Wonder how one mom prepped for a slow travel?

We did.

Welcome guest blogger Marilia Di Cesare. We are so excited to have the opportunity to meet so many amazing families on the road, many of which, we connect with online. Sometimes we even come across a few amazing single moms out in the word, doing what we are doing. Any we always create  an instant bond with them. In the case fo Marilia, we were thrilled to meet a mom equally passionate about travel and  about providing her daughter with the best “world schooling” possible. See why we connected?

So, we wondered how she planned, prepped and packed for this part of her journey, so so we asked her. We noticed there were slight differences between packing for a daughter than a son, other than that, our packing lists are virtually the same (minus the guitar).

A Single Mom & Child Packing List For An Extended Trip

By Guest blogger Marilia Di Cesare of TrippingMom.com

Way back on my travel planning stages, I decided I’d join the light travelers. I was planning on a seven-month trip to Costa Rica with my 3-year old and started to check on RTW travelers´ backpack sizes. I saw that some light travelers have 35 liters backpacks, so I figured that adding another 15 litters for Luísa´s stuff would suit us well and decided to buy a 50 liters. I also have a little backpack for electronics, carry on stuff and a guitar.

Ultimately, one should bring clothes that dry up easily, that match each other and bring some money to buy what´s not worth carrying with you. My packing strategy was very simple: I simply chose my favorite clothes that I use more regularly and fit in my backpack pretty much all I could (the backpack was the limit).

One good thing is that we are going from tropical town to tropical town, we don´t need to worry about warm clothes. We haven´t used our warm clothes at all (not even under AC, as a matter of fact). It feels like leaving them all behind, but like a careful mom, I have to be prepared in case the worse happens – meaning we face any temperature under 19°C.

I thought I would travel very little, around three towns and choose where to just stay. I ended up traveling a lot more, jumping from couch, to bus, to hostel and so on. It was quite uncomfortable to travel with all of this (as light as it might seem it´s still heavy to walk around), but bringing less also means washing clothes much more often.

After one month and a half traveling, we stopped at a town where I´ll spend some good 3-6 months (or more, who knows?) and it feels good to have the luxury to wash clothes once a week.

Hoping that this can help other single-traveler moms out there, here is goes:

My clothes

1) shirts 11
2) skirts 6
3) shorts 2
4) underwear 8
5) jeans 1
6) belt 1
7) sweaters 2
8 ) nightgown 2
9) sarongues 3
10) hat 1
11) sandals 1
12) sneakers 1
13) bikinis 7
14) rash guard
15) socks 3

Luísa´s clothes

16) shirts 11
17) dresses 4
18) shorts 9
19) skirts 2
20) long pajamas 3
21) short pajamas 2
22) long pants 3
23) sweater
24) coat
25) underwear 12
26) bikinis 5
27) socks 5
28) hat
29) sneakers
30) sandals 3
31) backpack
32) hand towels 2

Marilia Di Cesare of TrippingMom.com

Marília is a Brazilian surfer-single mom of a three-year old.  She blogs at Tripping Mom about traveling with children, our values system, how to find a relevant education and ways to keep sanity (or forget about it) around a kid. She´s currently living in Costa Rica where her daughter is learning two new languages (Spanish and English).