When you look at the total weight of your pack, clothes are the bulk of what people have to pack, hence the need to be very strategic here. We generally always plan to do laundry on the trip and will continue to do so but this is an area where things haven't always gone according to plan so will share some of our lessons learned! I have gradually gotten more daring on how few clothes we can possibly pack. For 2 weeks in Europe, we brought 7 outfits, plus odds and ends, and did laundry in an AirBnB in the middle. This was rather simple but we still had a lot of clothes. We didn't need that many.
In Chile, we had to pack a mixture of warm and cold clothes for the climate difference between Patagonia (chilly and windy, even in summer) and Santiago (hot). We had to plan for layers and re-wearing some clothes. Laundry services in the park were limited to the hotels, which were pricy. We planned to use a laundry mat in a town between Torres del Paine National Park and Punta Arenas, where we'd fly out of. But we didn't realize the laundry mats that we found on Google maps were actually laundry services which we needed to drop off at and pick up many hours later. We didn't find any self-service laundry mats. We didn't plan that well and had to figure out an alternate plan which included wearing things definitely longer than we'd have liked (first world problem, right?). Eventually we found a laundry service in Santiago that we could take advantage of and it wasn't terribly expensive, I think we spent about $10. Self-service laundry mats seem to be primarily be a US and European thing.
In Egypt, we packed 5 outfits for 8 days and used a laundry service in rural Egypt halfway through the trip. We had our guide arrange this for us. Although I was surprised to hear from our guide that we shouldn't give the laundry service our under garments. It was a conservative village. So we sank wash our underwear with body wash because we didn't bring laundry soap on this trip. As a side note though, one pair of underwear snuck its way into our laundry bag that went to the service and it did come back clean and folded without incident! The service cost about $4.
I have started engineering our outfits so that I can mix and match any of the shirts with shorts/pants/skirts. I may not be super fashionable but it usually works just fine. I felt a little more pressure to look nice in Italy. Sometimes I like to buy a skirt or outfit at the destination that is a bit of practical souvenir.
Women also have more cultural standards to be aware of, of course. For instance, in Egypt, I packed a couple of longer skirts and non-tank top shirts. In many of the touristy spots, many foreigners didn't necessarily do this, but when I was the only women in a restaurant in rural Egypt, my presence was probably scandalous enough, my uncovered hair was pushing it, no need to also have shorts and a tank. Research and awareness!
We also bring lighter weight/quick dry clothes in case we need to sink wash and hang dry that they will dry. We generally don't bring jeans. There are websites which grade travel underwear based on dry time if you are super dedicated to fewer clothes! We always each have a sweatshirt and 1-2 pair of pants for the plane that are re-purposed for any cooler evenings.
Shoes are probably the heaviest item you'll have in your bag. Minimizing the pairs is key. Based on itinerary, we normally each have a pair of walking shoes and flip flops/crocs. For hiking trips, we will bring hiking shoes or sandals. I don't bring fancy shoes on any of these trips, black flip flops will suffice if we happen to have a nice dinner night.
Bottom line: Set a goal to pack at least 1/2 the outfits for number of days in country. Do some Google research on the weather, culture and laundry situation at your destination. Always bring some laundry sheets along in case of a sink wash.
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