Packing for the Children - Gap Years for families

"One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind." - Charles Dickens

I never imagined foot wear would exercise me almost as much as if I was wearing it.

Shoes? Boots? Sandals? Barefoot? It kept me awake. Essentially I was in charge of three sets of luggage so I tried to keep things to a minimum. I had such a battle trying to decide what shoes to take!

Sandals; definitely, (loads of hot countries) trainers; undoubtedly, hiking boots; absolutely… then I realised that this was 9 pairs of shoes! In the end I took hiking boots and sandals, choosing the hiking boots over the trainers because of the heels for horse riding, the ankle protection for snake bites etc but by the third week of the trip I had succumbed to buying trainers too.
The hiking boots being too hot and heavy for everyday wear and sandals hurt the kids feet. Was it easier to listen to them moan than to carry yet another pair of shoes? The new shoes won...

Thinking back I should have left the hiking boots and kept the trainers. Lighter, easier to care for, cheaper and not serious if they got wet.

T Shirts

I over packed massively on T shirts. Both children had their own spending money and frequently wanted a small souvenir of a place. A T-shirt was often the preferred choice being cheap, easy to carry and usually particular to the area or activity. At one stage the girls had 17 T-shirts!

I should only have packed two each with one on and then enjoyed the new ones we came across.

Other tips:

• Long sleeved pyjamas that helped keep off the mossies or sand flies and could double up as shirts if essential.
  
  
• For the areas where we had cooler to cold weather we aimed for more layers rather than one bulky coat. (Pyjama tops were used on a couple of occasions, over t-shirts and under fleeces.)
  
  
• I avoided white or light coloured shorts or leggings but included lighter t shirts as they just felt so much cooler.
  
  
• Eliza had a large leather hat bought in Africa which she adored and it was great for keeping the sun off her fair skin but annoying and heavy to pack. Savannah's soft baseball cap, rescued out of the sea near Sydney, Australia, was much easier to cope with.
  
  
• Rolling clothes rather than folding meant they didn't get so creased.
  
  
• Clothes pegs are incredibly useful. Fixing towels to curtains to make darker rooms, for laundry (duh), for sealing packets of crisps, snacks, other foods stuffs and packets of soap powder etc.
  
  
• Cut the number of T-shirts in half and have at least three swimsuits. In the heat these double up as skimpy T-shirts and putting on a clammy swimsuit isn't so great so spares are always great.
  
  
• Games. We packed a couple of packs of cards, top trumps, very light frisbee, Nintendo DS's and computers games.