Before You Pack: What Does
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Figure Out What Your Daily Life Will Really Require.
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Moving abroad sounds romantic until you realize everything you want to bring has to fit into a bag.
We moved to Vietnam with little more than our carry-ons, a few favorite clothes, and plenty of things we eventually realized we didn't need.
This isn't about packing perfectly.
It's about figuring out what your new life actually requires — and leaving the rest behind.
I worked in an outdoor shop for many years. A solid chunk of my twenties was spent outfitting folks for trips westward and abroad.
It was a store in South Florida, where money flowed freely from the vaguely rich to the conspicuously wealthy. I can recall premium leather hiking boots and merino wool garments going for astronomical amounts of money, though my baseline was an $8 an hour wage.
Young Americans with square jawlines and long legs heading off on some adventure to the Galapagos or Portugal or some obscure destination in Asia only fanned the flames of my envy of them and contempt for my inability to go.
I was 33 when my girlfriend and I finally made the move to Da Nang, Vietnam.
We had talked and dreamed for years, and as I type here in a Wisconsin basement during our first summer home, it is miraculous not only that we did, but that we loved it.
We researched visa laws, combed through travel blogs, compared apartments online, and even sampled some Vietnamese pho at a noodle spot near our townhome in Tallahassee.
Without any detail whatsoever, I’ll just say we were less than thrilled with our 9-to-5 lives there, and could not wait to catapult ourselves across the globe.
About three months before take-off, when our minds were made up, the sheer ecstasy gave way to the unanswerable question:
What the hell do you take?
What’s Actually Worth Bringing Abroad?
What do you wear every day? Bring that.
What outfits are you saving for those special occasions? Don’t bring that.
Thinking of prioritizing fashion over function? Think again. Yes, you wanna look good, but I swear on the soles of my sandals, you want to feel good when adjusting to your new life in your new country.
Ask yourself: what garment do you wear so much that it annoys your partner? Don’t start appeasing her now. It’s nice to at least be comfortable when you’re the stranger in the strange land.
What tee or skirt have you been saving for that perfect occasion, only to realize you’ve been saving it for your move abroad this whole time?
Hannah and I remain divided… she says bring, I say storage bin.
I want my trusted blue jeans, khaki shorts, and solid-colored shirts. Don’t count on buying essentials there. You probably can… but never count on it.
How Much Clothing Do You Really Need?
Are you a basic dude (or bitch) like me and wear the same two pants and five shirts?
Whatever you enjoyed wearing in your old life will be the most suitable for the first phases of your own personal new world order.
Two pairs of pants, two pairs of shorts, two button-downs and five classic tees, one pair of sweatpants and one bathing suit… with flip-flops and hiking shoes just cute enough for a nice restaurant or Easter Service.
We knew we weren’t strutting into any high-rise office meetings anytime soon over there, and although my girlfriend does like her wardrobe as much as the next gal, she knows how to keep cute on a lean selection.
We each had our carry-on bags, mine being the classic Osprey Farpoint 40, hers being a more classic hiking pack of roughly the same size. We could go through our “closet” for a full week before a trip to the laundromat was needed.
The hardest part for our corner of the world was fresh tee shirts, though merino wool washes incredibly well in the hotel sink. We anticipated we would buy some new digs abroad, which we most certainly did once we found our apartment.
You need five days’ worth of underwear and five days’ worth of socks, at a minimum. This gives you a comfortable number of days before a scout gets sent out to survey the city and find a reputable cleaning service.
If you are moving abroad, you more likely than not have a semi-minimalist mindset or, at the very least, are realistic about the limits of what one can bring on an airplane, even with checked bags.
Bring one nice pair of pants for nice establishments, and a more worn-in pair of slacks for more worn-in businesses.
The frayed jeans and stained shirts that for some reason fit better than every other article of clothing you own will give you a familiar feel in a foreign land. Pack your favorites.
Bring one extra set that your significant other likes. Cozy pants for nighttime resting are as essential as your toothbrush or prayer book.
Last things last, a denim jacket is never necessary, but always desired. A secondary article strictly on this matter will be forthcoming.
The Stuff We Brought — And Barely Used
I brought, mostly out of guilt, a Nintendo Switch Hannah’s brother had gotten us. Though we enjoyed it as much as the next childless millennial couple, we are not avid gamers, but rather rabid people-pleasers.
Her mother had gotten me a gorgeous, and annoyingly big, leather dopp bag for my toiletries. It took up an agonizing amount of space.
