For Americans, especially, the travel is a better value than it has been in ages. Why? The dollar is really, really strong right now, compared to lots of other places. That makes your budget stretch that much further. Places, like Canada, that were previously comparable in cost, are now like getting 40% more for every dollar you spend, and price tags on hotel rooms and meals haven’t leapt up to compensate for the currency drop.

The Euro is still strong and there are value destinations for European travelers this year too. Even Australia and Canada, where the dollars have taken a big slide this year, still stack up very well compared to places like Argentina and Kazakhstan. If you’re willing to get creative, you can take some amazing trips on a shoe string budget this year, or plan an entire RTW itinerary based on the places that your dollar stretches the furthest.

Here are some of the unexpected places that are a great value this year:

Canada

There is no better time for Americans Europeans to visit Canada than now. With better than a 40% exchange rate, Canada becomes a first world budget destination. Cheap flights from major European cities to Toronto and Montreal make it almost worth a long weekend getaway.

You read that right: The entire country of Canada is like a 40% off sale.

What does that mean? Here are some examples of average prices, converted:

Average price of Hotel in Vancouver, CA = $123.95 = $85.51 USD
Average price of Hostel in Vancouver, CA = $27.81= $19.85 USD

Average price of Hotel in Montreal, CA = $115.37 = $82.41 USD
Average price of Hostel in Montreal, CA = $22.38 = $15.99 USD

There are more than 10 reasons to visit Canada now. It’s home to some of the best skiing in the world, in the Rocky Mountains, at Banff. See the polar bears, at Churchill, and some of the greatest falls of them all, at Niagara. Feel the old world charm of the country’s European roots in Quebec City, or dive even deeper into the indigenous history of Canada through the world class museums in Vancouver, Toronto (it’s cooler than you think) and Ottawa. Discover indie travel in Canada for just $60 a day!

Kazakhstan

In August, the Tenge plummeted against the Euro when crude oil prices dropped and the government introduced a free floating exchange policy. Overnight, Kazakstan became a budget destination for Europeans. The KZT has continued to lose value against the EUR and it looks “good” for travel values into 2016.

Kazakhstan isn’t a country that’s on most people’s travel radar. Why? Because it isn’t easy and the tourism industry is emerging. Roughly five times the size of France, but with only about 17 million people, it’s a country of contrasts. The people are highly educated (this is where the Russians blasted their rockets from) and yet the infrastructure is slow to develop. Discover how you can travel independently in Kazakhstan for $50 USD a day.

Nepal

It’s been a rough year for Nepal, with devastating earthquakes, followed by a barricade that is keeping fuel out of the country along the border with India. Prices for travelers with US Dollars are low, low, low and make this awesome destination even more of a bargain than normal.

This is a great time to show your support by spending your travel dollars into the economy in sustainable ways. Add Nepal to your travel itinerary for 2016.

Burma

Burma is back. It has become a hot destination over the past couple of years. As the political situation stabilizes and Burma begins to open its doors to the world, the intrepid are heading there before it becomes a standard stop of the Southeast Asia tourist trail. The Australian dollar is worth more this December than it was at the same time last year, giving travelers one more reason add it to their trips.

Of course the American Dollar is still widely used alongside local currency. If you decide to take greenbacks, make sure that they are as close to pristine condition as possible. If you’re in Southeast Asia already, Cambodia is a good place to stock up, as the ATMs there dish out USD upon request. Clean $1 bills are preferred.

It’s easy enough to travel in Burma for $45 a day, and at that price it will be hard not to fall in love with it. If you’re captivated by Burma, then perhaps you want to look into how to plan an extended trip in Southeast Asia and spend a few months exploring the rest of the region as well.

Most Popular Videos:

19 London cliches in less than four hours

Rolf and cameraman Justin take a whirlwind tour of London, on their three-and-a-half hour layover, included spotting and participating in as many London cliches as possible.

Rolling retro-style (and doing laundry) in Paris

Rolf spent 36 hours in Paris catching up on blog entries, shooting a video demonstrating his laundry routine, and touring familiar Paris sites in a vintage Citroën 2CV, before catching an EasyJet flight to Madrid.

Tapas for ignoramuses: Madrid in 9 dishes and 7 drinks

Rolf experiences Madrid through tapas — in 9 dishes and 7 drinks.

The wrong town in Morocco

After crossing the Straits of Gibraltar to Tangier, Morocco, a ‘lost in translation’ taxi ride to the nearby city of Tetouan (instead of the intended Chefchaouen), proves to be an amusing afternoon in the souks.

In Fes: Walk until the day becomes interesting

“My approach to exploring Fes was an old travel strategy I like to call “Walk Until the Day Becomes Interesting”: Instead of starting out with a list of goals or attractions for a given destination, I opt instead to find an intriguing neighborhood and wander around until something catches my eye. In this way, my instincts become my guidebook — and it can be fun to see what happens (good and bad).” –Rolf

Embracing my inner tourist at Giza

Rolf headed to Egypt to embrace his inner tourist at Giza — including one camel ride from the most spectacularly persuasive and devious tout Rolf has ever met in all his years of travel.

An Egyptian hard-razor shave (in 21 easy steps)

After a hectic day in Cairo, Rolf gets stops into a local shop for an Egyptian straight-razor shave [in 21 easy steps].

The Same River Twice: Bangkok in Three Acts

Rolf ended up staying three nights in Bangkok.

Exploring the laws of physics in New Zealand

Rolf arrives in New Zealand for a few days of Kiwi-style adventure.

Most Popular Pre-Trip Videos

How to pack for a round-the-world trip with no luggage

Rolf reviews the clothes he’s bringing on the trip.

No Baggage Challenge: Introduction

Rolf introduces the No Baggage Challenge.

“I’m thrilled to have completed it. The journey sparked my imagination — not only in the traveling-light sense, but also in its reminder of how many amazing places there are out there to experience (and re-experience).” –Rolf

Didn’t catch it all the first time around? Check out all of the videos from the No Baggage Challenge.

So what was your favorite video from the No Baggage Challenge?

The no-baggage journey is complete! After six weeks and more than 30,000 miles on five continents, I’ve come full-circle to New York — and be honest, it feels kind of surreal. I didn’t pack many items for the journey, but I did manage to pack in a lot of experiences — so many that I feel like I’ve been gone a lot more than a month and a half. I feel both happy and tired (and I’d reckon my exhaustion has less to do with my lack of luggage than the fact that the world is a big place to cover in such a short time).

The final week of the journey went by quickly: After indulging in all manner of thrill sports in New Zealand, I flew across the Pacific Ocean to Los Angeles — and from there had just a few days to cross the North American continent. This leg of the journey ended up being pretty utilitarian: Justin and I hunkered down at the Circus Circus Casino in Las Vegas and edited videos for a couple days before flying on to New York.

Before I started this trip I wondered how light I could pack, and I wondered which items might be essential to the enjoyment of other countries. As it turned out, I didn’t require much — the less I took, the less I had to worry about, and the less slowed me down. As my videos and posts from recent weeks attest, I managed to have a lot of great experiences over the course of my journey, and I rarely found myself wishing I’d brought more things. All too often, I think, we pack a bunch of “just in case” items when packing for a journey (be it around the world or to the corner grocery store), and most all of these “just in case” items are either available on the road, or not necessary in the first place. We also tend to pack unnecessary things because certain items feed into our psychic “bubble of comfort” — a kind of half-hearted attempt to bring home with us — when in fact not much is required, in the material sense, to enjoy a great time on the road.

