One Piece Of Advice...

If I was to give one piece of advice after having done my trip it would be this: pack light. There's nothing fun about having to drag a 90 liter pack that weighs 30 kg around - especially when it's hot.

With some careful pre-planning and a bit of Internet research, it's possible to get everything you'll need for a whole year in a bag that weighs less than 10 kg and that you can take on the plane.

Not only is there no risk of arriving after a long plane journey to find your bags missing - you can take it on the bus with you and make sure no one's stealing from you on the journey (which is a major problem in South America). It's also easy to carry when your doing the inevitable trail around hostels in the baking heat looking for a place to stay.

A lot of people were surprised at how little my bag was - but I did meet people along the way whose bags made mine look cumbersome. In fact - there's some stuff I ended up dragging around the world that I never needed.

And at the end of the day - you can buy everything you need along the way. Rather stupidly - this is something I didn't really think about until I was on the road. The only thing that seems to be in short supply in most of the world is good quality light weight western standard shoes...which is a bit ironic since the shoes we can buy in the west tend to be made in the east...

...you can pretty much buy everything else...or get it repaired. While we throw away and buy, it's possible to get just about anything repaired very cheaply. Like new zips in trousers, or shoe repairs.

This is a really great site to get started: Travel Independent.