Bring your cell phone. One of the first things you should do when you land in the country you’ll be trekking through is to get yourself to a cell-phone store –trust me, they will be everywhere. Buy a sim card. You probably only need one with about thirty minutes on it. Pop out your current sim card, put it in a ziplock baggie, and tuck it into a secure pocket in your pack.
Sandals. Get yourself one pair of decent sport sandals. Tevas and Keens seem to be popular among the trekking set. Resist the urge to wear them with socks. Also bring a pair of lightweight flip flops to wear on short jaunts and in the evening while you are hanging out with other expats in the courtyard of your hostel.
Bring a small back pack. Use this for your day trips.
Bring one or two paperbacks. The thicker and the smaller the print, the better. What’s awesome is if you can bring a novel or auto/biography which is set in the country you are traveling through. Don’t bring a book that a friend has loaned you. It’s going to get pretty beat up over the course of your travels. (Sorry about your copy of Rivertown Kathie, I’ll buy you a new one.)
You will be staying in hostels or guests houses. Many of them are owner-operated and almost all of them are run by people who speak surprising excellent English. You can either stay in a private room with or without your own bath or you can stay in a dorm-style room that holds anywhere from four to twelve people. A bed for the night can range anywhere from $8 - $20 for the night. The hostels will all have computers you can use to access the internet for free or for a small fee. Almost all the hostels have a paperback exchange where you can drop off the book you just finished and pick up a new title.
The staff at the guest house will be happy to help you arrange any side-trips you want to take. In fact, most of them have large posters hanging on the wall promoting all the offerings. Even the smallest hostels have a kitchen and will offer food. Muesli and yogurt and fruit smoothies seem to be universal offerings. All the hostels will have a common area where you can hang out in the evenings and unwinding from all of your wanderings. It’s also a great place to meet other travelers and exchange tales of conquest, tips, and horror stories.
You should probably train yourself to get some sleep whenever and wherever possible because there will be times when you are a running very short on sleep and a bed is a long ways off. Learning to curl up and grab an hour’s sleep on the carpeted floor of the Saigon train station while hugging your backpack is a useful skill.
Learn to eat baked beans for breakfast. Every backpacker’s hotel seems to think that baked beans are part of a western breakfast. I think it’s a British thing. Also, develop a penchant for banana pancakes. They seem to be a staple of every hostel.
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