Once I got into a travel rhythm, the no-baggage aspect of the trip was pretty simple. Two-a-day showers kept me as clean as I’ve ever been on the road, and daily clothes-washings (of my socks, underwear, and t-shirt) kept my wardrobe fresh and odor free. In fact, one of the reasons I started doing these weekly field reports is to have a pretext to comment on the no-baggage aspect of the trip — since it became apparent quite early that not having luggage wasn’t going to add a lot of drama or complication to my day-to-day activities (which meant, happily, that I could focus my journey on the joys of travel instead of the idiosyncrasies of packing light).

So does this mean I’ll spend the rest of my life traveling without bags? Probably not — bags do serve a purpose, they make some aspects of a journey easier, and one can still travel ultra-light while carrying a small bag. Moreover, the No Baggage Challenge was an experiment in traveling light — not an edict that luggage-free travel is a universally superior way to go. That said, I’ll probably continue to experiment with no-luggage travel — if nothing else because it’s fun and liberating and not all that hard to do. I encourage everyone who’s been following this journey to try their own personal no-luggage and/or ultra-light travel field tests.

In field report #4 (as well as in the video above) I boiled down my no-baggage travel-kit to what I felt were the bare-essential non-clothing items: toothbrush/toothpaste, small bottle of liquid soap, small tube of sunscreen, iPod or iPhone (and charger), deodorant, sunglasses, ball-cap, passport, cash/credit card, and emergency cash. (I also packed glasses and contact solution — though not everyone shares my mediocre eyesight; in total I carried less than 4 pounds of gear, including spare clothing.) Since I’ve already touched on gear in previous reports, I’ll take a look now how my travel clothing performed.

It’s no accident that I approached ScotteVest as a clothing sponsor when I first dreamed up this journey: SeV makes good-looking, quick-drying, high-performance travel gear that features lots of ingeniously designed pockets; I can think of no clothing line better suited to the rigors of a no-baggage journey. Since ScotteVest was basically agreeing to have me test their gear in intensive, public, real-time travel situations for six weeks straight — to effectively pummel their clothing through safaris and airport screenings and Kiwi canyon-dives, often on video, for 42 consecutive days — their investment bore no small element of risk. Happily for both ScotteVest and me, my SeV wardrobe performed brilliantly. Here’s my take on each item from my wardrobe (including a few non-SeV items):

ScotteVest Tropical Vest/Jacket: This was the key item in my round-the-world wardrobe — it’s essentially why my no-baggage aspect of my journey ended up being so painless — and it ranks among the most useful items of travel clothing I’ve ever owned. I almost didn’t pack this (I was strongly favoring the standard Travel Vest), but SeV CEO Scott Jordan talked me into bringing this at the last moment. I’m glad he did, since the zip-on/off sleeves made it versatile from climate to climate, and the vented, lightweight design performed well in hot weather. The truest asset of this jacket/vest, of course, was the pocket design: I was able to bring my entire no-baggage trip-gear in its 18 (mainly interior) pockets, without looking overloaded (watch the videos for proof of this) or feeling lumpy or lopsided. The no-baggage journey might have been possible without this jacket, but it certainly wouldn’t have been as easy.

ScotteVest Performance Tees and Q-Zip pullover: I was a fan of the Q-Zip before the trip began, for essentially vain reasons (I like the way they look) — but consistently warm weather on my itinerary meant that the Performance Tees bore the brunt of my journey. I rotated a black one and an olive one, wearing one or the other every day of the trip. Early on I expressed concern that the polyester fabric might not resist odor over the long haul (this was based on a good-looking but poor-performing polyester Starter shirt I once owned) — but this fear never bore out. Daily washings, combined with quality SeV design, kept the shirts largely odor-free for the duration of the trip (and, while many readers have recommended merino wool as an odor-resistant alternative to poly, I’d still recommend daily washings, be it poly or wool, in the simple interest of not being gross). Odor-performance is, in fact, a big reason I went nightclubbing in Thailand, four weeks into the journey: I don’t typically seek out nightclubs (I’m more of a dive-bar guy), but I was so tired of people assuming that “no-bags = unbearable stench” that I wanted to prove my clothing’s performance in a very tangible and objective way. And, if you watch the Bangkok video, you’ll see that my SeV ensemble passed both the smell and the fashion test at one of the city’s most exclusive nightclubs. Did I miss the feel of cotton t-shirts from time to time? You bet I did — but the “performance” aspect of the Performance Tees (quick-dry, durable, wrinkle-resistant fabric) made it a worthwhile trade-off.

Scottevest Ultimate Cargo Pants; SeV boxer shorts; Blundstone boots; SmartWool socks: I like to think of these four items as the “workhorse” components of my wardrobe, since the surest sign of their effectiveness is that I rarely had to think about them. The socks were comfortable, fast drying, and odor-resistant, as were the boxers (and I’ve noted in previous field reports that the boxers doubled as running shorts and a swimming suit during the journey). I love my Blundstone boots — and anyone who’s looked down at my feet since late 2006 knows that I wear them rather obsessively. Finally, the cargo pants proved their utility, day in and day out, for the duration of the trip — especially after I coupled them with a belt in Egypt. [The cargo pants were actually the victim of one slight wardrobe malfunction on the journey, when the pants’ cinch-string broke in Egypt. Several readers have since pointed out that cinch-string in question was never designed to keep my pants up — it was meant to fine-tune the belt-fit of the pants. In this way, bearing the weight of my pants with the cinch-string was kind of like using my truck’s parking brake whenever I needed to slow down in traffic: It worked, for the most part, but that’s certainly not what it was designed for, and there were better ways to implement the tool in question. Sorry for my confusion on that — and thanks for the clarification, everyone!] In addition to having quick-drying linen-cotton fabric and deep, well-designed pockets (in 42 days of constant use I never lost anything from the cargo pockets, even while canyon-swinging in New Zealand), these pants also passed the velvet-rope fashion-test at Bangkok’s Bed nightclub (note how the club’s general manager compliments their looks in the video). If you’re looking for the Ultimate Cargo Pant in the SeV pants/shorts catalog, be advised that they have been discontinued in favor of an updated cargo-pant model, which will debut in coming months.

Elsewhere, I have lots of new reader questions to address in this field report — and the first one comes from SeV CEO Scott Jordan:

From your experience in the No Baggage Challenge, what other styles of clothing should SeV develop that would help the traveler?

To be honest, I’m the kind of person who values simplicity and sticks with a system that is already working. This in mind, I’d reckon it’s hard to beat the SeV Tropical Jacket/Vest as the central, most essential item for a no-baggage round-the-world trip. That said, my travel-style is very much unique to my own sensibilities, and another person’s no-baggage or ultra-light travel strategy will also hinge on their own circumstances. Female travelers, business travelers, and cold-weather travelers — to name a few obvious examples — will have significantly different needs than the ones I encountered on my own No Baggage Challenge. This, in mind, I’d love it if everyone would give Scott J suggestions of their own. What kind of clothing items might enhance your own ultra-light travel endeavors? Pocket-intensive sports coats and button-down shirts? Your own fine-tuned pocket-scheme to address female travel-needs? Fabrics and design-features that enable extreme-weather travel? Please share your ideas and suggestions in the comments below (just be sure to check out the full ScotteVest catalog first, since SeV already designs clothing for a wide variety of situations).

Any advice for people at home who love the concept of the No Baggage Challenge and want to incorporate some lessons into their own travel, either without checked baggage or with less baggage?

My simplest answer to this is “just try it.” I spent a lot of pre-trip time worrying about the ins and outs of no-baggage travel, but once I got on the road I was amazed by how simple it was. Everybody has their own system, of course, so I encourage you to discipline your own packing system in such a way that you lighten your load for the better. Seriously, just suck it up and give it a try — it’s easier than you might think, and even mistakes and bad experiences can teach you useful lessons.

