I've always wanted to live in the woods, since I was a little kid. Sometime in college I got curious how much of "everything" I could have with me all of the time reasonably. Like, if I were dropped in the middle of the forest, or suddenly went to a friends house for a week, how much of the stuff I need could I have with me? So, I started playing around.
So with my clothing I don't really have to worry much about normal clothes, I'm largely set. The question then is warm clothing and rain clothing. For this I've found it useful to carry.
The Wind pants offer more warmth than one would ever expect. The rain jacket turns out to be a necessity for some climates. I tried just a wind shirt for a while and it didn't cut it when it was really wet all day hiking. If you have anything warm at all not having a warm hat is silly, it's so small and light and supplies so much warmth. The wind gloves are a necessity for biking and just for windy conditions.
Well, for a while I carried everything pretty much, I had warm running tights and a balaclava as well, but didn't have the raincoat. Then I moved out to California. I COULD carry everything, but found that it's not actually practical. So I take out a few items when I'm not expecting winter conditions. What I have is still enough for survival in most reasonable circumstances. I'm really torn on this issue, I'd LIKE to have everything, but the added weight and bulk has it's own problems, and of course would limit me in some situations. I often run 3 miles or so with this backpack on, so being light is really important.
This is basically EXACTLY what I carry backpacking So if you want details check it out there
I usually have a laptop, and a small camera. I'm a computer geek what can I say. Seriously though, a laptop gets you Internet access, and many many problems are quickly solved with Google maps or wikipedia. I'm working to get something smaller than a laptop to serve this purpose, but there's nothing like a keyboard. I recently acquired a blackberry, which is pretty good... but not as good as a laptop with a wan card. Additionally this is a quick way to carry tons of sheet music around with me, and a recording device.
This lets me charge my cellphone from my laptop
MUSIC! Mostly this is to block out that annoying kid behind you. I actually don't use them all that often, but I'm too big a music fan not to carry them.
I've gone back and forth on this, it's very useful. I'd like to make another electronic device fill this roll though
Recently I've taken to carrying around a penny whistle all of the time, I can play with tunes on my way home from work or while traveling
Like any good geek I carry several knives. I normally have a 3" survival knife, a 1" backup knife, a Leatherman squirt, a photon 3 flashlight, a and compass.
I've discovered there are a number of things that just make a trip better. In particular something to make me more approachable by strangers. A guitar fills this roll wonderfully. I often travel with my travel guitar. This also gives me something to do when stuck at airports, or when I want to kill an hour I can wander out to a park in some city play, and probably meet someone interesting. Another good choice I've found is a Rubix Cube, which I'm fairly good at solving. Unfortunately this tends to start conversations with "I did that once, but I moved the stickers". Basically it puts me on a higher level than them off the bat, which isn't quite what I want. I hear from friends that knitting works quite well, but I'm actually not a fan of knitting. I DO try and avoid listening to headphones. You will not meet interesting people, or even notice neat things going on around you, if you are listening to headphones.
By mbrewer