Lowe Alpine Vision 25 Backpack.
Customized by carefully cutting off nifty doodads like ice axe hooks, extra loops, and all other non-essential crap. Then retrofitted with a Platypus water bladder and sucker tube attached to the left shoulder harness.
Travel Related
Passport hang from neck inside my shirt pouch thingy.
Passport
Plane tickets
Eurorail passes
Maps
Itinerary
Money
US Dollars - Enough for travel & food to/from airport
Small limit credit card - General use - NRA Visa
Big limit credit card - Emergency use - Car & Driver Mastercard
AT&T Calling card
Computer
Palm IIIx
Palm Modem
RJ-11 phone cord
Clothes
North Face packable pants.
Ex Officio pine green Amphi pants.
Ex Officio hunter green expedition shirt.
Coolmax long sleeve undershirt
Coolmax long underwear bottoms
1 pair Smartwool Hiker socks
1 pair Smartwool light hiker socks
2 pair coolmax socks
3 pair coolmax underwear
Travel Accessories
Sunglasses
Camera with fresh battery
Film
MiniMaglite with fresh battery
Pocketknife
Sony MiniDV camcorder
Fully charged battery
Fully charged spare battery
6 empty tapes
Toiletries - All items fit in 7 x 4 x 2.5" travel case
Travel toilet paper roll
Body wash
Shampoo
Shave cream
razor
Chapstick
toothbrush
toothpaste
nail clippers
anti-perspirant
sominex
Immodium AD
Sudafed
rubber bands (for braces)
clear seal bandaids
Food
1# bag of almonds
Box of 24 granola bars
How well did all this work out you wonder? It just so happened that it worked out very well. I had nearly everything I needed and used nearly everything I took along. The backpack was the perfect size (just small enough to fit carry-on but large enough to hold everything), the platypus I retrofitted it with worked like a champ, and the pack was fairly comfortable. It doesn't carry weight nearly as well as my beloved Mountainsmith Mountainlight but it did the job.
One thing I forgot and sorely missed was a compass. Often finding street names was a real challenge and then once you find them you have to walk a block or two to get your bearings. Having a compass makes map reading and navigation much easier. I ended up buying one in Amsterdam and then losing it a few days later. :-(
Other than the food, the things I carried and didn't use were all in the clothing department. I have a pair of North Face packable pants that I've worn on many occasions and have come to rely on them. They can be worn comfortably for days or weeks without showing signs of filth. My old pair is a tried and true battle scarred friend in whom I love and trust but they're showing signs of sitting too close to campfires and are starting to get a little too much on the broken in side. I bought a new pair that I intended to for the full two weeks.
Later Lyn ended up buying a pair of similarly colored ones and we didn't want to look too "cutesy" so I shopped around for a pair of darker colored ones. While at a mall north of Deerfield Indiana we found an outdoor store and they happened to have a pair of Ex Officio Amphi pants. They had them in the right size and color so I tried them on and they seemed very comfortable so I bought them. However, I just couldn't rush off to Europe with a new pair of pants that hadn't been proven so I carried along my North Face pants just in case. Ladies and Gentleman, I'm pleased to report that the Ex Officio pants are absolutely fantastic, even better than the North Face britches that I like so much. What makes them so wonderful? Glad you asked.
Like their North Face brethren, the Ex Officio pants are made of 100% nylon. There are plenty of other pants out there made of 100% nylon but when you compare them, the weave, the brushing, and the fabric density, and other features of these two brands of pants are just plain better. Ex Officio calls their fabric Nycott and it's a very comfortable nylon with Teflon impregnated in the material. This makes them pretty impervious to food spills and other disasters that would require a fresh pair of jeans (or a washer). So, the fabric is great but that alone doesn't make a great pair of pants. They are cut very well so that they don't bind you up. They also have a zippered AND velcro essentials pocket on the left leg (the NF only have velcro). The nylon belt is sewn onto the loops so it doesn't run around but that means you can't hook accessories like camera pouches onto it. Oh well, you can't do that anyway when you have a pack on. In addition to having a velcro jean style change pocket, the bottoms of the right pocket also had ribs. When your pocket is full of change, the ribs keep the change from swinging around, jingling, and eventually irritating your leg. Oh yeah, last great feature. They have built in underwear. Guys, you're going to like this, ladies will likely want to skip the next paragraph. Big deal you say, I have shorts with built in underwear and they aren't that great. Well, you're right. Most built in underwear in clothes serve their purpose (keeping us from jostling around too much) but that's about all they accomplish. Well, these ones are webbed so you stay nice and cool and most importantly, they're cut properly so that when you go visit the mens room (or a tree) you simply unzip and voila. No fishing around through layers of poorly designed brief pouches, just reach right in and get down to business.
Because the fabric of the pants doesn't absorb, you can slop food into your lap and simply brush it off. When talking to a lady on the plane home from Paris she couldn't believe I was wearing the same pants I had worn during the previous two weeks. They are magnificent trousers. The only feature they don't have that my North Face pants have is reinforced knees. The reinforcing isn't such a big deal but it's nice to have a little extra padding on the knees. Anyway, I give the Ex Officio pants a hearty two thumbs up.
Because of the change from NF to EO pants, I didn't end up wearing the underwear that I had packed. I also didn't wear the long underwear bottoms but had we stayed in Sweden very long I think I would have. Lastly was the coolmax socks. Although they're great in running shoes, they just don't do the trick in hiking boots. I wore the Smartwool socks almost exclusively, washing them periodically in hotel sinks. I'd rather have had three pair of smart wools and left the other socks at home.