Did washing the same clothes every night ever become excessively tiresome?

Washing clothes every day was no more tiresome than washing myself every day. In short, if you can get into the habit of taking a shower every day (and I hope you have), you can get into the habit of washing a few clothing items every day. In fact, you can do both at once — many nights I took my clothes into the shower and washed them as I washed myself. There were a few nights where I didn’t wash my clothes at the end of the day (including late nights in Madrid and Bangkok, as well as some safari nights in South Africa and the Thailand-Malaysia train transit) — and this is when having two sets of socks/undies/t-shirts came in handy. To catch up, I just washed both sets the next day.

Do you think that this minimalist approach is feasible for someone with no (or limited) previous travel experience? What about solo travelers?

Since I’ve more or less been traveling-light for a living over the past 12 years, I’ll admit that the No Baggage Challenge might have come easier to me than it would have to someone with little on-the-road experience. That said, I’m a big believer in starting small and fine-tuning your travel strategy from there. If you don’t have much travel experience, just get out on the road (read my book Vagabonding for ideas and inspiration), pack a small bag, and save your no-baggage experiments for later. The more travel experience you have, the easier it will be to go ultra-light.

As for the second part of the question, I think it should be no problem to travel solo with no baggage. I traveled with my cameraman Justin, of course — but the rules of the No Baggage Challenge stipulated that I couldn’t borrow anything from him. I suppose he would have been there to intervene in an emergency — but most solo travelers are never as isolated as the term implies. Even if you leave home alone, a given vagabonding journey will be rich with the company of local people and other travelers. For the perspective of someone who has done extensive luggage-free travel on his own, check out my earlier interview with Jonathan Yevin.

Isn’t it easier to travel without luggage if you have lots of money?

I suppose loads of money can’t hurt — but money certainly isn’t the central component of a no-baggage journey. In six weeks of travel, I bought only two new gear items (a mineral salt deodorant stone, and a replacement tube of toothpaste — each cost roughly $1) outside of standard food, lodging, transportation, and admission-fee needs. And while I stayed in more luxury hotels than I would have on a normal vagabonding journey, this had everything to do with video editing and upload needs, and very little to do with the no-baggage component. In fact, I think it would be easier in many ways to travel in a backpacker-friendly setting than a luxury setting in this situation, since independent shoestring travelers are more likely to understand the charms of the no-baggage enterprise (and to help out a no-baggage traveler along the way, if need be). Plus, the most important strategy of a no-baggage journey is keeping yourself clean, and even the cheapest hostel or guesthouse will have a shower.

Did you ever do things like camping in remote locations, or do you mainly stick to hotels and hostels?

I did get pretty remote while on safari in South Africa (which is why my cameraman Justin indulged in a bush cure that involved elephant poop) — but even then I slept overnight in comfortable safari lodges. The trip was largely designed to avoid independent camping situations, but I’m not opposed to the notion. If any of you out there has ever tried a no-baggage back-country camping journey, please tell us about it in the comments!

Did electronic technology help or hinder this trip?

Electronic technology does a lot to make travel easier these days — and the iPod/iPhone alone is a very powerful tool for organizing a trip and communicating from the road. That said, I’m a big believer in balance when it comes to electronic gadgets, since being “wired” can disrupt a trip as readily as enhance it. If at times it seemed like I was slow to return emails and answer blog comments on this trip, that was no accident — since I feel I have a better travel experience when I’m mostly unplugged on the road.

In Thailand, how did your feet fare wearing socks and boots? Were you tempted to purchase sandals while in SE Asia?

Socks and boots worked great in SE Asia, but — as I said in my previous field report — I was only there for a week (and even then I was thankful to be wearing boots in many SE Asia situations, including the monsoon rains and my foray into Bangkok nightclubs). I suspect I might have been tempted to go with sandals had I been in SE Asia for, say, a month — and if anyone has done long-term no-baggage travel experiments in the tropics, please share your experiences in the comments below.

Are thrift stores common where you’ve been? If your friend Dan hadn’t lent you a sweater in New Zealand how hard would it have been to find a used one to buy?

To be honest, New Zealand was the only place I kept an eye out for thrift stores, since that was the only place I had warmer clothing in mind (and Queenstown did have an excellent Salvation Army store). But on other journeys I have seen thrift stores in places as far-flung as Iceland and Argentina — and warmer countries like Thailand and Egypt sell plenty of cheap hot-weather clothes. Moreover, even if you can’t find a thrift store, it’s not hard to borrow (as I did) — and if all else fails it’s worth it to spend a few dozen dollars on a brand-new insulation layer.

Which has been your favorite destination to date?

I can never answer this kind of question, since I liked all my destinations for different reasons. I was blown away by the beauty of New Zealand, however — and it’s always have a place in my heart for Thailand (where I lived for a couple years in the early 2000s).

What are your thoughts and feelings about the trip ending? Any further adventures in the pipeline?

I’m thrilled to have completed it. The journey sparked my imagination — not only in the traveling-light sense, but also in its reminder of how many amazing places there are out there to experience (and re-experience). That said, I am completely exhausted after having circled the globe in just six weeks, and I’m looking forward to getting back to Kansas to rest up and read some books. I have plenty of new adventures in the pipeline, so please drop by RolfPotts.com or my Vagabonding Blog for announcements on upcoming journeys (as well as great vagabonding advice from my blog writers).  One event already on the docket is the inaugural Travel Hacking Conference in Rotorua, New Zealand, from Jan 24th-26th, 2011.  I’ll be talking about no-baggage travel here, among other topics, so if you’ve enjoyed following this journey, please consider coming out to New Zealand to join the conversation (for 10% off the registration fee in the month of October, just use the promo code “RP1” when applying for the conference).

Before I sign off on this field report, I want to extend a heart-felt thanks to my sponsors, ScotteVest and BootsnAll Travel Network. Thanks to the support and enthusiasm of SeV founder Scott Jordan, ScotteVest has been an essential partner from the first planning-day of this journey, and (as I detailed above) my SeV gear performed splendidly for the duration of the trip. Please check out their catalog at ScotteVest.com for a full rundown of clothing options for your next journey (and keep in mind that the coupon code “NoBaggage” will get you 15% off all items at checkout through October 11th).

I also want to give a huge shout-out to my other primary sponsor, BootsnAll Travel Network — and in particular BootsnAll co-founder and CEO Sean Keener, a longtime friend and colleague, who was gung-ho about the No Baggage Challenge from the very beginning. BootsnAll hasn’t been as visible on this trip as ScotteVest (they don’t, after all, make anything I can wear on camera), but they’ve been just as essential to the journey: They donated round-the-world plane tickets to both Justin and me, they gave technical support to the website, and they were hands-on in helping us organize countless aspects of the journey (from our hostel in Madrid, to our safaris in South Africa, to our transportation in New Zealand). Sean and the folks at BootsnAll have always loved connecting and providing resources for independent travelers — so if you’re into or thinking about international or around the world travel, check out the BootsnAll Travel Network and tell them I sent you.

Thanks also to Justin Glow for doing such a spectacular job with the videos, and for being such a patient, competent, reliable travel companion.

And, finally, a huge thanks goes out to everyone who’s been following the journey since it began over six weeks ago. I’m humbled by your support and enthusiasm (as well as your questions and insights) — and I wish you all the best in your own ultra-light vagabonding journeys!

Ever since the journey began, I’ve promoted the notion that the No Baggage Challenge isn’t just about traveling around the world without luggage — it’s also an inquiry into simplifying material concerns and seeking rich life-experiences. This in mind, I’ve invited readers to join the adventure by participating in a weekly series of challenges — including challenges to lighten your load, explore your own town, unplug from the virtual world, and optimize your time wealth.  Each week’s challenge has had a competitive component (and the first few prize-winning entries have been announced on the No Baggage Challenge Facebook fan-page), but ideally this should be seen less as a competitive undertaking than a way to set personal goals and consider new ideas.

