Hiking Bag with Rain Cover
When hiking, your bag is considered as your life. All the necessary things for hiking survival should be in your bag. Travel light as much as possible to make the hiking easier and comfortable for you. Don’t bring unnecessary things, this will just make your bag heavy and lose pace and strength along the way. There are great hiking bag with weight suspension features. I recommend Osprey, it’s feels lighter when you carry it even if you put in so much inside the bag. Below is the photo of the essential things I put inside my Osprey backpack, excluding clothes and food.
Tent and Sleeping Bag
You really don’t want to sleep in the mud, grass or in the cold, would you? So don’t forget to bring tent and sleeping bag with you to have at least comfortable sleep and will keep you at least from the cold weather. I recommend the super ultralight Naturehike tent. Its spacious enough for single person and can withstand strong rains and features a great waterproofing.
Foods, Trail Food, Water
Avoid too many canned goods because it will only make your luggage heavy. Mountaineers will bring enough rice, viand that will last longer like adobo, binagoongan, and noodles. Bring trail foods too like jellyace or chocolates for energy boosting. And water is important too. You can bring waterbottle or a bladder water that you can attach in your bag. Most hiking bags has this feature.
Quick Dry Clothes
Don’t bring too many clothes. Choose lightweight clothing, you can wear shorts instead of pants and use arm and leg sleeves. Quick dry materials can easily be folded and only used a small space inside your bag. A fleece jacket or wind breaker is important too. This can help you keep warm during cold nights.
To make 2 pairs of clothing used in a couple of days, you can wash used clothes and then dry it. Trek pants and silk clothes dry easily. Climbing forest with a high level of difficulty, you should wear a light trek pants and long sleeve tops to keep you away from mosquitoes, leeches and scratches from tall grasses. These are essential depending on the location you will visit.
Foot Wear
Choose the best hiking shoes since it will bring you to places and mountains, its good to invest in foot wear too. Choose the comfortable one, the lightest and quick drying shoes. I recommend Merrell Outdoor brand, they are study and efficient. Choose the mesh materials so it dries quick when you go river trekking.
Swiss Army Knife
An ordinary little knife will do if you don’t have a swiss army knife. You’ll need this in the mountain. This is very useful. It can be used as can or bottle opener and etc. When passing through the airport, you should place it in your checked luggage so that it won’t be confiscated in airport security.
First Aid Kit
Being ready is important so first aid kit should be included in your bag. Basic medicines for headache, wounds, cuts, and burns, as these might happen during your hike and it is better to be prepared than sorry.
Torch Light or Head Lamp
Very useful especially for night trekking. There are many options to choose and I would recommend the rechargeable one and the led lights which gives more brighter light.
Camera/Mobile Phone
Picture taking is always present in travel time. All of us wants a souvenir before leaving the place and pictures are the perfect ones. When hiking, I have tried to bring a DSLR. The photos are superb nice but DSLR is a little heavy and can be hassle to bring specially when ascending the mountain. There are new models with lightweight feature. But a great mobile phone will do. 2 in one, photos and contact for emergency.
