Pack Smart & Sustainable: Eco Essentials for Travel
As travelers, we can make conscious choices to help preserve the natural beauty of the places we visit. From reusable water bottles to eco-friendly toiletries, choosing sustainable gear minimizes waste, conserves resources, and supports ethical brands.
We created this list to show you about the sustainable items that we love and know that they will make your travels lighter and easier, while helping our planet. ECO-FRIENDLY TOILETRIES
We carry three travel-size refillable bottles in our luggage: for our daypack a sunscreen, curling cream, and laundry detergent, plus an old antibacterial gel bottle repurposed for emergency liquid soap. It's surprising to see travelers with full-sized bottles, as they take up so much space for a 3-4 week trip. Travel-sized bottles show how little you really need. We keep them around after trips to use them up, which can take us months.
Once we switched to solid products, there's no going back. For example, a 100-gram shampoo bar is equivalent to 2–3 standard 250 ml bottles of liquid shampoo. Depending on how frequently you wash your hair, a shampoo bar can last 2–3 months with regular use every 2–3 days. We typically cut our three bars to fit into our travel soap case, and each set lasts 2–3 months before we switch to new pieces.
Eco-Friendly Travel-Size Toiletry Bottles
Benefits: Refillable, travel bottles reduce single-use plastic and allow you to bring your favorite products. Moreover, it reduces the weight in your luggage or allows you to bring them as carry-on.
Tips: We recommend to search for leak-proof and BPA-free options.
Solid Shampoo and Conditioner Bars
Benefits: Long-lasting, plastic-free, and compact. Shampoo and conditioner bars take up less space than bottles and won’t leak in your bag.
Tips: Look for biodegradable and chemical-free options.
Biodegradable Soap and Body Wash
Benefits: Multipurpose biodegradable soaps like Dr. Bronner's can be used for body, face, clothes, and even dishes. It’s a great all-in-one solution for backpackers. To reduce our liquids, we use soap bars that we try our best to buy with local sellers.
Tips: We recommend you to search for a travel soap case (ours is compostable) that allows water to drip down and to keep it dry.
Toothpaste Tablets
Benefits: Plastic-free, no mess, and easy to dose. Toothpaste tablets are more compact than tubes.
Tips: Just chew, brush, and rinse as you would with regular toothpaste. You can always restock at eco-friendly shops.
Bamboo Toothbrush
Benefits: Bamboo is biodegradable and renewable, making it a sustainable alternative to plastic toothbrushes.
Tips: Look for compostable or recyclable bristles, if possible.
Deodorant Bars or Creams
Benefits: Solid deodorant bars or creams are free of plastic packaging and often contain natural, skin-friendly ingredients.
Tips: We love our Nuud deodorants and cannot recommend it enough.
Solid Lotion Bars or Body Balms
Benefits: Lotion bars are compact, reduce the amount of liquid you carry, and prevent leaks, making them ideal for travel. They’re also usually free of plastic packaging. We prefer body balms over solid lotion bars, but that is only a preference.
Tips: For solid solution bars use a reusable tin to keep the bar in. We use the Dr. Bronner’s Bio Magic Baby Balm because it can be used as a body lotion, lip balm, hand lotion, tattoo protection, and it makes our curls look precious.
Reusable Razor
Benefits: A metal safety razor with replaceable blades is durable, reduces plastic waste, and saves money in the long term.
Tips: Practice with it at home first if you’re new to safety razors. Look for razors with travel cases for convenience and safety.
Menstrual Cup or Period Underwear (for menstruating travelers)
Benefits: These reusable options reduce waste from single-use products like tampons and pads. Menstrual cups can be worn for up to 12-hours, making them practical for travel. Reusable menstrual pads are often cheaper as period underwear.
Tips: Look for a high-quality, medical-grade silicone cup. Ingrid owns a collapsible container to microwave hers to sterilize it while traveling. She prefers to use reusable menstrual pads for overnight bus rides.