This week’s challenge — my final challenge, as the journey winds down — is for readers to plan and execute their own no-baggage adventures.  There are two ways to tackle this challenge: First, as a participant in an official contest, sponsored by ScotteVest, with prizes at stake; and second, as a more private and self-motivated challenge.

I’ll start by explaining the former:  If you’re interested in becoming the next official participant in the No Baggage Challenge, please surf on over to the audition guidelines at ScotteVest.com.  Here you’ll find a full set of application rules.  Contestants are encouraged to record a video of no more than five minutes explaining what they would do on their very own No Baggage Challenge. It does not need to be as extensive as mine in days, miles or concept. Questions to consider in the audition video include: Where will you go? How long would it take? What would you bring? What challenges do you foresee? How would you overcome them? What special skills and perspectives do you bring to the table? How would you document this (writing/blogging, video, music, photos)? Is this something that you could realistically take time from work to accomplish? Basically, what would make your No Baggage Challenge informative, enjoyable and compelling to follow?

Because this final contest requires a bit of creativity and planning, ScotteVest will not start judging entries until November 1, 2010. The winner, who will be announced before December 1, 2010, will receive a ScotteVest travel outfit similar to my own, plus a $500 air travel voucher.  Again, the full rules for this contest are online at the ScotteVest website (while you’re there, note that No Baggage Challenge readers get 15% off any SeV product, through October 11 — just use the promotional code “NoBaggage” at checkout).

Since there can only be one official winner this time around, I encourage you to keep exploring the notion of minimalism and ultra-light travel at a personal level — regardless of whether or not you win the contest.  Thus, the challenge-within-the-challenge is this: Even if you don’t win (or even compete in) the contest, go ahead and take your own no-baggage adventure.  It needn’t even be a complicated or ambitious trip — it could just be a one-week journey to Europe, or a weekend road-trip with your family, or a no-baggage business trip of a day or two.  The idea isn’t to challenge yourself in relation to everyone else, but to fine-tune and improve your own way of traveling — to honestly assess what you really need on the road, and to emphasize experiences over possessions (both in travel and in life).

As you experiment with this, some of you might find no-baggage travel easy; others might find it incredibly difficult.  Your goal, however, need not be to do away with baggage forever, but to challenge yourself by testing a specific extreme, and to discipline yourself into making a serious inquiry into what “things” are really necessary in order to have a great time on the road.

Thus, while you prepare your official entries for the next No Baggage Challenge (and even if you elect not to formally enter), please feel free to sound your no-luggage and ultra-light travel ideas, plans, fears, and questions in the comments below.  Once I return home and have full-time laptop access, I’ll drop in regularly to give ideas and encouragement (and, no doubt, learn from your ideas and examples).  I especially encourage female travelers to give this ultra-light form of travel a try — so please share ideas and strategies

Good luck, and happy travels, everyone!

Ever since my no-baggage journey began I had been looking forward to getting to New Zealand — a country I’d never visited before. In particular I was stoked to visit the South Island and see Queenstown, which has a reputation as a world-capital of adventure sports like bungee jumping and jet boating and mountain biking. As it turned out, Queenstown was also stunningly beautiful — a great place to sit and do nothing in particular along the shores of Lake Wakatipu, in the shadow of the snow-capped Southern Alps (which are referred to in this region by a rather amusing name, “The Remarkables”). It’s a setting as scenic as any mountain town I’ve seen in Patagonia or Himachal Pradesh or British Columbia.

My favorite mountain activity since my teenage days has been to hike into the backcountry and disappear for a few days, to loaf and invite my soul and commune a bit with nature. In this situation I didn’t have the time (or the equipment) for a far-flung backpacking journey, so I kept things simple by indulging in a series of alpine thrill sports: jet-boating the icy waters of the Shotover River; exploring the mountains above Queenstown in a Land Rover; swinging through Shotover Canyon head-first at 80 miles an hour; and flying through the snowy forests above Lake Wakatipu on a zip-line.

Since these activities are more rooted physics than narrative, I’ll forgo the analysis and let the video footage speak for itself:

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My adventure activities on the South Island of New Zealand were undertaken with the assistance of Destination Queenstown. The Land Rover mountain excursions was booked with Nomad Safaris; the jet boat ride was with Shotover Jet Boat; the zipline tour was with ZipTrek; the extreme free-fall experience was with Shotover Canyon Swing. On a less adrenaline-fueled note, we also took an afternoon wine tour with Appellation Central.

Week five of the No Baggage Challenge finds me in New Zealand, where I arrived exhausted after a barnstorm transit through Malaysia and Singapore (and Australia, if an hour in Sydney’s airport counts as its own leg of the journey). I hadn’t expected my journey through lower Southeast Asia to be so brief, but — since I was having such a great time in Bangkok — I stayed two extra nights in Thailand and that meant I had to cut my Malaysia/Singapore transit short.

(For the record, my most memorable experience in Malaysia, apart from my encounters on the train in from Thailand, came in a Penang restaurant, where I had what was possibly the best Indian meal I’ve had outside of India. As for Singapore, where I spent less than 10 waking hours before flying Down Under, my most memorable experience was a 5am drive through the dark and quiet city to do a remote-feed interview — embedded below — with an Australian TV show.)

In this field report I’ll touch on some travel issues from Southeast Asia and New Zealand, and I’ll also answer a new batch of reader questions. Since I want this blog to be a resource for other ultra-light and no-baggage travelers, I continue to welcome new questions — just check in on previous field reports to make sure I haven’t answered your question already.

The most notable aspect of travel in Southeast Asia was the humidity. This meant I had to keep my shower and hygiene routine especially tight, since I was sweating so much. It was here that I washed my SeV Tropical Jacket/Vest for the first time on the journey, since a month of sweat accumulation had left it with a slight odor (which came out easily, after the washing). All in all, my clothing and gear performed quite well during my week in Southeast Asia — though I’d be curious to know if anyone out there has experienced longer-term no-baggage stints in the tropics, since the humid climate would seem to require as few layers of clothing (and as little excess gear) as possible.

By contrast, my travels to New Zealand landed me square in late winter, and I’ve already experienced a fair amount of snow here in the Queenstown area of the South Island. Fortunately I’m here visiting my old American travel-buddy Dan, who is now based in New Zealand, and he’s lent me an old wool sweater and stocking cap as an insulation layer under my standard SeV ensemble. This is the first time on the trip that I’ve had to borrow a significant item of clothing due to weather. (ScotteVest actually offered to ship me some of their gear designed for colder weather — and mailing gear to oneself could be a legitimate no-baggage strategy — but I thought it would be more interesting to stick with the same basic core wardrobe for all 42 days of the trip.)

Elsewhere in New Zealand, I had my first-ever moment of bureaucratic no-baggage nervousness at the airport in Auckland, when the customs officer took note of my lack of luggage and started questioning me about my travels. I thought I was in trouble when he called a colleague over — but, as it turned out, he just wanted to ask the guy if he’d ever seen anyone traveling as light as me on an international route. Thus far, after crossing into 11 new countries in nearly five weeks, I have yet to get seriously hassled by customs officials for having no baggage.

As for reader questions about the ins and outs of no-baggage travel, here’s a recent sampling;

What would you bring on your no-luggage journey if you had it to do all over again? Do you feel like you’re missing anything?

