No Sherpas Allowed...

Crew!

By now, you're probably in the full stages of packing, and you're probably wondering how possible it would be to hire your own personal Sherpa (like the guy in the picture here) to help you carry your gear. But alas, there are no Sherpas for this trip, so you'll want to remember my instructions from Monday night about how to pack:

* Einstein's Theory of "Packativity": Remember what Einstein said, "Make everything as simple as possible... but no simpler."

* "Shibumi": The concept of "restrained elegance" to the Samurai of Feudal Japan caused them to peel away whatever was unnecessary in order to allow the beauty of what remains to be evident.

* Light and Tight: The tighter you can roll your gear, the more space you will save. The lighter you can buy or pack, the better.

* Klingon Biology: Our friends from Star Trek have redundant vital organs. You should too. Split up your gear so that if your checked luggage accidentally ends up in Dubai, you're still not completely without functionality. For my part, i split toiletries, a spare change of clothes, and extra food between my carry on and checked gear.

In addition, you can see my packing list by clicking here (note: it's in Microsoft XL format, so if you can't open it, please let me know and we can send it to you in another file type).

If you want to see Mark Beeson's "sweet rig" that i mentioned on Monday, you can go to Kifaru's web site by clicking here. Again, you probably don't want to purchase any of this stuff for this trip... but if you want to see what just how sophisticated you can get with the whole packing thing, this is a pretty good glimpse.