I want to strongly emphasize that if you take everything on this list you will be carrying too much and you will unnecessarily suffer.

You must make choices, which is difficult to do if you have never embarked on such a journey. You will want to take everything because you will be anxious and you will want to protect yourself for the "just in case" scenario. I know I did. Turn your fear around so that what you fear most is every extra gram of weight. Trust me, you are going to be great without all that stuff. You may even find that it's quite a fine way to be.

Please refer to my What to bring, What NOT to bring, and Optional Items pages if you are struggling to make a choice, or want a detailed view of why and how items may be more useful than others.

I have included all items, including those I do not recommend, because what to bring becomes subjective at some point. There are also items that are not included on those pages that appear here, such as toothbrush and toothpaste because these are items that need no explanation.

Weigh the backpack empty and everything individually before you put it in the backpack. This will enable you to gain a perspective on what items are costing you a lot of weight, and may help should you need to leave something behind, or, as in my case, send things ahead.