I’ve actually addressed this in other field reports — my basic feeling is that I’m not really missing anything — but since it’s such a common question I figured I’d add a few thoughts here. I suppose I do miss having a variety of clothing over the course of a multi-week trip — but the ultimately the trade-off is worthwhile for the purposes of this experiment. The same goes for a laptop (I’m writing this on my iPod, using a small bluetooth keyboard): It would be nice to have one to work on, but the reduced weight/bulk of the iPod is usually worth the hassle in this situation. If I had it to do all over again I might bring an iPhone instead of an iPod, though, since it has more uses as a travel tool.

How often do you wash the cargo pants?

I’ve been washing my SeV Ultimate Cargo Pants about once a week, and thus far they’ve been staying clean and sharp (they dry fast, too). This is more or less in keeping with my washing habits at home: I often go for a week or so without washing a given pair of jeans, since (for whatever reason) they don’t get dirty/smelly as quickly as my shirts. My travel wash routine mirrors this: t-shirts are washed daily; pants are washed weekly.

On another clothing note, I’m happy to announce that my friend Dan has given my SeV cargo pants his highest rank of approval (i.e. he asked me where he could buy a pair). This is significant coming from my old travel pal, since Dan has long expressed scorn for “zippies” — the term he applies to both convertible travel pants/shorts and the people who wear them. Dan has a point — poorly designed zip-off travel pants can indeed look dorky — but my SeV cargo pants seem to have won his approval (and indeed I would not have chosen to bring them had they not passed my own standards of appearance and function).

How do you think a female version of the No Baggage Challenge might work?

I’d love to see a female version of the No Baggage Challenge! Any ideas, plans, or field experience, ladies? Do let me know!

Is traveling with most of your gear in a vest/jacket all that different from bringing a very small bag? And if not, why go bagless?

This is a great point to bring up — and I’ll concur that, in the long run, going bag-less is less central to my own travel strategies than simply going as light as possible. This can be done as readily with a small bag as a travel vest or cargo pants.

That said, however, I’ve really enjoyed the discipline that has been required by the No Baggage Challenge, since putting items into a vest is different than putting them into a bag (and hence I’m not tempted to bring something that might fit into a small bag, but not into my vest). I’m certainly not going to tell everyone that they have to travel bag-less — but if you are interested in ultra-light travel and on-the-road minimalism, I heartily encourage you to make your own experiments in no-luggage travel. Traveling out of a vest (or a similar clothing combination) is simply different than traveling out of a small bag — and even if you don’t wind up traveling baggage-free forever, the exercise lends a useful perspective.

Has your “packing system” for the SeV Tropical Jacket/Vest changed much since you began the journey?

For the most part it hasn’t. Clothes and gear and toiletries are still more or less going in the same pockets you saw in my initial packing video. I have, however, removed a few items from the vest (see last week’s field report), and the sunglasses now reside in an outside (as opposed to inside) pocket, as does my mineral-salt deodorant stone.

What advice would you give to people wanting to take their own No Baggage Challenge? What other travel clothing might be useful on a no-luggage journey?

My initial advice for those interested in trying no-baggage travel would be to just get out and try it. It’s a lot easier than it sounds, and it’s a lot of fun to travel so light. I might also suggest that you develop your own no-baggage system. My luggage-free travel strategy is a simplification of the way I normally travel (minimalist, but with bags), and I think each person should gradually fine-tune their own travel system rather than reinventing it completely (or copying mine wholesale).

This in mind, the kind of clothing you bring on a no-baggage journey will depend on your own style. ScotteVest makes a trench-coat that has a lot more pocket-capacity than the SeV jacket/vest I’m using — but I don’t feel like I’m missing anything and I like going ultra-light. A no-baggage business traveler, on the other hand, might need that extra pocket space for his own trip. In general, I’d recommend disciplining yourself to go as light and minimal as possible, just to keep your clothing ensemble light and organized and looking good. And while I haven’t done comprehensive field tests on other brands of travel clothing, I can say in all objectivity that SeV’s vests and jackets are designed with these very factors in mind.

How do you carry water and snacks if don’t have any bags?

For the most part, I’ve been traveling in populated areas where food and drink are easy to come by when I get hungry or thirsty (one exception being Ramadan in Morocco and Egypt). This is mind, I usually just bring a few extra dollars (or baht, or rand) for food instead of packing a lunch. My SeV Tropical Jacket/Vest has ample pocket room for a sandwich or two, however, and its front-outside pockets are specially designed to hold water bottles. I actually tested these front pockets with a tall bottle of Gewürztraminer wine here in New Zealand, and the bottle fit easily!

What do you do when people give you gifts?

So far I haven’t gotten any gifts — but in the event someone does give me a gift I can’t part with, I would probably mail it home (given that it’s not an anvil or a live animal, of course).

What are your favorite places in Thailand and Southeast Asia?

I pretty much love all of Thailand, north to south, east to west, mountains to beaches. Myanmar and Laos are also wonderful places to wander. Each of these countries is gorgeous and friendly and inexpensive — though Myanmar and Laos have less infrastructure and services, so you might start your SE Asian sojourn in Thailand and get more adventurous from there.

Again, if you have any lingering questions, please ask them in the comment section of this post! I will address them in next week’s field report.

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The video portion of this week’s field report was shot at The Rees hotel in Queenstown, NZ, where Destination Queenstown graciously hosted us during our time in the area. Nightly rates at The Rees start at NZ$190.

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Here is a segment featuring Rolf ‘s No Baggage Challenge on Australia’s Weekend Today show:

A little more than seven years ago, when I was living and traveling full-time in Thailand, I had one of the best train-travel experiences of my life while traveling south out of Bangkok to the town of Surat Thani.  I was sharing a second-class sleeper car with a Kiwi guy who was carrying a bottle of Mekhong whiskey, and at some point the two of us walked down to the train’s dining car and shared the whiskey with a rag-tag bunch of Thais, Brits, and Israelis.  I’ve never written about the ensuing experience — but it was one of those classic nights that make travel so special: A dozen or so people from five different countries getting tipsy and telling stories and offering advice to each other as we rattled our way through the lush Asian countryside.  We learned Thai phrases together and sang silly pop songs and toasted each other’s health, our voices blending in a happy yawp of international brotherhood.

Since I was covering the same route on my no-baggage transit from Thailand into Malaysia, I decided to relive that experience by buying a bottle of Mekhong whiskey in the Bangkok train station, and sharing it with new friends as the journey progressed.  Unfortunately, re-creating a previous travel epiphany tends to require more than a bottle of cheap Thai whiskey — and this journey turned out to be more random than my south-bound train experience of seven years before.

Regardless of how this particular journey turned out, I consider an overnight trip on a second-class sleeper in Thailand to be one of the great world train experiences.  I’ve traveled across Russia, Australia, and India by train at various points in my travel career, but (while less legendary by global reputation) Thai trains are as enjoyable as any in the world.  There’s something about the tidy efficiency of a second-class sleeper, with its tasty food, comfortable berths, and cheap fares (less than US$40 for a 24-hour ride from Bangkok to Penang) that makes it a joy to ride.  When the train attendant comes out in the evening and breaks the day-table into a two-tier bunk bed with full linens, it’s like watching a ritual of precision as mesmerizing and authentic to Thailand as khon dancing.

On this trip Justin and I shared seat-space with a Thai college student named Goi and a 58-year-old American traveler named Paul, but — as is the case on Thai trains — our social situation was fluid.  My favorite companions on sleeper car #3 were a 60-year-old Chinese-Malaysian plantation-owner named Saw, and a 19-year-old Indian-Malaysian student named Ranjay.  Since we were bound for Malaysia, I kept asking them about their homeland — but Saw was primarily interested in talking about American professional wrestling, and Ranjay liked to steer the conversation to SpongeBob SquarePants.  Since I know next to nothing about the WWE and/or SpongeBob, our conversation wound up being very lengthy, and unproductive to the point of being comical (I only regret we didn’t film it).

