Making rookie mistakes while packing your backpacks before a first-time hiking trip, is completely natural. For novice hikers, often the trip can be ruined only for your backpack burden, which will inevitably weigh you down and slow your normal speed on the trail. Backpacking is not about replicating your home comfort on road but carrying essentials for the trail mostly. But that doesn’t mean you have to cut all your comfort while on road. Just go for the lightweight and portable alternatives along with a few never-to-forget essentials. Here are a few tips to help you out to cut your pack weight, not your comfort.

• Opt for Multipurpose Gears

This includes clothing also. While a cooking pot can be used as a bowl, a bandana can be used as a sun-protection, a dish cleaner, a coffee filter, a potholder, etc. Also re-wear your clothes to save backpack space. If you get bored, do some impromptu mix n match or layering from within your stock. Look for professional multipurpose trekking gears, if you need them.

• Hydration Is a Must

A single-liter water bottle can add a significant amount of 2.2 pounds to your pack weight. So, ditch multiple water bottles and carry a filtration solution instead. Plan out water stops along your trail, refill your bottle, and keep filtering your water periodically as you hike. Collapsible water bottles are handy here to save extra space and weight.

• Keep it Organized

The first and foremost thing is to weigh everything you are carrying, including your water and food. The beginner backpackers should not carry more than 20% of their full-body weights on their backs while walking. It’s better to create a spreadsheet to log down everything. You can use the spreadsheet for your next trip too. If this sounds tedious, simply weigh your backpack after packing using a luggage scale and reorganize accordingly.

While there’s a wild pandemic spreading around the world and people are quarantining at home, book sales have gone up to 33%. It seems Netflix has some real competition these days. Travel memoir books are the perfect way for anyone to escape, draw us out of the mundane routine to an imaginative, unpredictable adventure. Reading is also a chance to keep your mind off staying put, let’s call it settling in instead.

Check out four impactful memoirs that will carry you to faraway places all while staying at home.

1. The Longest Way Home By Andrew McCarthy

In this memoir, McCarthy recounts his yearlong solo journey around the world. He visited Spain, Patagonia, the Amazon, Costa Rica, Vienna, Baltimore, Kilimanjaro, and Dublin. During his journey, he describes his migration from being a vagabond to a once-again married man. The New York Times said it best, it’s “A long, strange trip on the direction of full-throttle love.”

2. West With The Night By Beryl Markham

In Markham’s memoir, she writes about her childhood in Kenya, her greatest fears, training racehorses, and most notably one of her greatest adventures. In 1936, Markham accepted a challenge to complete the first solo east-to-west flight across the Atlantic. She started off from England, flew for more than 21 hours, and survived a crash-landing on an island near Nova Scotia. This story will definitely keep you on your toes throughout.

3. The Snow Leopard By Peter Matthiessen

This memoir from 1973, chronicles Matthiessen’s trek with zoologist Gorge Schaller into the region of the Himalayas. Schaller’s aim was to study the Himalayan blue sheep, while Matthiessen was to take a glimpse at the snow leopard which is rare to see. According to this memoir, only two westerners over the previous twenty-five years have ever seen the snow leopard in the wild. This book is perfect for those of you who are adrenaline junkies.

4. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard offers us an exclusive insight into her memoir. She chronicles her close-to-home explorations along the Tinker Creek in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains across a one year period. Dillard stays in place while the world shifts around her. She shares the fear, anxiousness, and anger throughout her journey. This memoir is perfect to keep your mind off the current news. Enjoy a good reading!