What to Pack for a Month in New Zealand

New Zealand is a favorite place in the world to travel through! If you're fortunate enough to be heading there, you'll want to make sure you bring the right items with you.

The most important decision you'll make is which backpack you opt to travel with. Aim for around 60 liters, with a front-loading panel, and a decent support system. Head to REI to try on some packs before committing to buy. 

If you want to travel carry-on-only, try the Osprey Exos Farpoint 40 liter backpack.

New Zealand has a reputation for being warm, but depending on where you'll be visiting and during which time of year, it can still get pretty cold. This is a list for a month-long trip in New Zealand: 

• Four short-sleeved t-shirts
• Four vest tops
• Two strap tops
• One workout top
• One long-sleeved top
• One thick fleece
• One dress
• One pair of jeans
• One pair of workout shorts
• Two pairs of denim shorts
• One scarf/shawl/sarong
• Two bikinis

• One pair of flip-flops
• One pair of walking shoes

When you need to find something in your backpack in a hurry, you'll often find yourself throwing your clothes all over the place while you delve straight to the bottom. By using packing cubes, it's much easier to find your clothes, organize your backpack, and speed up the unpacking process. 

These days it's rare to find someone traveling without a backpack full of technology, and as much as you can bemoan the state of travel because of this, you can't deny it makes exploring so much easier.

• A laptop: Plenty of people have mixed feelings about traveling with a laptop. Travel isn't as busy and stimulating as you think it'll be and you'll definitely spend time hanging out in your room every day -- even if you don't want to spend any time resting, you'll most likely need it or you'll get sick from exhaustion.
• A camera: You don't know when you'll next have an opportunity to travel around New Zealand again, so you'll want to capture as many scenes as possible and have your photos be of as high quality as possible.

Do you need to bring all of this technology with you? Of course not! They're not essentials for everyone. You may want to use your phone for taking photos and not want to bother with a laptop. You might not want to bother with an external hard drive. That's fine -- you only need to take what you're comfortable with. 

As with any trip, it's important to bring a first aid kit with you. 

New Zealand is a Western country, of course, so you'll be able to find the vast majority of medications you'd take at home there. It's still worth bringing some with you at all times because you never know when traveler's diarrhea might hit.

Here's what to pack in a first aid kit: 

• Painkillers
• Antihistamines
• Plasters/band-aids
• Antibiotics (Amoxicillin/Cipro)
• Motion sickness pills
• Imodium
• Birth control pills

Try to limit the number of toiletries you carry because you can replace them pretty much anywhere in the world. One item of note here is the solid shampoo bar from LUSH. These tiny bars of shampoo are more like bars of soap and last for around three-to-six months each depending on how frequently you wash your hair.

• Six month supply of contact lenses
• Sunscreen
• Insect Repellent
• Hair straighteners
• Various makeup supplies (eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss)
• Dozens of hair ties
• Solid shampoo/conditioner bar
• Sunscreen
• Bar of soap
• Deodorant
• Razor blades
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Floss

And here's everything else that makes up the rest of a well-packed backpack! 

• Water bottle: You can drink the tap water in New Zealand, so you should definitely take a water bottle with you to be a more environmentally sustainable traveler. Try the Vapur water bottles, which fold up so they don't take up much space in your bag. 
• Journal: Look back on your travels when you journal
• A copy of the book, How Not to Travel the World: For an inspirational beach read about what it's like to be the unluckiest traveler in the world! 
• One X-large travel towel: Travel towels are fantastic because they're lightweight, fold up very small and dry quickly. Try an extra-large one from Sea to Summit.