Clothesenclature

Notes on backpacking

Photo by SJ 📸 on Unsplash

I’ve gone back to my travel roots and am currently living out of a 46 litre backpack in Belize. The backpacking life has its highs and lows. On one hand, traveling with only 15 pounds of luggage makes it easy to move around and is liberating. On the other hand, having to rewear the same five outfits gets old after awhile, especially in 90 degree tropical heat. Regarding clothes, my totally scientific study has led me to conclude that all items can be placed into one of four distinct categories when backpacking:

1. Clean. The rarest of the four states, clean clothes only exist at the beginning of a trip or after a laundry day, when ideally everything is washed except for what the traveler is wearing. (I wear my swim trunks and my cleanest t-shirt when doing laundry to maximize the wash load.)

2. Worn. This is when an article of clothing has been worn, but other than the lack of fresh smell, might as well be clean. Food hasn’t been spilled on it and never has the article been drenched in sweat.

3. Dirty. This is the most common of the four states of clothing when backpacking. After being worn for a few days, but without a major mishap, a “worn” shirt will usually become dirty. There might be a few marks or small spills here and there. This is a shirt or a pair of pants that would never be worn normally, but when backpacking special circumstances often dictate that dirty clothes are quite serviceable.

4. Unwearable. The lowest of the low. While wearing dirty clothes is fine for a backpacker, wearing something that reaches this level is unsuitable unless your day is going to involve butchering ungulates or the world’s biggest tomato fight. At this point the item may need its own plastic bag to ensure proper containment (and to prevent possible quarantining at customs).

A few things worth noting:

1. These four classifications are only names and do not necessarily represent ordinary reality. No “clean” item can exist after three days in a backpack unless kept in a sealed Ziploc back. So even if it hasn’t been worn yet and would otherwise be considered clean, it does not fit into state 1. Due to close proximity, everything falls to at least state 2 after 72 hours in a backpack. By that point the “just washed” smell has dissipated and a general musty smell can (will) develop.

2. Different types of clothes move from one state to another at different speeds. Jeans and shorts could theoretically be worn indefinitely without ever falling from state 3 to state 4. Undershirts however, will fall from one to three quite quickly.

3. The state of an item is somewhat subjective. For me, a pair of socks moves from clean to unwearable after one day. I’d just as soon buy more socks than rewear a pair. If I wear a pair of socks for 10 minutes or less, than perhaps it can exist in the worn state, but otherswise they need to be washed.

4. It is possible to just use a sink and water and get certain items from stage 3 or even stage 4 to stage 2 in a matter of minutes. Especially for quick dry items, a hostel sink can be marvelous. If the hostel has dish soap on hand, even better. That said, getting an item to stage 1 is probably going to require professional assistance.