35 Tips to Lighten Your Backpack for FREE

getting ultralight gear will save you a lot of weight but unfortunately it will also cost a pretty penny that's why in this video we're doing the opposite of that here are 35 tips to lighten your backpack quickly and without spending a single dollar but before we begin keep in mind that these tips are just suggestions depending on your gear climate preferences or experience in the outdoors you may not want to follow some of them check if your back pack comes with a builtin rain cover and remove it if it does instead of protecting your gear from the exterior with a rain cover or from the interior with waterproof dry socks you can put it all in one large trash bag and then put it inside the backpack because this trash bag is lighter it's cheaper and it's also 100% waterproof go through your first aid kit and remove any duplicates or any unnecessary things because chances are that even if something would happen you would only use one or two things from the first aid kit I personally only bring an emergency blanket some wounds disinfectant wipes a gauze Luco tape some bandages something for your stomach and IBU profine I would also recommend putting it all in a Ziploc bag because it is waterproof and it's also lighter instead of bringing a sun cap for hiking during the day and a beanie for the cold evenings bring only the sun cap that's because if you're bringing a dawn jacket and a rain jacket if you put on the hood it's pretty much as warm as the beanie so there's really no need to bring the extra beanie utilize rain jackets even if it isn't going to be raining because rain jackets actually block most of the incoming wind which in turn keeps you warm even when wearing only a few layers underneath it you'd have to experiment with this yourself before setting out on the hike but for example for me personally if I'm wearing a dawn jacket underneath a rain jacket I really don't need to bring another fleece to where in the evenings unless it's going to be below freezing during the night if you'll be building a fire than bringing a small saw is a way better choice than bringing a hatchet because it's smaller it's also lighter it's easier to work with and also you can gather firewood much quicker with a small saw than with a hatchet if you'll be hiking in a group always communicate with each other on what gear each one of you will be bringing for example you can probably bring bring only one saw for your whole group instead of each person bringing their own this also applies to similar items that can be shared like camping stoves pans and pots knives and similar items always keep a small travel-sized toothpaste at your home and before you set off on your hiking trip you can refill it if needed by pressing it against a larger toothpaste tube you can leave your inflatable camping pillow back at home and put all of your spare clothing in the hood of your down jacket and use it like a pillow below you also don't need to bring a lantern or a handheld torch if you're already bringing a headlamp some people don't even bring a headlamp because you already have a torch in your phone you usually set up your tent before it gets dark so realistically there's not a lot of Need for light when it gets dark especially if you're hiking in summer when the days are very long you also probably do not need to bring extra Camp shoes to wear around Camp I pretty much always treat these as an extra luxury item which which I almost never bring unless it's really cold outside or I'm planning to spend a lot of time around the campsite together with my wife we make minimalistic posters of various through hiking trails we've been working on a new design which has more elevation and terrain data they'll have more colors at the same time they'll also be really minimalistic we'll be launching this design for our most popular maps in the upcoming weeks so keep an eye out for that but right now we have minimalistic maps for over 100 different through hikes and you can check them out over at Trail goals.com and you'll get 10% off with the discount code Oscar hikes but now let's get back to the video you probably do not need to bring a towel unless you're planning on taking showers in campsites or swimming in these cases bringing a small microfiber towel is the best option if you don't have one don't stress about it because you can also use a small bath towel because the size difference isn't really that large just whatever you do do not bring a full large bath towel because it takes up a lot of space in your backpack this is probably going to sound a bit controversial but you do not need to bring a guide book a compass and a map because you have it all on your phone for offline navigating I use the free versions of locus maps and Gaia GPS by caching the map data on my phone but honestly I do not want to push this too much because relying just on your phone is not ideal especially if you're hiking in a new area that you aren't very familiar with so yeah take this with a grain of salt and do not follow this tip unless you're comfortable with doing that always bring the smallest possible gas canister that you can find because it already weighs pretty much as is and the larger ones will just add a lot of needless weight when I've gotten about 10 uses on this thing and I can start to feel that it is starting to become pretty light I usually set it aside to use up on my car camping trips when hiking in summer instead of bringing p hands to wear for the colder evenings and shorts to wear during the day bring a pair of shorts and a pair of long johns to wear underneath the shorts they're lighter than hiking pants they're warmer they're more comfortable to sleep in and also if you wear them underneath shorts in my opinion they also don't look too bad the only downside is that if you want to put them on quickly you first have to take off your shorts then put on the long johns then the shorts back again which can be a bit frustrating for quick overnight trips where where you know that you'll be making a fire or you know that there will be a fireplace at the campsite you don't need to bring a pan to cook your food because you can already pre-wrap Meats fish potatoes and similar Foods in aluminum foil and cook them directly in the fire instead of bringing a dedicated camping chair bring a small sit pad you can just cut off a small section from an old foam mat and you're pretty much good to go do not bring a full roll of toilet paper and instead only bring a small section of it of course this won't save you a lot of weight but it will save you quite a bit of space in your backpack refill everything from glass into plastic bottles because they're lighter repackage your food from larger containers into smaller zip plug bags and only bring the amount that you will be consuming also if you want to add some veggies to your meals it's a good idea to precook them at home before you set off that way you'll get rid of some of the water that will add