10 Bare Necessities Every Traveller Needs

Backpacker Edition

1. Guide Book: I recommend Lonely Planet guide books; they are precise, contain maps: street, city, and country, cheap to moderate places to eat and sleep, as well as things to do and see. I suggest you protect your travel guide with the same importance you protect your passport.

2. Back Pack: is easier to maneuver and carry than an awkward suit case or duffle bag thus, leaving your hands free at all time. You do not need as much clothing as you think, everything one needs can fit in a back pack.


Antigua, Guatemala

 3. First Aid Kit: I don't carry a typical first aid kit, mine consists of three main ingredients. A tiny bottle of iodine, ciprofloxacin, and Imodium/Loperamide capsules. Cipro is very powerful, so powerful that it is used to prevent anthrax infections. I use it to kill bacterial infections I may ingest from water or food. You should not buy any medicine until you get to your destination; especially, if you are going to a "less developed country" the medicine is always extremely cheaper there than in "developed" countries. Iodine is for topical use, if I get a cut or bruised.


First house/hostel where I stayed
in Barrio Martha Quezada

4. Recording Material: camera, laptop, journal, or video camera. My personal two recommendations are a journal and a DSLR. I favor the DSLR over the video camera because I can easily add photographs to my Facebook/blog/email to share with my family and friends while I am abroad.

Second, a journal because you are taking in a lot of new visual and auditory information and will forget details that you may want recall later. Who remembers that they stayed in and neighborhood called "Barrio Martha Quezada," a few years ago? I do because I recorded it in my journal... 

 5. Travel Towel: travel towels are made form a soft, synthetic, super, absorbent, lightweight fiber that dries ridiculously quick. I once found myself in a mountainous region of a Central American country during the rainy season, had I had a regular 'plush' towel, that would have taken days to dry.


Paris, France



 6. Water Proof Hiking Boots: Protection of your most important transportation vehicle is necessary. A friend of mine and I hiked up Mount Pacaya and she wore sandals; needless to say the tiny volcanic rock irritated her feet. Your hiking boots should be lightweight, breathable, and waterproof.

7. Photocopies of your Passport and Drivers License: Incase your passport is ever stolen; like mine was, the photocopy allows you to easily visit an embassy or consulate of your home country to obtain travel documents. I recommend having two copies of each document and keeping them in seprate places.

8. Money Belt: The money belt is carried under your clothes and hidden from pesky pick pocketers. I also recommend carrying your passport in your money belt when you cannot find a safe place to keep it.

(L-R)Euros, Guyanese Dollar,
 Guatemalian Quetzales, money belt.

 Most money belts aren't water proof so, put your passport in a zip lock bag then place it in your money belt so when you get caught in the rain your passport does not incur water damage.

Never take out your money belt in public or carry all your money in one place. Carry a visa card for emergency.

9. Willingness to Bargain: for everything! even set prices you that are listed. Always remember that there is a tourist price and a local price. The willingness to bargain, walk away if you feel you are being cheated, and shop around will save you a lot of money.

10. Positive/Adventurous/Respectful-Friendly/Security-Conscious Attitude: Your attitude is your number one and most important tool as a traveller. Having a positive and adventurous attitude make a great travel. Take for example, pick pocketers once tried to steal from me when I travelled on a bus over night, had I allowed that one experience to taint my adventures, I would be afraid to go places and have fun. Security consciousness is important; you should memorize/write down or take pics of locations, faces, places, street name etc. I carry a pocket knife but the only thing I had to use it for was to cut fruits so far. Finally, being respectful of other's people culture and being friendly, by attempting to speak their language; therefore, sub-communicating that you are aware you are in their world and they are not in yours could mean the difference between someone helping or attacking you.



American man trains dog to bite John Oliver (Nicaragua)



Dan & John Oliver (Granada, Nicaragua)

 On a warm January afternoon in Nicaragua, I slipped into my white shirt, blue jeans, and slippers then headed onto a strip of colorful buildings consisting of rustic looking restaurants built around court yards and 4 star hotels. I had gathered, earlier that day when I visited the strip for breakfast was that the businesses are owned by foreigners and wealthy Nicaraguans. The proprietors catered to tourist: serving up some of the best mojitos and pancakes I ate in Central America thus far.

One of the most notable characters, my travel mate Dan and I met that day was John Oliver. After breakfast John came up to me and introduced himself as an artist. He showed me some painted tiles and a small canvas painting, some water colors, brushes, and then asked for a donation of $2 USD to purchase some more tiles. I gave him $1 and tried to hurry him along because I did not want to be bothered.

I've become so crafty at (not) dealing with street vendors and panhandlers in others countries that I can sometimes repel them form a mile away. Approximately 10% of the time when I am overseas, I don't want be or asked for money, so I derived tips and tricks to repel them. Take for example: I sometimes give away candy, gum instead or a mean face and closed off body language which leads to them leaving me alone.

Don't let any world traveller tell that they are 100% ‘Good Samaritan,’ and that they care about every "native" they encounter; therefore, they are always diplomatic with vendors, panhandlers, and proprietors. I have met many of my fellow travellers form as far as Israel to New Zealand and many of us who reside in "first world" countries go to the "3rd world" with our fancy iPods, cameras, Euros, dollars, cameras, and romanticize the notion of what it is to be a native. We pat the street children on the head, give them a dollar, share our food with the homeless, smile at pretty ladies, and then return to our countries feeling like humanitarians.  Many of us rarely bring anything (presents, service, goods, knowledge etc...) but instead like colonialist we go there to extract i.e. exotic photographs, money, goods, new experiences, food, sex toruism, clothing, drink, and art.

Moreover, even philanthropist from first world countries who dedicate their lives to building a better world must understand that we bring our prejudiced historical, political, social, and gendered perspectives to interpret the lives of "the natives." I use the word native being fully aware that the term itself is politically charged. Some of us are so horrible at it, that we examine the culture we are visiting in explicit orientalist fashion.

Anyways, that evening when I returned to a one of the restaurants for drinks, this one in particular was owned by a young American business man who paraded the property with his friendly looking terrier. As sat in a comfortable wooden chair with my feet up and drinking; John Oliver came up and sat on the curb directly in front of me.

J.O. "Yo dread where you from?"

Ade: "I live in the U.S." where are you from? [Asking because he was the first black person I saw in Nicaragua]

J.O: "I am from the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua."

John then takes out some of his art work, without warning the business owner's faithful terrier rushed at John and bit him on the left arm. Shocked, john jumped to his feet. I looked at John and asked him "are you ok!?" He did not respond. Hey your dog just bit him," I said to the American business owner, yes I saw...he always come to the restaurant begging customers.

A bit confused, I turned back to John and asked again:

Are you ok?!? "Yes," he replied. "Look at my leg," John raised his pant leg a bit, exposing a large scar on his left ankle. "He trained the dog to bite me, look what it did to my ankle."