Travel Gear: Osprey Farpoint 40 Litre Backpack – RTW with hand luggage ONLY!

I read more blogs about bags before setting out on this trip than almost anything else! With my RTW ticket, I could check in 2 large suitcases, take a large hold-all and a personal item.

However, did I want to get to the airport and stand in a check-in queue or a bag-drop line? Or wait for my bag to arrive, or not arrive before setting off to see the city? Not much.

My main dread was having to hawk bags around a city, when my flight arrived in early in the morning and they wouldn’t let me check in (this has happened countless times).

More on this topic in a separate post, but I considered the Tortuga bag and the Osprey 40L.  Honestly, I went for the Osprey on price. I got a deal in the UK meaning it cost £80 including shipping.

I also picked up some compression sacks and ‘pack it’ bags to minimise space lost in the bag.

To give you an idea of the size of the bag, here it is beside my modest size 9 Nikes!

I’ll do an in depth post on this later, but you can see the bag is perfectly designed to make the most of space with compression straps.

It’s so small, no one can believe that I can fit 12 outfits (yes TWELVE outfits) into a bag this small, as well as two jackets!

Yes, that’s it – the tiny bag in the chair on the right!  That’s all my luggage for a six month trip.  Keep an eye out for how I do it and my packing list!