a lot of weight and also you'll drastically reduce the cooking time at Camp avoid these Foods because of a poor weight to calorie ratio or because they take too long to cook canned goods fresh fruit and vegetables chickpeas beans lentils and rice for your dinner you'll need to get some protein carbs and fat for protein some good options are dried fish or meat but fresh meat is also pretty good but from my own experience the best option by far for getting protein while hiking is using texturized soy it cooks very quickly you just need to add some boiling water it has more protein than meat or fish and it weighs pretty much nothing for the carbs some good options are pasta egg rice or spinach noodles couscous quick oats or quinoa it's also really important to add some fat to your meals because you'll be burning a lot of calories while hiking the best option that I found for this so far is to bring a bit of olive oil in a plastic bottle and just add it to your meals because it contains a ton of of good calories some good snacking ideas that you could eat quickly during the day that are lightweight high in calories and that aren't too bad for your health include protein bars but the main downside is that they do cost quite a bit not bars which are somewhat similar only much cheaper dried fruit nuts and peanut butter I used to always bring a coffee mocha pot because I love to have a good cup of coffee in the morning and I know that this will probably irritate some of my Italian viewers but honestly having a bit of instant coffee or just pouring some boiling water on top of ground coffee beans makes a pretty good coffee as well especially if you're outside in the middle of nowhere cheers so maybe keep your mocha pot at home because this thing is very heavy and it will save you a lot of weight also while we around the subject do not bring an extra cup because you can always drink coffee or tea directly from the pot a thermos is a really nice extra to have especially on very cold and rainy days but it weighs a lot if you're bringing a camping stove then there's really no need to bring a thermos as well because you can just boil your water here do not store your water in metal or plastic Nene water bottles instead use regular grocery store water bottles because they're lighter they're readily available pretty much everywhere and you can replace them very easily if needed make it a habit to always check all of the pockets on your backpack before setting off because a lot of times you'll find a lot of weird stuff in there like a cool rock that you found on your previous trip or some trash from your previous hike on shorter hiking trips maybe 1 2 three nights you really don't need to bring repair gear and extra cords if you do need quick repairs on the spot for example you tear your down jacket you can do that quickly with a bit of duct tape wrapped around your lighter or you can fix it properly with repair gear when you return home do you really need to hike in big hiking boots because on most Trails hiking in trail Runners is a better choice because they're lighter which means that on every step that you take you have to carry less weight which allows you to walk more and carry more stuff in your backpack I would even argue that on very simple and flats Trails hiking in regular running shoes or even Converse sneakers would be a better Choice than hiking in big and heavy hiking boots keep all of the socks for your sleeping bag your sleeping pad your tent and your pillow back at home because they aren't really needed and they do add up also these items pack more efficiently meaning they take up less space when they're squished down at the bottom of the pack lighten your keys and your wallet there's no need to buy a new wallet you can just use a small Ziploc bag for this exact purpose honestly I often forget to do this myself so I end up carrying this big thing in my pocket instead of bringing a large knife bring a small pocket knife or no knife at all the only real instance where you might need a knife like this or something larger is if you're fishing hunting you're into Bushcraft or something like that or if you're watching too much of Cades hiking and now you're pretty much paranoid of going out into the woods bring only two pairs of hiking socks one to wear during the day and one to wear during the night if you need to wash one of them you can tie them to your backpack and they will dry out as you're hiking how many toiletries do you really need on your backpacking trip I personally only bring toothpaste although a smaller tube than this some lip balm sunscreen and a bit of hand sanitizer on longer hikes I'll also bring some eco-friendly soap that I can use to wash my dishes my clothing and myself and also in some occasions I'll bring a bit of bug spray some toiletries that you probably don't need are de deodorant shampoo and for the girls makeup and dry shampoo most of them are liquids so they take up quite a bit of weight and space in your backpack and you can probably live without them just for a few days while you're out hiking here in the nature optimize the placement of items inside your backpack so that it feels lighter and it causes less shoulder pain do not attach anything heavy to the exterior of the pack especially here on the top you can attach something lightweight to the bottom of the pack like a foam sleeping mat because it won't do much harm to your shoulders also put all of the heaviest items towards the center of the pack and closer to your bag instead of here on the top the more heavy stuff that you put here on the top or towards the outside of the backpack the more it will pull away from your shoulders and cause more shoulder pain use a fanny pack to organize some of the quick grab items because it will remove some weight from the backpack and move it over here to the front and another bonus is that it just provides much quicker access to some of the items that you may need quickly like your phone wallet some snacks a camera maybe and something like that in one of my recent videos somebody pointed out that I shouldn't call this thing a fanny pack because fanny has a quite different meaning in the UK I believe but well I'm not from the UK and we call them that here so fanny pack fanny pack fanny pack fanny pack fanny pack if you know of any other tips that allow you to save some weight or space in your backpack for free please try them down in the video comments to help out other people thank you for watching and I'll see you in one of my next videos bye

Channel: Oscar Hikes

Views: 316,920

Keywords: How to lighten backpack for free, budget ultralight tips, budget hiking tips, ultralight hiking tips, hiking tips, backpacking tips, trekking tips, How to lower pack weight, reduce pack weight, reduce backpack weight, make backpack lighter, lower backpack base weight, ultralight backpacking tips, backpacking weight tips

Id: vdq3VojERAg

Length: 13min 43sec (823 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2024