I had a look at various travel & backpacking sites, forums, & YouTube channels, to get an idea of what approaches to laundry while travelling are out there.

My previous approach of “I’ll take enough stuff that I don’t need to do laundry” won’t work with what I have planned, so it comes down to how many ‘days’ of clothing to take.
Some folks advocate for a very low number, to minimise the amount of stuff being lugged around.
I know someone who does conventions with three changes of clothes, so that one can be worn, one is ironed & ready to wear, and the other is drying in the bathroom of the hotel, having been washed in the sink.

I’d had the idea that I could try a couple of weeks worth of clothes, and if it turned out that this was too many, I’d figure it out in New Zealand, so I could just post the excess home. Wasn’t sure what 14 days of stuff would look like, so I got out the pack and did a test with 7 shirts/socks/underwears.
Figured I’d then add another 7.

Well, that answered the 7 or 14 question, didn’t it?
Things could be stuffed down more, but not a whole lot more, and doubling the amount would just about fill the central volume of the pack. There’s an extra bit at the bottom, and a top compartment, but … It doesn’t seem like the best move to fill almost the entire volume with clothing.

All in all, a good result, I think, and it fits in with this very valuable piece of advice;

Auckland to London via Dubai, then London to Chicago, then Chicago to London via Iceland

Time for an update.
I’ve been working on travel plans, which is, I suspect, another way of saying that I’ve been procrastinating and not actually booking anything, as is the custom among my people.

Booked some flights and a hotel yesterday, so I think it’s past time that I announced what the hell the plan, if it can be said to be one, actually is. I’ve put a map up there, from the nice folks at www.greatcirclemapper.net, mostly because I wanted one.

Tried to do it in PowerPoint, which annoyed me, GIMP, which annoyed me in different ways, and MS Paint, which … had a certain “We’ll Put This On The Refrigerator, Little Billy” charm to it.

Here’s the plan;

