Equipment

I  II  III  IV  V  VI  VII  VIII

The backpack The tent The sleeping bag, the mattress The camera The clothes, boots Cooking equipment Useful equipment Summary

I The backpack

Very important because I will carry it almost every day. A backpack for a world trip is a complicated thing : I need enough place for all my stuff but at the same time my bag mustn't be too heavy. Finally, I will probably bring fewer belongings than for two-week vacation ! I need light and technical equipments, that are unfortunately often expensive...

I eventually chose a 65 liter backpack, designed by Decathlon (Forclaz 65 Symbium 3).
Its assets are numerous :
- This backpack can split into two bags : one of 55L and one of 10L. The small one of 10L will be useful when I will be visiting a city, without my huge backpack.
- You can open this backpack very largely, in order to find everything without emptying totally the bag.
- This backpack was designed to accept a "Camelbak", in order to store water.
- Very confortable and practical, with big lateral pockets, that you can reach easily when you have your backpack on.
- Waterproof protection, for the backpack and the poor carrier, is included in this backpack.

 II The tent

I chose a tent for two people, the "T2 Ultralight". It weighs only 2,9 kg and has enough place to shelter myself and my backpack. You will find below the first try to install this tent in the appartment in Paris. That was funny !

III The sleeping bag, the matress

My sleeping bag is made of feather and is really warm. Inside this sleeping bag, the confort limit is - 3°C and you are likely to die under -18°C. Its weigh is only 1kg and it can compressed to save space. In order to avoid to wash this sleeping bag, I will use another small sleeping bag, made of silk.

I chose a classical matress, which is only 1,20 meter long. One more time time, the reason of the size is the same : save space and weigh !

I will also carry a survival blanket, which can protect from very low temperature, or be used as an insulating material for the ground in the tent.

IV The camera

Very important, if I want to share my adventure. I chose a digital camera which is using common batteries (AA or LR6). I finally decided to use a small solar panel to load these batteries. If you want more details, have a look on "useful equipment".

Here is my digital camera, the Casio Exilim EX-Z110 :


I will use two memory cards (1,25 Go at all), which allow me to take more than 1000 pics, with a resolution of 3Mo (500-600 Ko for each picture).

As I want to upload regularly my pics on this blog from Internet cafés, I bought a device which looks like a flash disk but which is not really a flash disk. In this strange flash disk, you can put you SD memory cards. Then, you just need to plug your "flash disk", like a common USB key,  to get the pictures.

V Clothes

I will buy what I need directly in the countries where I will go through.

However, I'm leaving with :
- Gloves for very low temperature.
- 4 pairs of sockets (no cotton, 100% of plastic material), which dry quickly and should prevent blisters.
- 4 tee-shirts, which fight effectively the sweat (made of polyamid, polyester and polypropylen for those who like polymer chemie.).
- 1 pair of boots Windtex (almost like Gore Tex, but less expensive).
- One jacket Gore Tex.
- One small polar wear.
- One polar wear.
- A headband, which can be used as a scarf, chech as well as pirate eye patch.

VI Cooking equipment

I didn't bring so much things, as I will ask as often as possible the hospitality where I go. Here are some details : 
- One saucepan, which can be also a pan and a plate.
- A very useful device which includes at the time a fork, knife, spoon, can opener and bottle opener.
- A pocket heating system, which uses some solid pellets.

VII Useful equipment

- A head torch. With 3 batteries AAA, you can light up during 120 hours.
- A special towel, which dries very quickly.
- Sun glasses.
- Spectacles.
- A mosquito net (against the mosquitos, sorry for my English).
- A solar panel that you can put on your backpack. I will use it to load my batteries for my camera. Before discovering this solar panel, I had two options. Either buy very regularly common batteries, or bring with me a charger, with all the different plugs that I will meet around the world. I wasn't satisfied with these two options. I finally found out this solar panel in a specialized shop (le Vieux Campeur, in Paris), for 50€. It was expensive, but I wanted to calculate the annual budget for common batteries. In France, 4 batteries AA cost 5 Euros. With these 4 batteries, I can take pics during ten days in a row. I will be travelling around 350 days, so it makes a budget of 35 x 5 = 175 euros. The factor between these two options is 3,5 , not so far from the famous "Factor 4" (cf the report from the Roma Club, which published some times ago The Limits to Growth). Last but not least, this device is environmentaly friendly. I had to buy it !  

VIII Summary

What ?	Weigh (gramms)	Price (in Euros)
Backpack Forclaz 65 Symbium 3 (Décathlon)	3500	135
Tent T2 Ultralight (Décathlon)	2900	85
Sleeping bag (InterSport)	1000	150
Matress	560	/
Small sleeping bag in silk (Décathlon)	140	25
Kamelbak 3L (Au Vieux Campeur)	3000	36
Survival blanket (Décathlon)	200	5
Digital camera Casio EX-Z110 (FNAC)	200	270
Memory Card SD 256 Mo et 1Go (FNAC)	/	55
USB key for SD cards (FNAC)	26	19
Gloves (InterSport)	150	25
4 Pairs of sockets (Décathlon)	280	38
4 Tee-shirts (Décathlon)	470	100
Swim suit	80	/
Boots Windtex (specialized shop, Villard de Lans)	/	50
Polar wear	415	/
Small polar wear (specialized shop, Villard de Lans)	180	15
Gore Tex jacket	900	140
Mosquito net	180	29
A head torch (Décathlon)	75	/
Solar Panel	200	50
Towel	60	/
Fork - knife - spoon	145	/
Pocket heating system + 60 pellets	485	15
TOTAL	15,15 kg	1242 €

I tried not to buy everything at the same time. My family also offered me some useful device for this world trip. Thanks again for that !