what's in my bag: casual day hike

i went to columbia store last november to buy a jacket and got a "dispatch" magazine as one of the freebies for being a loyal customer. in the magazine, there was a section where some people were interviewed about   the things in their backpack. i thought it would be fun to have one for myself in this blog. these are the stuff i brought during our batulao dayhike: 

my definition of casual day hike: 

- location is accessible to road and nearest towns with atm machines

- walk-in-the-park-ish type of hike good for newbies

- decent telco signal

my bag: 20L

stuff in my bag:

see would parquet flooring for the division of the quadrants. left to right, top to bottom

first quadrant: clothing and toiletries

1. dry sac

2. extra clothes (inside the drysac)

3. waterproof jacket (the black one)

4. toiletries kit (in the sack)

5. quick dry micro towel (the orange cloth on top of the sack)

second quadrant: first aid kit and must haves

1. 42x42 in sarong

- the mini swiss knife of south east asia. it can be used as a bandage, towel, place mat, whatever...

2. first aid kit with emergency money (cash and atm)

- should always be there. someone asked me before what is the reasonable amount for emergency money and told him that your e-money should be equal to the budget of the trip or at least equal to the transportation cost

3. headlamp 

- even if it's a day trip, you should have it

4. swiss knife

5. sunglasses

6. sunblock

- must be waterproof and sweat proof

7. umbrella

third quadrant: food and hydration

1. 3L water bladder

- because canisters won't balance out the bag easily

2. crackers; energy bars

3. lunch container (should be for lunch food... it's still empty yet)

4. spork

5. plastic container with zip lock

third quadrant: communication and identification

1. id's, hmo cards. atm card (on top of the notebook)

- i have two atm's. one is for bcp and should be in the e-kit and the other one is for spending for emergency reasons. so overall, for finances, i got 3 back ups. hmo is for obvious reasons. what is preferred is to also have a dog tag with your name, ice contacts, allergies and bloodtype.

2. pen and notebook

- because a writer has to write

3. chargers

4. mobile phones

- should always be for 2 different telco companies because sometimes, one network has weak signals in other areas. some of my friends have 3.

stuff which are not included

1. dslr 

- olympus is bad with indoor and lowlight photos pffftttt

2. sandals

- should be a back up of the shoe in case shit happens. i live in south east asia so snow is not my problem