I haven’t started packing for this trip, though I have made a pretty detailed list of what to bring and what not to. In the past I’ve photo documented my packing process which I may or may not do this time (anyone actually care about that?). I have this love/hate thing about packing for actual “traveling” trips (as opposed to brief work trips) – half of me loves the obsessive nature of having all the bits and pieces in order, the other half hates worrying that I’ve brought too much or am missing something crucial. Making a list and sitting on it for a few days allows me to skip most of the stress involved with that, as I’m pretty confident that over 3-4 days I’ll think of anything I need and talk myself out of anything I think is extra.

As usual I’m bringing as much as I need to get things done, but not a single item more. I refined my list a lot over the last year – if I took something and didn’t touch it the entire trip no need to bring it next time. I’ve talked about how earlier in life I was all about having every possible outcome and situation covered but now I really prefer just to have the expected covered and if something unexpected comes up I prefer to just tackle that then. Some of that comes from Tim Ferriss’s thoughts on how people often spending more mental cycles trying to prevent anything from going wrong then they would fixing it if it did. Rather than preparing for the worst, I prepare for the best and rest assured knowing if the worst happens I’ll figure something out at that point.

Along with my usual bag of adapters for all the random countries I’ll be passing through, I’m bringing two mobile devices. My iPhone and my G1. While I have an international roaming plan on my iPhone I’m actually planning to turn it off and use it only as a back up if I need notes or contact info I have stored in it. That’s my main device here in the US so I’m going to do an experiment and try to use the G1 as a primary there and see how that works. I haven’t yet decided to sync my Apple Address Book and Google contacts mostly because of horror stories from friends about suddenly having thousands of people in their address book that they don’t know but may have e-mailed with once years ago. Since my Apple Address book is pretty solid, I don’t want to risk it. The G1 should do the trick though, I’ve added a bunch of apps from the Market that will cover twitter, weather, navigation and the usual. My US number will work on it (so use that to reach me, preferably by SMS if you need to – if you don’t have that number and need it please let me know). My normal US number that routes through my iPhone will be off most of the time I’m gone. I’ll be making notes on how this works and aim to have a ‘2 weeks using the G1 from an iPhone users perspective’ post when I get back. In the meantime, if anyone has any Android apps they are using and can’t live without please let me know.

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