What to Pack - Our Favorite Items
After years of traveling around the remote corners of Nepal, there are a few things that we leave behind. These items are without a doubt our favorite things to have an any Far Xplorer adventure.
To be clear, there are wet-wipes, and there are Shower Pouches. They are by no means the same thing. A Shower Pouch is a massive and heavy-duty towel, packed in its own cleaning solution. The fabric of the towel is specifically woven to help scour away grit, grime, and heavy topicals like sunscreen and bug spray. The cleaning solution is formulated to cut body oil, lift dirt, and leave your skin feeling moisturized without feeling oily. In a word, they are - amazing. It’s not hyperbole to say we often feel cleaner after a go with a Shower Pouch than we do with a low-pressure shower.
When we say we recommend Shower Pouches, we don’t mean just any wet-wipe. We specifically mean - Shower Pouches.
Get them here: SHOWER POUCH
The Far Xplorer Shower Pouch By Back Program: We are so fond of Shower Pouches, if you bring them to Nepal and don’t use them, we’ll by them from you right on the spot.
There is never enough power available on our trips to keep thirsty mobile phone batteries topped off. While there are dozens of choices available, we prefer Dark Energy Poseidon Pro power packs. For many people, all they think about is total power reserve. In this case the Poseidon Pro packs 10,000mAh of juice, which will charge most top end phones at least 2 times. But the real key is - speed. The Poseidon Pro is quick to recharge, and quick to deliver charge to a mobile phone. This is a critical consideration. Many power banks take forever. Adding to the adventure benefits of the Dark Energy power pack, it’s waterproof, super durable, and has two USB-C ports to charge multiple devices at once. (We love these power banks so much our lead guide travels with three of them.)
Get it here: Dark Energy Poseidon Pro
Added Note: If you go with something else, just ensure the charge speed is high. We also recommend power banks from high-quality makers like Anker and NestOut, although their systems are bulky.
You have to have a water bottle on our trips. You just do. While hydration reservoir in a backpack is great for quick drinks on the motorcycle, you need something you can easily carry around, keep in a tent or hotel room, etc. On all of our trips we provide water passed through a military-grade water purifier. You just need a bottle. The Hydrapak Flux has been our go-to bottle for almost a decade. They keep getting better. You can even purchase these bottles with their own in-bottle water filter. Great for the plane, they are durable, collapsible, and extremely well made.
Get it here: Hydrapak 1-Liter Flux Bottle
This is another must-have item. Even for our hotel-based adventures, having your own towel is very nice. Not to say the hotel towels where we stay are not clean, but it’s just nice knowing your own towel is soft and clean. For people traveling on our expedition camping excursions, it’s ideal to bring two towels. Perhaps a body sized towel and a smaller face towel. For our lead guide, he often travels with - three - towels. One medium sized towel for full body use, one face towel, and one more small towel for quick wipe downs of not just body and face, but maybe the inside of a tent after a day of rain. One is an absolute minimum for any Far Xplorer trip.
Get it here: Pack Towl Personal Towel
Added note: While we are fans of this particular brand due to the compact form, excellent quality, and anti-microbial properties of the fabric, just about any travel towel will do.
There are a million varieties of packing cubes on the market these days, but we’re fans of this particular product. Available in two sizes and five colors, you don’t need much more to keep your clothing well sorted and accessible. Packing cubes, if you have not used them, are essential for keeping your clothing organized, wrinkle free, and tightly packed. If you just toss everything in a duffle, you’ll start to look like it.
Get them here: Eagle Creek Pack-it Reveal Cubes.
Added Note: Why these cubes? Some cubes are thin and fragile. This particular cube is heavy-duty, but not excessively so. The mesh keeps things visible and we have used enough cubes to know little things like quality and placement of the zippers makes a cube easy to use, or a total headache.
Travel to Nepal will always come at the risk of delayed or lost bags. More than once a traveler’s bag has made it all the way to Kathmandu, only to be misplaced in the back halls and corners of the airport. A luggage tracker can expedite the retrieval of a missing bag. We have had travelers use a tracker to learn their bag never departed the first leg of travel. They were able to quickly notify the airline to get their bag moving.
There are lots of options for trackers. Apple Airtags and Samsung SmartTag2 trackers work well, but we have had good luck with Tile products. For iPhone users, the Knog tracker is probably the best available.
Get them here: Life 360 Tile Pro Tracker