I brought three pairs of pants and barely wore them in the hot, humid air of Southeast Asia. Nonetheless, it was nice to have jeans for cool nights and long travel days spent on planes and buses.
The excruciating process of leaving cherished tee shirts and fun jackets paid off exponentially when we had only our hiking packs to lug around on the hot streets of Ho Chi Minh City.
What You Can Easily Buy After You Arrive
Every gripe about the corporate, monolithic mega-marts in America? Or have you developed a disdain for the dingy dollar stores that are unavoidable across many American towns? Same.
With that being said, if in Asia, you may find yourself missing them more than you ever thought you would. Yes, all the same necessities and accessories can be found around town in most of Asia. However, the chances of you checking every item off your list at the same store are fairly improbable.
Toiletries and over-the-counter medicine are shockingly absent from any store that is not a dedicated standalone pharmacy. Though some may look abandoned and bare, with flickering fluorescent lights and bare-naked shelves, I assure you each has a friendly and informed pharmacist who will have anything you need in cabinets behind her station.
I spent five frustrating days scouring grocery and corner stores for Band-Aids, moisturizer, antacids, etc. On the sixth day I rested. By the seventh, one of us developed food poisoning.
I resigned my sheepish nature and ventured into the first pharmacy I saw, still a little intimidated by the language barrier. The girl spoke near-perfect English, and I realized how foolish I had been shopping like an American.
In Vietnam, small and specialized stores are still all the rage.
Underwear and socks, on the other hand, are often on display in some corner of each corner store.
I once soiled myself in Amsterdam after some “local” brownies and “traditional” Indonesian food left me mortified on a bike on a canal on a Tuesday afternoon. Not a shop or bodega in one of the most sophisticated cities in the world had a pack of boxers or pair of tighty-whities to hock.
If and when this happens in Da Nang, I know what I need is in any old store.
Bathing suits and sandals are also often sold at even the tiniest of shops around this beach city, though quality varies. I bought a pair of swim trunks and flip-flops at one near our house about a year ago.
The trunks ripped later that day. The sandals are still my favorite backup pair.
At $2 a pop each, ya just never know.
How to Actually Fit It All Into a Carry-On
Every single time I’ve traveled abroad, I’ve promised myself I would not overpack my carry-on sack.
I gravitate towards the rustic and the minimalist, and likewise enjoy a small number of items to have to schlep around Bogota, Bruges, and Bangkok.
From dangerously low levels of clean underwear, to rations of two pairs of pants and one pair of shorts, to a wardrobe drabbed entirely in dark blue and black (the colors requiring the least amount of washing), every item must be of the utmost necessity and able to last for days without indoor plumbing or cooling.
Regardless of intent or inventory, the sad state of affairs is always the same.
A rock-hard pack, the zippers gritting their teeth as I yank them closed, the threads of the seams strained under the pain of the entirety of my earthly possessions for the foreseeable future.
Whether a month in Western Europe or a new life in Southeast Asia, the results were the same—extra back pain and even less space on an already crowded plane.
Be forewarned, you will struggle to fit it all.
You could, of course… CHECK an extra bag… but at what cost?
Do you want one very heavy bag, or two kinda heavy bags? It’s a genuine question. If your budget isn’t too tight, there’s nothing wrong with buying socks and underwear over there.
For me, that’s boots and a pair of flip-flops, the latter being easy to fit in my pack. I find that folding and stacking my tops and bottoms is ideal for saving space, while Hannah prefers rolling them into neat little tubes.
If it zips, it ships.
As far as weight is concerned, I’ve never come within 10 pounds of being over the limit for a carry-on.
If it happens to you, please contact me with a photo of the pack!
The Final Test: Could You Live Out of This Bag for a Month?
I went to rehab when I was 21 years old with a backpack of toiletries, three shirts and sweatpants. That was good enough for 28 days.
Though I did not start a new life at that point in time (though, ironically, that was the reason I was there), I would’ve happily catapulted from treatment to Thailand in a heartbeat with far less had I been given the choice.
If you’re beyond excited, beyond prepared, and beyond changing your mind, your passport and your head are the only two things you cannot forget.
A sweater for cooler climates and shades for lower latitudes are nice. But the thrill of being there will outweigh any remorse over forgotten material goods.
Don’t overthink it. Check the temperature and wear what you would normally wear in that weather. Most places will afford you the opportunity to purchase basic necessities.
Pack smart. Pack light. Don’t fret.
We’re not space cadets yet.