Travel with an Eastpak Pak’r, feel like an asshole (finally updated!)

After a couple of tests and mistakes i can safely say that a male 20-something traveller can survive abroad for n months with just the contents of an Eastpak Pak’r.

For those of you that don’t know what an Eastpak Pak’r is, let me introduce you to this fine piece of shitluggage:

This simple bag has been used for decades by many students as the hip alternative to your older brother’s Invicta bag with mandatory Iron Maiden patch and hand-written 80′s music lyrics.

While this bag might be suitable for general school duties (carrying books, drugs and porn magazines), only an idiot would use it for travelling, mainly due to the bag size.

I had to try.

This unhealthy decision came to my mind while i was packing for a week-long trip to Barcelona; i own a great and durable lightweight alpine backpack with sturdy shoulder straps and comfortable foam frame, but why settle for smart decisions when you can embark on an shitty enterprise like travelling with a nylon pig bladder full of clothes, equipped with 2 shitty zippers and uncomfortable straps?

Anyway, here’s what i managed to pack into that poor excuse for a backpack:

• Moleskine notebook, to show to myself and to others that i’m a hardcore traveller, not just some fucker on vacation
• Ballpen
• Meds
• Small shower gel/shampoo bottle
• Small quick-dry microfiber towel
• Travel brush and toothspaste (in a 10x4x1cm plastic box)
• Deo stick
• 2 bathing swimsuits, one of wich i found out to be useless
• 4 t-shirts
• 3 shorts
• 1light jacket
• 5 boxers
• 2 supermarket plastic bags
• One pair of sandals
• 3 pairs of socks
• Skater shoes
• Lock (a combination lock would have been better, the key could get lost easily)
• Beach towel
• Cellphone
• Cellphone battery recharger
• Digital camera with 2 rechargeable batteries i forgot to buy
• Batteries charger (useless since i forgot to bring rechargeable batteries, and they costed too much in Spain. For a 7 days trip you just need 4 common AA batteries, bought on site)
• SD Card (2 GB)
• Bandana (useless)
• Short-sleeved shirt
• Sleeping bag
• Jeans (useless)

Here are a couple tips for weirdos that want to hurt themselves by travelling with an Eastpak Pak’r:

• All your bathing gear and meds can be kept inside a small 20x10cm ziploc bag (those used by drug dealers, you can find it easily in any store); put it in the front pocket.
• If you bring shampoo / shower gel (and you shouldn’t, buy it there!) put it in a separate ziploc bag. Everything that may open and leak fluids on meds and clothes will magically break open during the trip, so make sure it’s separated from valuable stuff.
• No, really, the shower gel WILL leak, filling the ziploc bag and your meds and your clothes with shampoo; keep stuff that may leak separated from the rest.
• Properly fold clothes and then roll them, in this way you’ll earn valuable space and you’ll avoid wrinkles. Albeit smart and useful, i don’t recommend the OneBag wrapping system with a small, useless backpack like Eastpak Pak’r.
• Put larger clothing rolls (in my case jeans and beach towel) at the bottom, near the lower angles, to give your backpack a little more stability and weight balance. Stuff other bulky stuff at the sides, over the bottom rolls, thus creating an arc that follows the outer shape of your Eastpak Pak’r; smaller, less cumbersome stuff will easily fit inside the arc (check the following diagram):

• Eastpak Pak’r’s have useless plastic zippers, make sure you stuff the front pocket as much as you can, so that few seconds before heading to the airport it will explode and you’ll have to check-in like a bum, with your Eastpak wrapped in plastic bags and shoe laces to make sure that your useless, cheap stuff doesn’t fall to the ground. Good boy.
• Of course every night, starting from the second trip day, you’ll wash your clothes with your shower gel while taking a shower.
• To fast dry washed clothes, lay down on the floor your beach towel and lay wet clothes over it; roll the beach towel lenghtwise, keeping the clothes inside, then start twisting one end while having the other end being held by a friend or tied to a door knob. This will extract water from the clothes and they will be dry in 2-3 hours.

I hope that these tips are enough to make you stop thinking about silly stuff like travelling with an Eastpak Pak’r, consider getting something better like a mothercucking GORUCK Radio Ruck, which I learned to appreciate thanks to the awesome dude behind Pack light. Go Fast.

See you soon gringos.