• March 31st – Move into the spare room at House Needs-A-Name
  I aim to be packed up, my stuff reduced to what can feasibly fit into a backpack (and maybe a daypack too, we’ll see how that goes) by the end of this month.
  That means that the storage unit will be downsized (doing that on Thursday); the furniture sold, donated, or abandoned in the woods to fend for itself; and personal stuff either stored, trashed, or given away.
  Administrative things would be nice to sort out in that timeframe too, but I have a little bit more wiggle room there, thanks to, …
• April & May – Sort out remaining stuff, then go see the South Island
  The only bit of the South Island I’ve seen is Christchurch, and, well, they’ve redecorated since then.
  The plan is to have no plan, and to travel based on “Where Do I Want To Go Next”, with a side order of “Can I Find A Backpacker Hostel With Space For Me”.
  I’m looking at this as part tourism & part dry-run of backpack & hostel travel; If it turns out that I’m carrying to much, or the wrong stuff, or I just really really hate it, better to know while I’m still in New Zealand and can alter the plan.
  Assuming I don’t throw in the microfibre tramping towel, these travels would lead to, …
• June 2nd – Au Contraire 2016, the NZ National Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention, in Wellington
  The convention runs from the 3rd to the 5th, but I’m getting there the day before.
  Well, I have a hotel booking for the day before, so I certainly intend to get there the day before, and stay a day or so afterwards, so as to catch up with Wellington folks before …
• June 7th – Fly back to Auckland
  I’m beginning to worry that these lead-on things are getting old, or at least annoying.
  Back in Auckland, for a last chance to sort out & fine tune anything which needs it, see the parents, see the Auckland folks, probably do some laundry, pick up some foreign money, and then head for the airport, because …
• June 13th – Fly to Dubai, arriving on the 14th
  Emirates turned out to be a pretty cheap option, and they have that ridiculous 17+ hour direct flight from Auckland to Dubai. I’ll miss out on the delightful experience of people arguing with Australian Customs Officers over duty free booze & bottle sizes (the limits are different over there), and I made sure to book an aisle seat.
  Did look at bulkhead & exit row, but the few unbooked seats were tagged as “if there’s a family with infants, we’ll probably move you”, so I went with middle-of-the-section side-block aisle.
  Because there’s no damn way I will be wanting to get back on, or even look at, a plane after 17+ hours in one, …
• June 14th & 15th – Dubai
  Found a hotel near a metro station & not too far from things I might find interesting, and my plane gets in before 6am, so that gives me basically two days & two nights in Dubai.
  Hilariously, it’ll be during Ramadan, to really maximise that culture shock.
  Worst case, it’ll be devoid of life, explosively hot & humid, everything will be closed, and I’ll spend my time in the hotel enjoying air-con, retreating to my room to eat & drink during daylight hours, and annoying everyone with increasingly inane Facebook posts. And that doesn’t sound so bad.
  Best case, Ramadan will be an extra layer on top of a place which is already trying to mix tradition with … modernity? conspicuous capitalism? … , and it’ll be filled to bursting with interesting things to ask dumb questions about.
  Plus I’ll try to catch up with a friend/coworker who’s based there, which will be fun.
• June 16th – Fly to London
  Went with the window seat option here; It’s only an 8-hour flight, in daylight, and it’s mostly over land, so there’ll be something to look at.
• The Rest of June, plus July – Probably the UK, or more accurately, Great Britain
  We’re back to planning to have no plan for this bit.
  I’m going to book accommodation for the first few days, and hilariously enough, the hotel I stayed at for the London WorldCon compares favourably with a private room in a hostel, and with many of the AirBnB options. Probably because it’s in the Docklands, which isn’t a dealbreaker for me; The Underground holds few fears for me, and I found my Oyster Card from 2014 yesterday, so it’s a 2-3 train trip, which isn’t that big a deal.
  Beyond that, ramblings as I feel like it, hopefully visiting a friend who lives in Essex, hopefully visiting another friend who might be rampaging around Edinburgh, and generally wallowing in tourism & trying not to end up working in a pub which caters exclusively to New Zealanders & Australians on their OE.
  In retrospect, joining the Kiwis In London Facebook community could be seen as being counterproductive on that particular point.
• July 30th, or possibly 31st – Fly to Chicago, then get to Indianapolis
  Which date I leave on, and indeed arrive on, depends on the airline & the route. IcelandAir do some cheap flights, but some of them involve at 17 hour layover at Keflavík, which sounds like no sort of fun I’ve ever heard of.
  Aer Lingus, via Dublin, seem reasonable, though I’m still struggling to tell the difference between airlines which are low cost & honest about it, and those which are low cost and will screw you every chance they get.
  Regardless of the route, the plan is to be in Chicago on the 31st, so that I can get to Indianapolis for the 2nd of August, for Gen Con. There may be a road trip with some friends from Chicago, or it might turn out that another flight is a better idea, depending on how their plans/jobs go.
  I did look at the train options, but the arrival times are … suboptimal. Midnight is an annoying time to arrive, ’cause it’d feel like a waste to have a hotel room, and I don’t know that a hotel would be entirely keen on someone turning up at midnight, asking to store a bag, and then chillaxing/sleeping in the lobby for 12-14 hours.
• August 2nd-9th – Gen Con and related events
  Gen Con nominally runs from the 4th to the 7th, but Day Zero is the 3rd, and that’s still a pretty big part of the thing, as is the day after, on the 8th, when people pack up to go, and the whole thing is dismantled.
• August, September, and some of October – Wombling About In The USA
  Same routine as with NZ & the UK; Go see some things, stay in places as long as they interest me, then move on when they don’t. Ideally, visit some folks along the way, go to local conventions if the timing works out & the event interests me, that sort of thing.
  The Visa Waiver Program allows for up to 90 days, which would take me out to the end of October, but I figure setting a limit of 80 days gives me some wiggle room for things not going according to plan, and it might make the Customs & Border Protection folks happy to see that I’m not running out the clock to the last possible minute. I also plan to have my exit flight booked before I arrive, so that I can prove that I plan to leave, and to make it an easily-changed flight, in case I run out of money, energy, or interest in seeing another bloody scenic wonder.
  Speaking of exit flights, leaving from Chicago makes a kind of sense to me, as I know some folks in the general area. And in adjacent states. And states adjacent to those states. Which, with luck, lets me catch up with them before flying out to …
• Iceland!
  IcelandAir will not charge you any extra for a stopover of up to 7 days if your flight with them goes through Keflavík, so I thought I’d take advantage of that. Should probably pick up a “How Not To Sound Like An Idiot In Icelandic” guide to kill time during the US portion of the trip; I know that most folks there speak English, but it’d be nice to be able to pronounce things, and read the signs.
  As for what to do there? It’s Iceland, I’m sure I can find something entertaining & expensive. That thing where they give you a dry-suit and a snorkel, then point you at a Continental Rift, has a certain appeal. (There’s also a SCUBA option, but I am barred from that on medical grounds, so snorkel is the way to go)
• Back to London
  Well, it doesn’t have to be London, but it’s an air-travel hub for a reason.
  By this point it’ll be towards the end of October, and I’ll have been traveling for … counts on fingers … somewhere between six and seven months. That’s a long damn time, and it seems an excellent point to pause, take stock, and figure out what the next step is.
  It’s certainly a fine time to stop outlining the Grand Plan; I have no idea what state I’ll be in by then, what my finances will look like, and whether I’ll want to continue wandering, find some short-term contract work, find a longer-term job, …, could be anything.

And that’s the plan, such as it is.

There are a lot of unknowns here.
I’ve never traveled without a detailed plan before; I don’t know if I can do that, let alone whether I like it.
I’ve not spent a lot of time in Backpacker Hostels, so that’s a new thing.
The spine is an issue, but that’s what Travel Insurance with Medical Cover is for; That bit worries me the least.

There are questions too.
What to see & do in the UK, and in the USA?
Iceland?

And perhaps the most important question, what to call any Blog, Podcast, or YouTube channel, if I find myself wanting to do reports from the road?
I’d been thinking of The Wandering Monster, which was suggested by one of the FlatLords, but it turns out that there’s already a games publishing company who use that name, so it’s too close for comfort. It’s a pity, I’d thought about getting a dinosaur onesie and making that part of the theme.
Wilderness Encounters, while a solid gaming reference, sounds like a dogging group who meet in a forest, and I think they’d be disappointed by the actual content. Wilderness Adventures has the same problem, and, to be honest, I’m not that adventurous.

If anyone has an idea, I’d love to hear it.

This is what it looks like when I say “Fuck It” and do the map by hand in MS Paint