos.

What has not changed is the shape of the mistake. Both lists here are too heavy, and both men would tell you so afterwards. The one rule worth carrying forward is that the expensive version of a thing is worth it for boots and a pack, and almost never worth it for anything else. Buy the cheap version of everything else first, travel with it, and replace only what actually annoys you.

Posted 21 April 2003 by Ant in BootsnAll Travel Community · updated by Chris