My trump card, or so I thought, was the Mekhong whiskey — which I took to the train’s dining car around dusk.  The first indication that the bottle of Mekhong might not have the social cache I’d assumed came when I offered a shot to the train’s dishwasher, and he waved me off and produced his own bottle of Hong Thong whiskey.  Technically, Hong Thong isn’t really whiskey (it has a taste closer to rum) — but then Mekhong whiskey isn’t whiskey either (it’s distilled from molasses, rice, and spices, and more or less tastes like low-grade cough medicine).   After the shots of Hong Thong I joined a group of jolly Thai men, none of whom were the least bit interested in the Mekhong.  The more I offered it around, the more they insisted that only crazy people drink it — and by the end of the night I felt like I’d done the Thai equivalent of offering up a bottle of Thunderbird wine to commuters on the Long Island railway.  The Thai fellows stuck to beer, and I was forced to drink the Mekhong myself (with a little help from Justin) while we all chatted about religion, Thai vocabulary, and the possibility of foul play in the death of Michael Jackson.

The train rolled across the Malaysian border the following morning, and I continued my second-class sleeper social routine.  One of my most intriguing new acquaintances was Erin, an Australia-bound Seattle native who was carrying so much stuff that she’d lost track of how many bags she was carrying.  In addition to a 60-kilo (132-pound) suitcase full of clothing and enough antiallergenic cosmetics for a one-year stint Down Under, she and I were able to identify nine separate bags (plus a loose pillow that wouldn’t fit in any of them), many of which she had acquired during a recent shopping binge in Bangkok.  She claimed that she didn’t want to go to the trouble of buying anything in Australia, but I was astounded by the sheer physical effort that went with helping her to take her bags off the train.

As I helped Erin wrestle her 60-kilo monster-bag out of the baggage compartment and onto the platform at Butterworth (near the island of Penang in Malaysia), I realized how long it had been since I’d even thought of the psychic and physical hassle that comes with carrying luggage.

Suddenly — in that moment — traveling with next-to-nothing felt like an indulgent luxury.

Ever since the earliest days of my no-baggage round-the-world journey, I’ve wanted to test out the smell and appearance of my SeV travel clothing by trying to get past the “velvet rope” of some exclusive nightclub in some great world city. In Bangkok I finally got the chance to do this — and the results were quite interesting.

I also got the chance, on that same day, to eat assorted insects from a street vendor, not all that far from where I would later sample the nightlife. Such is the charm of Bangkok.

Of all the stop-offs of my No Baggage Challenge itinerary, Thailand is probably the country I know best (save the United States). I wrote my first book while living there nearly ten years ago, and I passed through the country over a dozen times while living and traveling in Asia between 1998 and 2003. And, even though it had been seven years since I’d set foot in the country, it was amazing how familiar and comfortable everything felt when I first arrived in the city after the flight in from South Africa.

Still, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said that, “you cannot not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you” — and I was curious to know how Bangkok (and myself) had changed. Some of these changes were immediately apparent: the city now has a subway, for instance (which makes it much easier to avoid its infamous traffic jams), and I no longer opt for the cheapest backpacker dives available. But while both the city and I look a bit different than we did one decade ago, I was impressed by how much things felt the same: I showed up expecting to stay one night in Bangkok before moving south to Malaysia and Singapore — but the laid-back, traveler-friendly vibe of the city kept me around for three nights.

If one day could summarize my recent experiences in Bangkok, it would be my second day in the city, when I met up with a small group of expat and local friends and revisited some old haunts. Here’s what we did:

Act One: Khao San Road – A Trip Down Memory Lane

Back in late 1998, when I was at the front end of what would eventually be a two-year trip across Asia, I arrived in Bangkok and took the $1 airport express bus to the same neighborhood every backpacker seeks out in the city: Khao San Road. The neighborhood figures in the early scenes of The Beach (both the Alex Garland novel and the Leonardo DiCaprio movie), and it figures in the itineraries of most budget travelers in Southeast Asia. This street, which first got a reputation as a backpackers’ ghetto in the 1980s, is essentially a collection of cheap hotels and souvenir shops that caters to every whim and need of budget travelers. I wrote about the place for Salon in 1999, and the scene I described over 11 years ago still looks pretty much the same:

Out in the street, young travelers from countries such as Switzerland, Israel and New Zealand nurse beers at plastic tables, while others line up at food stalls to sample sliced pineapple, vegetarian noodles and banana pancakes. Tuk-tuk drivers hail passengers at the corner, while Indian tailors pace the sidewalk in front of their stores, chanting their standard mantra (“Sir, try a suit. Very good price, sir.”). Sidewalk vendors hawk jewelry and cigarette lighters, bootleg tapes and fake press passes; storefront vendors sell souvenirs ranging from Nepalese jackets to Balinese masks to novelty T-shirts that read “SEX INSTRUCTOR (First Lesson Free).”

In the alleys, uncertain dogs jog through the shadows, unowned and omnipresent. Placards advertise tattoo parlors and laundry services, traditional massages and hemp-fiber clothing. Colorful stickers on travel agency windows advertise bus and ferry services to Phuket, Ko Samui, Ko Phi Phi and Chiang Mai. Backpackers crowd into dingy Internet cafes to check their Hotmail accounts and surf the Web for travel updates, while suspiciously healthy-looking kids prowl the street with small cards that read “I want to go to school. Please give me 10 baht.” Video movie noises rumble out from open-front restaurants, blasting that time-honored Hollywood litany of screams and explosions, of people calling each other bastards and sons of bitches.

At that time, I wrote that “Khao San Road is not designed to be a static, aesthetic part of Thailand, but a pragmatic duty-free zone — a neutral territory that has learned to continually reinvent itself in the image of what young budget travelers want” — and it’s an observation that still holds true: In continually tweaking and adapting to the needs of travelers, Khao San Road is in many ways staying the same. As I walked up and down the street checking out the vendors and sampling plates of pad thai and banana pancakes, the place felt almost identical to the way it felt a decade ago — even if it now sports fast food restaurants (McDonald’s, Burger King, and Subway — which were not there when I last visited) and different technologies (music downloads instead of cassette tapes, wi-fi instead of dial-up). The most peculiar addition to the street was a “fish massage” parlor, where tourists can walk in and have their weary feet nibbled at by swarms of small fish.

Act Two: Eating Bugs (Among Other Street Food) in Chinatown

Since Khao San Road was familiar territory for me, the next thing I wanted to was strike out and sample something new — Thai street food. I had eaten street food plenty of times before, of course (I had in fact eaten a fair amount that day on Khao San Road), but I wanted to do it in a more deliberate and instructive way, with the help of some people who knew the city better than me. For this mission I recruited three friends as street-food consultants: Max, a barrel-chested Italian expat I got to know while covering his expedition into central Laos for Conde Nast Traveler ten years ago; Ett, a laid-back young guy from southern Thailand, who I got to know through Max; and Taylor, an American expat, anthropology student, and fellow book nerd (she and I initially bonded by deconstructing Malcolm Gladwell’s writing). Taylor is also a veteran fashion model, which means that — since Justin also joined us, camera in hand — she pretty much managed to make Max and Ett and I look like graceless schlubs by comparison in the resulting video (see above).

On my friends’ recommendation, we left Khao San Road to seek out some street food in Chinatown. Street food is actually available all over Bangkok (and even upscale neighborhoods have food-stands where service workers can come down and have a cheap lunch), but Chinatown is unique in its variety and concentration of street cuisine. Over the course of our evening in the neighborhood my friends and I managed to sample a broad variety of street food — from roast chestnuts to some of the best seafood I’ve had in Bangkok — but by far the most notable dish I sampled was fried insects.

