"Travel clothing" ...?

[Vhan]

Ok, I need someone to debunk something of a myth for me...because I have a hard time believeing that I really need to spend $100 on a pair of pants because whomever calls it "Travel Clothing"...If It dries fast and holds up doesn't the stuff from the thrift store work just as well?

...bloody "travel clothing"...who would travel in something you have to have dry-cleaned? (Lol, let the record show I didn't actually see anything that actually has to be dry cleaned, but I think I made my point  )

[Vagabond Vince]

no cotton.  no cotton.  no cotton.  no cotton.

that's all you need to know in my opinion.  i have no cotton clothes except for crap i buy.
stick with wool. nylon, or polyester.  they dry fast and work great in places like SE Asia where the humidity will make your cotton feel like a sponge.  they also don't stink as quickly

[Greg]

I agree 100%....$20 for a pair of travel underwear?  I have no intentions of hanging out in the same boxers for 7 days so no thanks! 

To add my 2 cents...never take anything to wear that you care about! 

I learned the hard way.....my logic was, if I can only have 5 Tshirts to wear for a year, then I'll take all my stylish favorites.  Wrong. Now
they are all stained, stretched, lost, or just generally worn out.  Things get stretched out after continuous hand washing. When I paid for
laundry, I had them loose many items in SE Asia - some lucky traveler got my Banana Republic shirt.  In China, they spilled bleach on some of my stuff. 

Plus, if you literally wear the same thing a couple times a week for a year, its obviously going to wear out much faster than if it were hanging
in your closet.  Clothes are extremely cheap in these countries, I say buy cheap stuff there to wear! 

[Vagabond Vince]

good point by greg.  i didn't follow that philosophy but i've been happy with my shirts so far.

an employee at your favorite store REI told me he would just buy shirts in SE asia where he went.  then he'd ship his old stuff home.  it worked out really well for him and you can get shirts for about $2-$3 in places like cambodia.

[Vagabond Vince]

i have travel undies.  look, they'll still smell, but they're still good enough. plus if you had wash them they dry very quickly.  let's leave it at that.  less washing is awesome.  but like i said in another post, in SE asia just put on some board shorts and go commando.  no washing of undies.

[Applette]

I second/third the advice on not spending too much $$$ on expensive high tech travel clothing. Travel clothing will get damaged, lost, stolen along the way.

It is very convenient to have one set of clothing that you know will dry quickly. However, those items don't necessarily have to be made of the latest quick-drying-moisture-wicking-never-smelly-feels-like-silk fabric. Fish around your closet and test  a few pieces by hand washing and drying them in your bathroom. Keep the bathroom windows and door closed tight and see how long they take to dry. You might be surprised and save yourself the trouble of buying new clothes.

As much as I hate places like Cosco, you can easily go there and find nylon/polyester quick dry pants and shorts/swimming trunks for less than $30, and often big name brands like Columbia as well. The other alternative, like Greg says, is to buy once you're in SE Asia and save a bundle. I know someone who came home from Bangkok with an entire new wardrobe a few years back.

I've not a huge fan of the "travel undies"...though it's been a few years since I've bought any. Ex-Officio has a new line of travel undies made from soy, called "soytopia", which sounds like it might wear well, but I'm not sure if the $20 investment is worth the risk of disappointment.

[Greg]

Ex-Officio has a new line of travel undies made from soy, called "soytopia", which sounds like it might wear well

...and hey, if you get stranded in a survival situation you could always eat them!   

[Applette]

Ex-Officio has a new line of travel undies made from soy, called "soytopia", which sounds like it might wear well

...and hey, if you get stranded in a survival situation you could always eat them!   

Ha! 

[narfette]

Plus, walking around in a pair of pants that cost more than your backpack is a winner for attracting thieves.

[Vhan]

Haha I had a feeling that might be the case. 

No way could "travel clothing" look like something made for the casual day at the office...dang.

I'll shop around, and thanks for the info about cotton, I was under the impression that cotton was the only kind of clothing I should get. Because "It breathes", its fine I'm a fan of nylon anyway.

Or...I could just get stuff made outta soy 

Actually getting the majority of my clothing on-stie seems pretty preferable to me!

[Greg]

Yeah, cotton dries slow and soaks up lots of sweat which will make your mates not want to sit next to you for that 8 hour bus ride.   

Same with jeans...unless I'm going to Europe I leave them too. They're heavy, dry even slower than cotton, and are dead weight in your
bag if you're going to the islands or somewhere tropical.

I do always end up with cotton T-shirts but all my undies, socks, pants, etc are made out of fancier things.

[Vagabond Vince]

Cotton t-shirts are ok, I wore some I bought while traveling, but my wool shirts just feel so much better and lighter.  Cotton's ok as long as you can wash them.  Washing isn't a problem as I saw either lots of washing machines or hostels offering washing service (which i hate).  The problem is drying them.  Nobody uses driers!  Some people I met even said American are so wasteful, they use driers when they could just hang dry them.  I dunno about you, but I don't know how the locals walk around in soggy jeans.  =)

[Vhan]

Vince, I read your blog on travel tips, and do you Really think I could get by with only one pair of pants in SE asia? I'm not aginst buying two, I just don't want dead weight in my pack.

[Vagabond Vince]

Yes I do.  It's a trade off to buy travel clothes.  They're expensive but it's easier to manage them when you're trekking around.  I don't wash my pants every day unless I've been off in the jungle or something.  When I do wash I either do it by hand in the sink, just take it in the shower with me and scrub, or if I'm lucky use a laundry machine.  My pants dry quickly; usually by 4 hours they're dry.  If not they'll be dry in the morning even in humid weather.  My pants even dried during a typhoon in Taipei.  I left it over night through the storm but it was ready to go in the morning.

It helps a lot to wring it well and then roll it up in a towel and stomp on the towel.

So yes, if you need to wash it, do so, hang dry it and in the morning it's ready. 

What do I wear why I wait for it to dry?  My board shorts.

There's plenty of way to backpack, but that's how I do it.  I've been happy.  My other pants have become dead weight I guess.

As for travel clothes being more expensive than your backpack.... well, not quite.  They also don't make you look rich.  The locals think I look like a bum mainly, and I wasn't let in nice places like in macu, or they were reluctant to let me in nice lounges in other cities.  So, maybe they don't know how much I spent on my travel pants, but they were more than the jeans of that douche bag they let in.  =)  They dry faster too!

[Greg]

more than the jeans of that douche bag they let in.  =)

Haha! Reminds me of getting rejected at the door of a posh club on my last trip to London for having holes in my jeans....or as the bald KGB-lookalike bouncer
put it "you've got bloody holes in your trousers, mate...clean yourself up."

I told him that I had just bought the jeans in Piccadilly and paid good money for those strategically placed holes in my trousers!

He still booted me.