Travel Tip: Packing for Longer Vacation - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Travel Tips - Packing for Longer Vacation Hi, my name is Janice Waugh and I'm known as Solo Traveler in both the Blogosphere and the Twitterverse. For long term travel it's really important to carry a backpack in my mind. When you have a backpack your hands are free and you're able to move around and be really versatile. So that to me is a really good idea. When you're packing, what goes into your backpack, it's also, it's important to keep in mind that you really don't need that much more than you do need for a short trip, for a trip of a week maybe two weeks max. So, make sure that what you put in the backpack is really versatile but don't pack too much. When I talk about versatility I'm talking about things like a camisole that can be worn for warmth as well as for dress up. Um, a scarf, uh a great white pashmina scarf, I always have my white pashmina with me. It dresses me up, protects me from the wind. It does all sorts of things. Um, for men that's a jacket. A really light rollable sports jacket. It can make you take a pair of jeans into a more fancy situation. I also, on a long term trip, I do pack a few more utility type items. A few feet of duct tape is very valuable. A Swiss army knife. A sewing kit, that can be very useful as well. Um, and ultimately before you go anywhere, pack it all in your backpack and walk around the city for a day and see whether you like the weight and whether you can handle it well. And if you can't start pulling stuff out and deciding what you can't take.