There is nothing more unpleasant than carrying a heavy backpack from place to place and finding out too late that one or the other thing was really superfluous. Here is a short list of things that have proven to be useless on my travels or that performed too badly in the weight-place-usage ratio.

A smartphone makes travelling a lot more comfortable. You don't get lost on it if you don't intend to, you communicate with friends you left behind or with your worried family, and you can access the endless information on the Internet. Read here which apps and websites I find particularly helpful.

Long before our departure it was clear that sooner or later we wanted to buy a car to travel to South America. We both already owned cars for other long-term journeys and fell in love with the freedom one gets by owning ones own four wheels. But when we arrived in South America, we had to realize that buying a car here is not as easy as in New Zealand and the information you can find on the Internet mostly refers to Chile, which seems to be the country to go to if one wants to buy a car. However, as we were in Ecuador and wanted to head north, a detour to Chile was out of the question. So we started digging ourselves through the Colombian car purchase process with a lot of help from lovely people. Here comes a How-To Car Buying Guide for Colombia.