As novel as eating fried insects might sound, it’s actually a common form of Thai street food (I’ve heard it’s popular with Thais from Isaan, the poorer northeast region of the country, which has a more bucolic diet) — and it’s a common rite-of-passage for Western travelers to put their food prejudices aside and gum down a few creepy-crawlies during a Southeast Asian sojourn. I had never subjected myself to the insect-diet during my years of travel in the country, so I made up for it on this visit by asking Ett and Max to select a mixed bag of bugs for me from a street vendor. I ended up eating grasshoppers, crickets, butterfly larvae, ant larvae, and dried frogs — and it was interesting to note how different each item tasted.

The grasshopper, for example, had been deep fried in such a way that it tasted almost exactly like the skin from fried chicken (the texture, of course, was crunchy and unsettlingly grasshopper-like). The cricket, on the other hand, was scaly and mushy and unappetizing — it tasted just as grossly bug-like as you might imagine it would. The ant larvae was small and salty and easy to eat (save for the occasional wings, which were brittle and wasp-like), while the butterfly larvae was just juicy enough to be disgusting (especially if you stop to consider what the “juice” is). By far the best were the dried frogs (I’m not sure how they were prepared, but they were boneless and a tad crunchy) which tasted a lot like pork rinds.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of eating bugs is the little insect-parts that get left over in odd corners of your mouth when you’re done. I was begging for a beer after my bug-feast — but (since juice was more readily available in that corner of Chinatown) I ended up washing the random antennae and exoskeleton with pomegranate juice and coconut water.

Act Three: Taking Subjecting My 25-Day Travel Clothes to the Nightlife Test

Whenever someone hears about my no-baggage world-journey, their first assumption is that my clothes must get unbearably stinky from constant use. I’ve explained in previous posts how daily washing has made clothing-odor a non-issue, but to prove this principle (and to prove a little point about the fashion-readiness of my SeV wardrobe) I wanted to put my clothing to the test in some urban nightlife scene. And, while Bangkok nightlife is not as exclusive as you’ll find in places like New York or Paris or Milan — it does have plenty of clubs that have strict rules against admitting people who look (and smell) unpresentable.

Nightclubs are not really my social scene (I’m more of a dive-bar guy), so this evening outing was more of a scientific fashion-test than an earnest quest for fun. And, interestingly enough, it immediately become apparent that my clothing, smell, and clothing-smell was a non-issue (for the record, I was wearing my black ScotteVest performance tee, tan SeV cargo pants, and my Blundstone boots).

After gaining easy access to the first few Bangkok nightclubs, I called my friend Justin Dunne, the general manager at an upscale club called Bed, and asked him to put his bouncers on high alert for someone looking/smelling like they’d been wearing the same clothes for the past 25 days. When I arrived at Bed, I immediately made it past the bouncers. Since I was with Taylor (whose fashion-model looks might have tipped my hand with the bouncers), I left her inside, quietly re-entered the door queue — and made it past the bouncers again, no problem.

Eventually I caught up with Justin Dunne, and we discussed the art of science of gaining entry into exclusive nightclubs. Justin D had expected me to come in looking “a little Khao San Road” — i.e. kind of grungy and travel-worn — and my simple black shirt and clean tan pants defied that stereotype. Still, he said, my wardrobe wasn’t an automatic “in” — and getting past the velvet rope at a place like Bed is often more of an art than a science. It helps to be well-spoken, engaging, well-presented, and in the company of well-spoken, engaging, well-presented people.

The scene inside Bed was certainly as hip as it was reputed to be — but as I said, nightclubs aren’t really my scene. After a round of drinks, Taylor and I (and my cameraman Justin G, who’d been let in to film us) rejoined Max and Ett outside, and we spent the rest of the night in dive bars.

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Note: Rolf and Justin’s stay at Bangkok’s Column Hotel came courtesy of No Baggage Challenge reader Roy who oversees the Column and Long Table Restaurant. (Thanks Roy!) Nightly rates are US$138 per room.

This week finds me in one of my favorite cities in the world — Bangkok — where I’ve recently arrived after flying across the Indian Ocean from South Africa. It’s great to be back in Thailand, where I lived off and on for the better part of two years in the early 2000s — and it should be interesting to see how the intense humidity of Southeast Asia affects my no baggage journey.

As with last week, I continue to welcome reader questions about my experiences with no-luggage travel — just post those questions in the comments below. I’ll answer some queries from last week in a moment, but first I wanted to note that as of this week I am traveling even lighter than I was when I left New York a month ago. Here’s what I just removed from my travel jacket/vest, and why:

Deodorant: Ever since I bought a mineral-salt rock in a Moroccan market, there has been a lot of reader interest in how it has been working in keeping my armpits fresh and combating underarm odor. After two weeks of using it in the field, I can say it’s working great — so great, in fact, that I tossed my store-bought American deodorant stick. I will use the mineral-salt for the remainder of the trip. When I arrive in the US a couple weeks from now, ask me (or better yet, ask my cameraman and travel companion Justin) how this decision worked out.

Bottle of laundry detergent: As I stated last week, I haven’t been using as much laundry detergent or all-in-one soap as I’d expected, since hotel (or safari camp) soap and shampoo has been available at most all of my stops en route. Since shampoo is adequate for washing my clothes, I’m ditching the bottle of laundry detergent, keeping the bottle of all-in-one soap on hand in the event I won’t have access to hotel soap (as will be the case in New Zealand, where I plan to travel by camper van).

Camera: I jettisoned the camera for the the simple reason that I haven’t been taking many pictures of the journey. Normally I might be more active with the camera — but with Justin capturing most every aspect of the trip on video, I feel like it’s already being well documented. Moreover, even if I wasn’t traveling with a cameraman, I feel that — in the interest of going ultra-light — I could carry an iPhone (instead of an iPod) and use it to take photos.

[On a blocking and trip-rules note: I got rid of the camera by passing it to Justin, since the camera in question belongs to his wife. Naturally, by the rules of the trip, I now cannot borrow it back, so functionally it has ceased to exist for me. Were I traveling alone and I wanted to offload a camera, I would probably mail it home or give it away.]

Flashlight: This item is so small I can slip it into the pen-pocket of my SeV Tropical Vest/Jacket and not have to think about it from day to day. Still, I haven’t really used it — and in the interest of traveling lighter, I decided to give it away.

Earplugs: Ditto on the earplugs — I never think about them (they reside, weightless in the shin-pocket of my SeV cargo pants), but I haven’t been using them, so in the interest of this exercise I’m tossing them too.

Bandanna: My final discarded item is my handkerchief. I originally packed it thinking I’d use it as a do-rag, but thus far my ballcap as been covering all my head-gear needs. Since I rarely use the bandanna, I’ve decided to ditch it.

In further lightening my load (and indeed my vest/jacket does fit even lighter now) I am simply fine-tuning my own system — other no baggage travelers (and would-be no-baggage travelers) will naturally develop their own systems for what and what not to carry.

As for reader questions, here goes with a few that caught my eye in the past week:

How is it going with t-shirt odor?

Back in my first field report, I expressed concern that my t-shirts, which are made of polyester, might begin to hold odor after repeated daily use. ScotteVest CEO Scott Jordan has been particularly curious about this issue (for obvious reasons) — and three weeks after that initial report I’m happy to report that my SeV Performance Tees remain odor-free. (As my Australian safari pal Courtney wrote me after returning home from Africa; “I’ve been plugging your blog back home, and defending your hygiene — which seems to be everyone’s first question.”)

