When I took my first long trip in Asia, I packed way too much. I ended up using only half of the clothes in my backpack, carrying heavy stuff, and forgetting that it’s actually easy (and cheap) to buy clothes along the way if needed.
For my recent three-month trip, I decided to travel much lighter, bringing only the essentials. It wasn’t easy, especially because in my case I had left Australia after 5 years. You can imagine the of stuff accumulated!
But traveling light turned out to a game changer! It made me moving cities simples, easier and gave me a sense of freedom I hadn’t experienced before.
So, here are my tips on how to travel light in South East Asia.
First thing first: Choosing the right backpack
I usually travel with two backpacks:
- Backpack TRAVEL 500 ORGANIZER 40L Black from Decathlon. This is where I pack all my clothes, toiletries, and essentials. I love that it has an organizer compartment, which helps me keep everything neat and easy to access. During my trips, the organizer pocket has saved me countless times; I didn’t have to empty my whole backpack every time I just wanted to grab a t-shirt.
- A tech backpack (I bought an Augur grey backpack from an Australian marketplace). All my tech goes here: laptop, drone, chargers, go pro, and other electronics. Keeping tech separate from clothes prevents damage and makes airport security checks easier. This way, I don’t have to unpack everything when I need to grab just my computer or camera. I also use this backpack for day trips, leaving the big one in the accommodation. For example, I used it for the Rinjani trekking, carrying only essentials like water, snacks, camera, and light layers.
Clothing essential
My suggestion is to put everything that you’d like to bring with you on the bed and then divide by type of clothes (Bottoms, tops, dresses). This will help to mix matches and ask yourself, will this can be used for different occasion? if the answer is no, just left it at home! The second tip, is to use compression cubes; they help you to save space and keep clothes organized. Avoid, white colors, stick to neutral, such as black, green, brown. Check the culture, don’t forget to have at least one long pant and a t-shirt to cover your shoulders if you plan to visit cities and temples. Choose quick-dry fabrics and buy a line to hang your underwear to avoid doing laundry just for underwear. Click here to find the line that I bought on Temu. For three-month trip, this is what I suggest to bring:
Tops
- 3 t-shirts
- 3 lightweight tops
Bottoms:
- 2 light short pants (1 black, 1 green or choose one that you can mix and match easy)
- 2 light long pants
- Underwear and socks
Special Clothing:
- 1 gym set
- 1 long sleeve (mine is from Macpac brand)
- 1 thermal leggings (important if you plan to hike)
- Rain Jacket, mine is from Macpac, link here.
- Hoodie. Mine is from Macpac, link here.
- 2/3 swimsuits
Shoes:
- Hiking/walking shoes. Mine are from Merrill, link here.
- Flip flops
- Reef shoes
Useful Accessories
The accessories that cannot be missed are definitely the following:
– Sarong: I bought mine in Lombok, it’s very versatile. I used it as beach towel, pareo, dress, to cover shoulders for temples. I cannot be missed!
– 2 microfiber towels one small and one big
– 1 hat
– Sunglasses with UV protection
– Tote bag: it’s very useful for markets, beach and day trips
– Bottle of water: even if the tap water is not drinkable, the bottle of water is useful to keep the water cold and refill it in the airport. I cannot stay without it!
– Lock for hostel lockers (sometimes they don’t have it)
– Inflatable pillow: useful for plane, bus, train. The inflatable one doesn’t take much space and stays clean. I bought mine on Amazon.
– Earplugs and eye sleep masks 🙂
Optional accessories that I bring with me:
– Snorkel mask: I prefer having my own mask when I do snorkeling
– Hanging clothes for quick wash and dry underwear
– Notebook and pen
– Carabiner to attach items like your hat, inflatable pillow to the outside of your backpack
– Double portable glasses (link here) if you wear glasses – this double portable glasses and sunglasses save you a lot of space 😀 !
Toiletries & Health Meds
The hanging toiletry bag I could not recommend it! It’s so handy because you can hang it everywhere without touching most of the time wet sink cabinet and it’s divided by compartment so easy to grab what you need. I bought mine on Amazon, link here.
This is what you cannot missed:
- Foldable toothbrush
- Toothpaste
- Face cream
- Sunscreen
- Razor
- Insect repellent
- Tweezers
- Nail clipper
- Small mirror
- Hairbrush
- Shampoo and body wash (solid)
- Hand Sanitizer
- Tampax (in south east Asia they are hard or impossible to find them)
Optional:
- Basic makeup (multi use products recommended lip & Cheeck tint, BB cream)
- Reusable cotton pads
- Micellar water
- Sheets Soap: very useful, some places do not have soap
- If you use them, contact lents, portable contact lents, liquid
- Toilet seat covers: I used them in different occassions
Health & Meds
Basic meds: painkillers, band-aids, first kit, probiotics. Also, I recommend hydrolate, eletroytice to keep hyridate.
Documents
I keep all my important items and document in my Uniqlo cross bag, very hand, it’s seems like Mary Poppins bag, you can put there everything and still have space!! For extra safety, consider a small pouch inside the bag to separate cash, cards and travel documents.
Here what you cannot forget to bring:
- Passport and copy of passport (best to keep the copy in another bagpack)
- Travel insurance: I did HeyMondo, click here to get more info
- Credit/Debit cards: I use Wise and Revolut. These two are my favorite cards to be used when I travel.
- Driver license and international license if required by the country. In Indonesia, it’s mandatory to have an international driver license.
Tech Items
I put all the tech items in one backpack, as I mentioned above as this made airport security easy and I have all the expensive items in the front when I move from a place to another. These are the tech electronics items that I bring with me:
- Universal adapter: I bought mine on Amazon link here. It’s very handy as it can be used in a lot country and with different USBs and usb c port
- Power bank: I cannot live without
- Cable organizer: I put there 1 cable for laptop, 1 for iPhone, 1 for GoPro/AirPods and power bank
- Earphone: in my case I have AirPods 2 and the Headphone Accentum Plus that they have noice cancellation, very useful on planes and buses.
- 2 AirTags: I put one in my tech backpack and one on the main
Optional items are: laptop, GoPro, drone, DJI Osmo 2, Kindle. Kindle usually help to have all your books in one place 🙂
Every traveler is different, and your backpack essentials should reflect your own needs, destinations, and travel style. Use my list as a starting point, then tweak it to fit your personal comfort and interests. Maybe you need extra tech, or maybe you prefer more comfort items—adjust it for your journey.
Comment below with your must-have travel item or share a packing tip! I’d love to hear what works for you and following me on Instagram for more content!