Linen, a good shell, and the discipline to bring less than you think. A list we actually use.
Most packing lists are written by people who are not the ones carrying the bag. This one isn’t. It is the list we actually give our own travellers for the warm, wet, green months. And it is shorter than you expect.
Linen that forgives a crease. One genuinely good shell that packs to nothing and shrugs off an afternoon downpour. Shoes that can get wet and dry by morning. And then, deliberately, less than you think, because the laundry is excellent, the markets are tempting, and a light bag is its own kind of freedom.
The discipline is the point. Pack for the trip you are taking, not the four trips you imagine taking. You will wear a third of what you bring; bring the third.
The fabric matters more than the quantity. Linen and merino dry overnight and forgive a humid afternoon; cotton holds the damp and turns heavy by lunch. Bring one dry bag for a phone and a passport, less for the rare downpour caught in the open than for the boat transfers and the spray off a longtail, and a hat that packs flat and actually shades the back of the neck.
Leave room, too, for the one good thing. A single dinner in most places asks a little more of you than the days do, so a linen jacket or a dress that does not crease earns its space where a third pair of shoes does not. Almost everything else the region will lend you: an umbrella at the front desk, a tailor in Hoi An who turns a shirt around by morning, a laundry that returns things folded and warm the same evening.
Frequently asked
Do I need proper waterproofs for the green season?
Rarely. The rain tends to arrive hard and brief in the afternoon and then clear, so a light packable shell and the willingness to wait twenty minutes under an awning beat a heavy raincoat you carry all day. For boat days and waterfalls we pack a dry bag instead.
What shoes actually work?
One pair that can get wet and dry by morning, and one you are happy to wear to dinner. Temple steps and trails turn slick in the wet, so a grippy sole matters more than a smart one, and most temples ask you to slip them off at the door anyway.
How do you manage laundry on a longer trip?
We build it in. In most of the places we use, laundry is quick, good and inexpensive, which is the real reason you can pack light: you are never more than a day or two from clean clothes, so there is no case for carrying two weeks of them.