No doubt my shirts remain fresh in part due to my daily washing routine — a ritual far more diligent than when I travel with bags (or, for that matter, my home washing routine, when clothes remain dirty in the hamper for days at a time). But Scott Jordan has suggested to me that “building a better performance tee” has itself been a longtime point of obsession for his clothing company. Scott, is there a design component that has helped my SeV polyester resist odor (or is that a trade secret)?

Whatever the case, the true test of the performance tees will come here in Bangkok, where I plan to hit some of the city’s more exclusive nightclubs in my no-baggage travel gear and see if I can make it past the velvet rope.

Aren’t you getting hassled at airport security for having no luggage?

Some readers have told stories about attracting the attention of TSA officials when traveling with little or no luggage (possibly due to terrorism profiling concerns). So far this has not been a problem for me whatsoever (though in a way I wish it was, since it would give me more dramatic no-baggage stories to tell). If for some reason I do get hassled at some border station in coming days, I’ll be sure to report about it here.

What is your process for writing the blogs?

In the field I take travel notes each day in my pocket notebook. Then, when it comes time to write the story, I draw on these notes, as well as Justin’s video footage and my old laptop archive notes (which I access remotely through my iPod, using Dropbox). Then I unfold my Micro Innovations MP0118 bluetooth keyboard and write the blog entry on my iPod.

How do you keep your iPod charged?

I’ve brought the iPod USB cord (it shares the same pocket as my keyboard), and I charge up as I find computers and laptops on the road (which isn’t too hard).

Are you carrying all the items you have when you’re staying in a city?

No — and I find it strange when people assume that I do. This is, after all, the No Baggage Challenge,” not the “Carry Everything With You At All Times Challenge.” Hence, when staying someplace overnight, I typically leave toiletries in the hotel/hostel bathroom, and spare clothes (including the jacket/vest itself, if the local weather does not merit it) in the closet or hanging out to dry.

As a no-baggage traveler, what kinds of reactions are you getting from other travelers you meet?

I’ve attracted a lot of interest from other travelers on the road — but less overt fascination than you might think. Travelers tend to be a pretty understated bunch when it comes to differences in packing styles, so usually they just give my SeV clothes a quiet once-over when they realize I’m not carrying anything else. It’s not until they realize that I haven’t compromised anything — that I’m enjoying the same travel activities as everyone else, with a fraction of the weight — that they really start to ask questions.

Again, please post your own questions in the comments below, so I can answer them in the next field report!

Also, check out the video interview with SeV CEO Scott Jordan below:

Of all the things I’d expected to experience when planning my no-luggage world journey, drinking elephant-dung tea in South Africa was not among them. I’d expected I might explore nightlife in Spain (which I did, while eating tapas in Madrid) or ride a camel in Egypt (which I did, at Giza) — and I even thought I’d get lost from time to time (which I did in Morocco, among other places) — but I never expected to imbibe a medicinal beverage that had recently passed through an elephant’s ass.

Such is is the unpredictability of travel.

This rather bizarre chapter of the adventure took place in the latter half of my week in South Africa, when Justin and I were staying at the Makweti Safari Lodge on the Welgevonden Game Preserve, three hours northwest of Johannesburg. Under normal circumstances we might not have been able to afford Makweti’s exclusive and luxurious safari chalets — but the folks at South Africa Tourism caught wind of the No Baggage Challenge and offered to set us up with a couple of nights there. My chalet at Makweti featured a private plunge-pool outside, a claw-foot bathtub inside, and a decanter of port wine at my bedside; the family of vervet monkeys that hung out on my roof during the day screeched like mad whenever they saw predators in the canyon. Across a suspension bridge from my chalet was a sprawling safari lodge that featured single-malt Scotch in the bar, a library filled with travel books, and leather furniture arranged around a giant fireplace. At night my fellow guests and I dined on stewed eland by torchlight; morning breakfasts were frequently disrupted by baboons sneaking in to steal fruit. At times I felt like I should be wearing a pith helmet.

One of the most interesting people at Makweti was Jacques, our safari guide. Born in Pretoria to an Afrikaans-speaking family, Jacques was deeply versed in biology and wildlife conservation — which meant that his game drives tended to be slower and more nuanced than the dogged quest for Big Five animals I experienced in other parts of the country. We did manage to spot the standard charismatic megafauna with Jacques (a particular highlight was viewing a pride of lions by flashlight in the late evening), but we also spent a lot of time idling on sandy jeep-trails among the brushy grassland while our guide explained the mating dance of the wattled plover, or had us inhale the sage-like scent of the resurrection plant.

Since I’d previously become accustomed in South Africa to the list-driven task of identifying large animals that had already appeared as Disney cartoon characters, it was strange at first to ponder red-breasted swallows and spotted eagle-owls when we might otherwise be scanning the horizon for rhino and wildebeest. In time, however, I came to enjoy the quieter task of keeping an eye out for all creatures — big and small, legendary and obscure — and learning that, say, black shouldered kites have ultraviolet vision that allows them to spot rodent urine-trails, or that a type of shrike called the “butcher bird” improvises its own bush-pantry, skewering beetles and grasshoppers on thorns for later use.

Amid this ongoing biology lesson, my cameraman Justin was suffering from a cold he’d been fighting since we’d flown to Johannesburg from Cairo earlier in the week. Justin snuffled and coughed while Jacques described the medicinal uses of various plants and animal byproducts — but for some reason neither he nor I thought to approach Jacques about trying a bush remedy. It wasn’t until Justin inquired with the safari lodge about the availability of cold medicine that Jacques suggested a novel solution: Why not drink elephant-dung tea, which Africans have been using as a cold remedy for generations? After a bit of discussion — and a pledge on my part to sample a cup of poop-tea out of solidarity for my cameraman — Justin consented to try the bush remedy.

If you ever want to commandeer the agenda of a given African safari drive, just offer to quaff a cup of boiled elephant-crap in front of everyone. Indeed, not long after Justin and I agreed to drink the stuff, our six-person safari outing turned into an intrepid quest to find the perfect tea-turd. The energy behind this endeavor was purely adolescent in spirit, of course — though Jacques kept us informed with a running commentary on just why elephant dung makes a good cold remedy. Apparently, it’s a combination of factors: First, most all medicine comes from plants, and elephants have a very healthy and diverse plant-based diet; on top of that, elephants only digest about 40% percent of a given plant’s nutritional value — which means that elephant droppings consist of largely of healthy plant fibers that are still 60% pure when they’re pooped out.

Once Jacques found a suitable pile of dung, he took it to Makweti’s bush kitchen, crushed it up in a pot of boiling water, and filtered the concoction with a tea-towel. From here the cloudy brown liquid was transferred into a metal bowl, and poured into coffee cups. Justin and I then sampled the concoction in front of a small audience of giggling safari guests. Had we done this in front of a formal TV documentary crew, there probably would have been an off-screen producer imploring Justin to ramp up his gag faces, but — unflappable Midwesterner that he is — my cameraman just sipped the poop-tea, furrowed his brow, and observed that “it tastes like it smells.” When I tasted it, I found the flavor curiously similar to how a zoo smells — not disgusting, necessarily (the zoo is, after all, a sentimental smell from childhood), but not really something you’d want to drink on a regular basis.

The following day, when Justin and I had returned to Johannesburg and were preparing to leave for Thailand, Justin told me he still felt sick and that he planned to hit a pharmacy as soon as we arrived in Bangkok.

By the time we reached Bangkok, however, Justin’s cold was gone. His recovery could be attributed to any number of factors — but I’d like to think that the secret to his vigor lies in the rear end of a pachyderm.

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Note: The stay at Makweti Lodge came courtesy of South Africa Tourism. Nightly rates (including all safari activities, meals, and ground transportation) start at US$400 per person.