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My Patagonia W Trek Packing List for Women (Lightweight & Under 15 lbs!)
If you’re heading to Patagonia — whether hiking the legendary W Trek in Torres del Paine or exploring Argentina’s lakes and glaciers — packing light but smart is everything. After spending a few days fine-tuning my own gear in preparation for the W Trek, I’ve built what I believe is the ultimate 15-lb Patagonia packing list for women (I’ll update this post with my honest review and takeaways once I’ve actually completed the trek!). At just 5’1″, packing light isn’t optional for me — it’s survival. 😅 I learned that the hard way after trying to hike eight miles with a 20-lb pack recently… let’s just say my shoulders had…
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All’s Well That Ends In Wellington
From Motueka to Nelson After completing the Abel Tasman Coast Track, we were eager to repeat the Great Walk tradition we had started in our post-Rakiura fish & chips ecstasy. So we headed back into Motueka where we had AirBnBed prior to starting the track and found a restaurant to replenish our salt and grease supply. Unfortunately, when we gushed about the fish & chips on Stewart Island being the most delicious ones in all of New Zealand, we weren’t kidding; a hot meal was still nice, but they were nothing next to the ones we had had farther south. To be honest, however, maybe we just weren’t as wet…
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Primo Hermano – January 2020 Update
January was the month to get our feet wet and experience New Zealand through HelpX — and it was so full of new adventures, meeting kiwis, and learning new things! Here is a summary of our expenses for Jan 2020 per person (hover on bars for the interactive effect!): As you can see, we spent a total of $350 USD per person in the month of January, which is fantastic! And that $181 of transportation costs on 1/26 was a flight from Auckland to Invercargill, which of course that’s going to cost a lot! Fortunately, we have been saving our accommodation and most of our food costs by staying at…
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Our First HelpX Experience
We decided on doing the HelpX program (short for “Help Exchange”) when arriving to New Zealand because we thought it would be a good way to meet some real-life Kiwis (and getting food and accommodation at no cost was a huge bonus, too). If you haven’t heard of HelpX, it’s a program similar to WWOOF and Workaway that connects hosts to “helpers” in exchange for lodging (we will go into more detail on this in a separate post). We ended up choosing Nat’s place as our first location because she had lots of animals, great reviews, and was one of the only HelpX hosts that was generous enough to let…
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Our First Post – Nov 2019 Update