Reusable Cotton Rounds or Makeup Eraser
Benefits: Reusable cotton rounds can be used for removing makeup, applying toner, or cleansing the face, cutting down on single-use products.
Tips: Look for organic cotton or bamboo pads and bring a small laundry bag for used ones.
Natural Sunscreen in Eco-Friendly Packaging
Benefits: Reef-safe sunscreens protect marine ecosystems and are often made without harmful chemicals. Some brands offer sunscreens in metal tins or biodegradable packaging.
Tips: Look for "reef-safe" or "biodegradable" labels.
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FOOD & DRINK STAPLES
Travel Cutlery Kit & Metal Straw:
Benefits: Reduces the need for disposable cutlery.
Tips: Getting sporks reduces the amount of cutlery you need to carry. We store our cutlery and straws in a small bag. Buy a set that includes Chopsticks if visiting countries where they are used.
Reusable Cloth Coffee Filters:
Benefits: These filters are biodegradable and washable, which makes them reusable over hundreds of brews. Cloth filters are extremely lightweight and compact. They dry quickly and can be folded into small pouches, making them perfect for minimalist traveler.
Tips: Consider bringing two so you can alternate between them as they dry. It is perfect for pour-over brewing methods, like V60 or Chemex.
Reusable Water Bottle:
Benefits: Cuts down on plastic bottle waste and keeps you hydrated.
Tips: An insulated water bottle keeps your drinks hot or cold. Double check at your accommodation, if they offer free refills or look if the country you are traveling to tap’s water is safe to drink. For the most part of our travels, free refills were offered. If not, try buying big water gallons to distribute between days, cutting down the amount of small plastic bottles.
Reusable Food Containers:
Benefits: Ideal for packing snacks, storing leftovers, and avoiding disposable containers.
Tips: We own a set of collapsible containers to save space.
Reusable Shopping Bags
Benefits: They help reduce the usage plastic bags.
Tips: Compact, foldable bags are lightweight, perfect for grocery shopping.They’re also handy for organizing your belongings
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Get your Daypack ready!
In our daypack, we carry most of the items listed here. We find that these items don’t take up much space and are always useful. Whether we bring snacks, buy street food, or grab a drink, it’s good to have them just in case. You never know when they’ll come in handy!
READ | Daypack Packing List: Essentials for Every Adventure
LAUNDRY
Depending on the country, we either use laundry services or choose accommodations with washing machines. It really varies, but you can always place clothes in mesh bags or ask them to use your eco-friendly detergent. When staying somewhere briefly and we know we are on a tight schedule for laundry services , we hand-wash a few items ourselves. While many services offer express cleaning, we prefer to avoid rushing and let things dry naturally when possible.
Clothing: Quick-Drying, Lightweight Fabrics
Benefits: You can wash and dry these clothes faster, which means less water usage, and they reduce the need for multiple outfits.
Tips: Pack clothing made from fabrics like ethical-sourced merino wool or bamboo which dry quickly, resist odors, and require less frequent washing.
Eco-Friendly Detergent
Benefits: It breaks down easily in the environment, unlike conventional detergents which contain chemicals that can linger and pollute waterways. Additionally, buying travel size laundry detergent generates waste.
Tips: Choose a concentrated, eco-friendly, and biodegradable detergent and refill in your travel-size refillable bottles.
Air Dry
Benefits: Air drying eliminates the need for energy-intensive dryers and reduces wear on clothing, helping them last longer.
Tips: We own a compact travel clothesline and it has been a life saver many times . Alternatively, use hangers, or a shower curtain rods to dry clothes naturally.
Mesh Laundry Bag
Benefits: When washing synthetic fabrics, a laundry mesh bag can reduce the amount of microfibers (tiny plastic particles) released into wastewater. It supports a longer-life of your garments, it protects from the washing machine friction reducing the frequency of replacements.
Tips: Take two bags, a large and a smaller one to separate garments as they fit best.
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