Travel Toiletry Bag

At all times I keep a travel toiletry bag in my backpack, as well as a full change of clothes (shirt, pants, underwear and socks) so that if I'm ever stuck somewhere, I'm fine. For the main consumables (toothpaste, floss, deodorant, body/hand soap, laundry soap), the goal is to have a full month's worth, plus some "just in case" extras.

I'll list things off, starting with items that need no explanation.

Travel toothpaste and floss. Small, quality travel nail clippers and tweezers. Small mirror (mine is 6X8cm and came with the travel toiletry bag). A few individually-packaged wet wipes. Tip - I actually use old travel floss containers and re-wind them with about double to tripple the amount of floss they come with.

Toiletry bag: Forclaz ultralight toiletry bag, weighing just 43g. Could you use a ziplock bag? Sure, but this has a few nice features. For one, there are three compartments for organization. Second, it has a strap to hold it rolled up, or to hang it from a towel rack or something to keep it off a wet, gross counter (ever needed to wash up in a gas station bathroom, or a shared bathroom in a hostel? Yuck). Third, the pockets are mesh, so stuff will dry in them (unlike a ziplock, which is mildew and bacteria heaven) and you can see what's in each compartment. And it's just $18. Here's the link.

GUM Folding Travel Toothbrush: These are the best. They are super light weight. They fold into the handle, which a lot of others do, but with these the handle keeps them clean while also having small slits to allow the brush to dry while folded. I haven't seen another travel toothbrush that both protects and allows for drying of the brush the way this design does. Also, these toothbrushes are completely strong and solid when unfolded, which a lot of other travel toothbrushes suck at. And they're a full-size, proper brush head, not a tiny brush with flimsy bristles. Here's the Amazon link.

Mini Crystal Deodorant: The mini, travel version of the one I use at home. Despite being small, this little deodorant will last months. This is not an antiperspirant. It leaves zero residue, to the point you wonder if you even applied anything at all. No scent at all, either. Here's the link.

Sea to Summit Pocket Hand Wash Leaves: These are paper-thin soap sheets about 4X5 cm in a tiny, lightweight container with 50 "leaves" per container. You can actually get two containers and stuff annother 30 leaves from one into the other to get 80 total at 16g. These are quite overkill for hands - a surprising amount of lather. I have had a quick, basic "pits and bits" shower using just three of these. Though I could get away with using just one for my head due to my short hair. If you have longer hair, there is also shampoo in the same format. Here's the Amazon link to a product that looks the same but is cheaper.

WysiWipes: There are tough, biodegradeable toilet paper sheets (actually almost a kind of fabric) that are shmushed into tiny "tablets". Add a few drops of water and they expand into decently large and useable toilet paper. Or they can be used for other things like as a face cloth or cleaning rag or something. It doesn't just instantly shred or turn to goo when wet. I have a small tube that holds baker's dozen (13). Always nice to have a backup when you've already done your business before realizing the roll is empty. Here's the Amazon link.

Laundry Kit: A 13L Sea to Summit ultralight dry bag. Here's the Amazon link. A "dry bag" has a roll-over top to seal it (pretty well) against water, so anything packed inside stays dry even if dropped in a lake. These make excellent, fairly odor-proof dirty laundry bags, and this one, on my scale, weighs a scant 43g. Not only that, once you've tossed in your dirty outfit, toss is about 1/4 to 1/3 of a half of a laundry sheet (I use Tru Earth laundry sheets, and keep 8 or so half-sheets in a ziplock bag, giving me about 24 - 32 washes).

Fill it around half way with water (not full, you need shlosh room), roll over the top, put it on the bathroom counter and shlosh it back and forth with your hands alternately pressing down on it, turning it regularly, for around 10 min. Then, keeping the opening pinched enough to not let the clothes out, unroll the end and dump the water out, rolling a pressing out the extra water while the clothese are still in the bag. Then, add clean water, shlosh for a few mins, empty, and rinse again if you want.

