50 essential backpacking tips for safe and enjoyable travels
Traveling as a backpacker – for a long term or taking short trips – is great. How can you be prepared and stay safe during your travels? In the beginning, you don’t really know what to pack. Or how to make them fit into your backpack. And yes, you have to pay attention to the order of things: some need to be on top, others can stay at the bottom of your backpack.
50 essential backpacking tips are included in the infographic below. I decided to share this infographic with you as I liked the way these tips are organized. They cover various areas – from essential items to pack, preparations tips, food fundamentals, packing tips, hiking, and emergency tips.
You might think that if you forget something it’s not a problem as you can buy a replacement on your travel. That is true, with a single condition: to travel in a city. Because as soon as you are out of a city, this means that you are not near a shop. And it is not a problem when the item you forgot is a non-essential one (or when you travel with someone else and you can borrow what you need). But it is a huge problem when you are missing an essential item. So research and preparation go a long way – and ensure a significant part of the success of the travel. If you don’t pay attention to small details, you may end up regretting it. For instance, if your water bottle is not perfectly sealed, it may leak into your backpack and all clothes and items will be soaked. Not something you want, believe me!
I also like that the infographic emphasize the need to leave no trace. I think that this is not only for the backpackers, but for all travelers and tourists. If we like a place, we should leave it as we found it. We should all enjoy what we see, but let others enjoy as well. Unfortunately there are people who don’t throw the garbage where they should – they just leave it in the woods, on the side of the road, on the beach, near a picnic table, etc. Some even throw it into the water or from the mountains. I’d like to say that I didn’t see such people, but I did.
Anyway, like I said, I really liked this infographic and I think that the tips included are very useful for backpackers – especially for the inexperienced ones. If you travel as a backpacker regularly, I’d love to hear what you’d add to this list!
These are all amazing tips. Particularly liked those on the order you should pack in. The only one I have a slight problem with is sleeping the night before. Sadly, I get too excited before any trip to get decent rest the night before.
For EU the emergency nr is 112 🙂
Those food fundamentals have been an absolute must for me since I travel with kids.
The last one should be doubly underlined: leave environment the way you found it. Excellent presentation because I expected bulleted format. 🙂
I’d add that someone not backpacking with you knows your exact itinerary. That way if a situation like 127 Hours happens, help should be on the way when you don’t turn up where you’re supposed to.
I’m heading to Macedonia tomorrow minus Hubbie and he has made me pack a first aid kit. I have no idea where my torch is though
That is a really cool infographic Lori. I love it! You get an instant snapshot of the messages you’re trying to communicate, without having to read a lot of words. Well done packing 50 tips in one infographic.
Indeed a very comprehensive infographic and will sure help those planning their first backpackign trip
The idea that you can always buy what you forgot when travelling usually doesn’t work for us either although w’re not backpackers. Even if we are in reasonable sized towns we don’t want to spend our precious exploring time hunting around the shops for mundane necessities, much better to have a good packing list like this before you head away.
Such a handy list for first time and experienced backpackers! I always carry a whistle, you never know when it can come handy. And ‘leave no trace’ is such an important tip- I wish more people would remember that one.
Hello from a fellow Romanian :). Well done for the post. It must have taken quite a lot of time to put it together, and thank you for helping us all be more travel packing wise :).
So many good tips on this infographic and love how it’s laid out. Never thought to lie down in a helicopter clearing. Makes sense though!
These are great tips. I think I will like to this from my site as I wanted to create a section about trip preparations.
Did you get some of your thoughts from here (similar perspective):
Nice Blog!! The content you have shared is very elaborative and informative. Thanks a lot for sharing such a great piece of knowledge with us.