My top 5 real-life dirtbag travel hacks

Nepal, April, ’15

Backpackers are, as a species, short on money and space. We’re also often short on time, what with needing to make tight bus (see above), train, and janky plane connections, awakening still drunk at check-out time, or urgently needing a toilet (or bush, rock, or roadside) after eating dodgy street food.

Thus, things like showers, laundry, and basic hygiene often fall by the wayside. In my 15 years as a travel writer, I’ve oft found inspiration amongst fellow nomads- as well as come up with a few genius ideas myself- with regard to repurposing items or turning specific-use products into multitasking workhorses.

Presenting my top five travel hacks for dirtbags, tested and approved by yours truly. Happy holiday weekend!

Photo love: Elite Daily

1. Airline-size booze bottles for shampoo and body wash

While it’s shocking I didn’t come up with the idea myself, I recently discovered this hack after several dirtbag chef friends crashed at my apartment. I wasn’t remotely surprised to find a mini bottle of bourbon in my shower; what amazed me is that it was filled with castile soap (perhaps the most epic multitasking product on earth). Brilliant.

Photo love: Amateur Outdoorsman

2. Carabiners to carry extra items on your pack

I draw the line at stuffing sweaty, smelly, muddy hiking boots in my pack. That’s why I like to clip ’em to my day pack for transit (because only fools entrust their pricey footwear to the random sketchballs who handle checked baggage). Does it piss off my seatmates, who are forced to huff the fumes (see Hack #5)? Of course. Tough shit. ‘Biners are also ideal for holding wet swimsuits, shopping bags, and other stuff.

Photo love: ToysR’Us

3. Baby wipes

Not just any brand will do. It’s Pampers Sensitive Baby Wipes or nothing (especially if you have, you know, sensitive skin…or a vagina). It was my tentmate on the Inca Trail who turned me on to this basic travel hack. Not only ideal for an improved version of the so-called Mexican (insert minority slur of your region’s choice) shower, they’re also aces at removing road grime, makeup, sunblock, deodorant marks from the tank top you’ve been wearing almost daily for a month, degreasing hair, and blotting up the gallon of cooking oil (?) that exploded all over your pack while it was in the hold of a clapped-out Cambodian bus. Wiping the backsplash from your ass after using a fetid squat toilet? Priceless. If you travel with nothing else, make it these puppies.

There is a point to this photo. Keep reading.

4. Sarong

For a few bucks, you have a lightweight, non-bulky souvenir/beach towel/bath towel/blanket for over-AC’ed buses/sunshade/pillow/sling/tourniquet/face mask for choking developing nation pollution/on-the-fly changing room/padding for the hematoma on your tailbone from an ill-fitting pack. Bonus: It will last forfuckingever.

Your average Bolivian toilet

5. Free sample sizes of perfume/cologne

Beyond handy for travel hook-ups (carry in your pocket!) and destinking clothes, stanky hostel rooms, befouled restrooms, sweaty shoes, midewy backpack interiors, your hair and bod after one too many days on the road, and to use in place of deodorant when you run out, mid-trek.

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Holiday in Cambodia

In travel industry parlance, a “staycation” is a holiday at home.  As in, you’re broke, but you need to use up those paid vacation days, so you opt to sleep in, putter around the house, and visit that fascinating local museum dedicated to the history of widgets.

Until yesterday, I was thisclose to cashing in the 180,000 frequent flyer miles I’ve been hoarding for years, and book a trip to India or Southeast Asia for Christmas. I get antsy when I don’t get my hardcore travel fix on a regular basis, and in this economy, that means once a year.

The thing is, money is tight right now, so I’ve been waffling on committing to a major trip, no matter how down-n-dirty the destination. But, as sometimes happens, a miracle arrived in the nick of time, alleviating my financial woes and stress, and making my holiday dreams come true.

This was shot from my doorway. Suddenly, my bathroom seems very far away.

The photo at right is the five-by-three-foot pit now located just outside my front door (note that I have no back door in my glorfiied studio). My 100-year-old building’s sewer line burst the other night, and turns out the problem was a tree root in my yard. I came home last night to a back hoe, crew, and assorted onlookers watching my walkway get ripped apart.

Things got really exciting when I was asked to go inside, and turn on all of the faucets to make sure the blockage was clear. The crew had removed the bad section of pipe, so I effectively have an open sewer outside my door. We watched as wads of toilet paper, and one of my neighbors’ recent meals floated past.  Yep, seemed like things were all in working order.

The catch is that until the city certifies that the line is fixed, the missing section of pipe can’t be installed. And you know how cities are with expediting permits. Perhaps the groundwater contamination that’s occurring as I write will motivate them?

The crew bade me good night, adding a cryptic, “See you sometime next week!” I now have an open sewer instead of a patio, and that’s when I realized: Why the hell blow my miles and money to visit a developing nation? I have my own little slice of Bangladesh right here in Boulder. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to unpack my sarong.

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