Then, once you've wrung out each item as best you can, use a Sea to Summit clothesline to hang them up. This clothesline packs into it's own tiny case, and uses beads as clothes pegs to hold items (or just drape them over the line). It has small hooks at each end to wrap around anything from branches to whatever you can find in your hotel room (the hooks hook back onto the line itself once wrapped around whatever is supporting it), plus a small slider to tighten it up once tied on. Here's the Amazon link.

Note that having quick-drying clothing really helps with this method (my clothing selections for my backup set are listed below). But with just a single spare set of clothes it means you can wear one set of clothes while the other set is washed and hung up to dry, meaning you have clean clothes every day as long as you have water and laundry soap sheets. 8 laundry sheets, using 1/4 to 1/3 of one per wash, means I can wear clean clothes every day for a month. These pack down to nothing and weigh just 17g in their ziplock bag.

Towel: While everything above fits into the travel toiletries bag, the one thing that rides separate is a travel towel. I got the Matador large nanofiber travel towel. It weighs just 81g (both advertised and on my own scale), and is 120 X 60cm but folds small enough to fit in your jeans pocket. It's not plush and luxurious, and you'll pretty much soak the whole thing when drying off, but it does the trick and dries amazingly fast. Here's the Amazon link.

Hair and Beard Trimmer: This is the one item I don't keep at all times in my backpack because it's not really an essential. With my hair and beard being super short to begin with, I don't get too scraggly in a month. But if I know I'll be gone for a week or more, I'll pack it along. I went with a Stylecraft "Ace" battery-powered hair and beard trimmer. It's super tiny - 16cm long, the handle is just 3cm thick, with a 4.5cm width head for good coverage, lasts 3hrs per charge, and weighs just 140g. It is one of the only hair and beard trimmers I've found that can be easily added to my small travel toiletries bag. Most are too big. The picture shows the Ace in the middle with normal-size razors on either side. Here's the Amazon link.

Clothes in Vacuum bag:

It's nice to know you always have a full change of clothes when you're away from home, especially if you don't live close by. E.g. this kit came in useful the day I splattered myself with food at lunch time at work! By choosing ultralight clothing, and vacuum sealing it, I can slide this into a pocket in my backpack and forget it's there until I need it. Vacuum sealing it not only makes it super compact, it also means it's waterproof.

I use one of the same shirts I always use (see the "personal uniform" section), which is already super light and extremely fast drying. I normally wear Manmade underwear, which is thicker than what I pack in the vacuum bag, but still very quick-drying. For socks, I like medium-weight Darn Tough socks. Not super fast drying, but still easily dry in under a day, maybe around 16hrs (lots of variables - how thick the socks you buy are, and also they're obviously going to take much longer on a cold, rainy winter day than a hot summer day, but they'll usually dry in under a day. See sock drying tips at the end).

For the vacuum bag I got Uniqlo AIRsim boxers. These are super light weight (48g compared to at least 90g for most lightweigh boxers) and they dry super fast. They're also extremely breathable. Here's the Amazon link.

For socks, I got the Darn Tough Men's Run 1/4 Ultra-Lightweight with Cushion Sock (Style 1040), which weigh about 60g per pair. Here's the Amazon link.

For pants, I got the MEC Tech pants, which are just plain black pants weighing 210g. Around half the weight of most simple, light pants. Here's the MEC link.

Sock Drying Tips: If you're buying socks for camping or that will do double duty as daily socks plus camping/travel/earthquake socks, the Darn Tough merino socks are awesome. Get a lighter-weight hiking sock. In the winter, if you want more warmth, I would recommend wearing two pairs of socks - one pair as a liner and the other pair for warmth, that way you usually only have to wash the liner, which will dry much quicker. Being merino, they don't stink even after a few days of wearing them, and the warm outter sock will probably go a week or more without needing a wash. After washing, wring them out well before hanging, preferably using something that can wick more water out of them like a towel or something. If you have ziplock bags or a narrow water bottle, you can fill these with hot water inside the sock to help it dry quicker. You can also sleep with them next to you and your body heat will help dry them, though only do this if you're nice and toasty warm, as this will suck some body heat. Worst case, they're still warm when wet so even if they aren't totally dry it's not a huge deal usually.