New Technical Clothing to Protect and Liberate the Adventure Traveller @CraghoppersUK

Having been traveling all over the world for almost four years, we have gathered enough experiences to know a few things about how to choose the gear that we travel with. The requirements for our travel gear can be quite tough, particularly as we travel for longer and experience many different climates and landscapes on a single trip. This is most important of all with our choice of travel clothing. Take South America for example; we flew into Lima, Peru, where the sea air is hot and humid, then we took a bus straight to Cusco in the Andes mountains, where the air was thin, cold and inconceivably dry. After a few weeks, we traveled to Arequipa, Peru, which is a Spanish colonial city in the middle of a vast desert at about 2,500 meters above sea level – baking in the day, cold at night.

We’ve teamed up with Craghoppers travel clothing experts as they launch their new Protect | Liberate campaign, introducing a new range of technical clothing to provide built-in protection for adventure travelers, so they can get on with enjoying their travels!

Two Monkeys Travel – Craghoppers – How to Choose the Best Outdoor Clothing

As we transition through all of these climates and landscapes, we need to be able to adapt quickly to the changing conditions, staying warm, dry and protected, yet at the same time carrying as little weight as possible. We need to be able to travel from white sand and blue water beaches to thick rainforest interiors, then cross a desert before climbing up into the mountains – all with the same compact backpack of clothing!

So how have we learned to deal with these pretty tough requirements? Read on for our top tips for choosing the right travel clothing that will take you all over the world and back again!

1. Know your destinations

Ok, so we did say that these tips would help to choose worldwide travel clothing, but there are some limits to that when it comes to the extreme ends of the spectrum. If you’re planning on trekking across the Sahara Desert, or exploring the polar regions, then you’re going to need some very specialised clothing! Even if not, it’s helpful to have an idea of the range of temperatures, humidity levels and rainfall that you’re going to encounter so that you can decide what to buy. Or more importantly, what not to buy! You need to treat your new travel wardrobe like a sleeping bag. Look at the temperature ranges you need to feel comfortable in and start choosing your clothes from there. You’ll also probably have to sleep in them at some point!

Two Monkeys Travel – Craghoppers – How to Choose the Best Outdoor Clothing

2. Quality over quantity

If you’re just heading to Thailand to sit on a beach for a few weeks, then a pair of shorts and a couple of t-shirts will probably do the job just fine, but when you start planning longer trips with more adventurous activities, then you need to up your game. The age-old saying, “you get what you pay for,” is true of almost everything and outdoor clothing is no exception. Cheap clothes usually mean cheap fabrics, poor detailing, bad quality and not fit for anything technical.

Quality outdoor clothing is capable of doing so much more with so much less space and weight. Higher quality clothing may cost more at the beginning, but more advanced fabrics can keep you warmer in the cold, cooler in the heat and drier in the wet. You’ll find that you need less clothing overall, saving space and weight in your backpack.

Check out these Compresslite men’s and women’s jackets and Kiwi Pro Stretch trousers, which demonstrate exactly that!

Two Monkeys Travel – Craghoppers – How to Choose the Best Outdoor Clothing

3. Think like a traveller

When planning a big trip, it’s easy to keep thinking about clothing like you would at home, instead of like a traveller. At home you have a wardrobe, drawers, a laundry basket, a washing machine and dryer, and perhaps even people who care too much about what you smell like. You will rarely have those things when you travel, except for on cramped buses, so try to smell nice on those days! No one will care if they see you wearing the same t-shirt every day of the week and for hygiene, just wash them in your bathroom sink or dance on them while you’re having a shower! The easiest things to wash and dry quickly are socks and underwear, then t-shirts. The thicker items probably won’t smell much unless you hang around camp fires a lot. These little things will make your life so much lighter – less is more!

Some specialised technical clothing, like Craghoppers shirts even comes with cool features, like drying tabs to help you do your DIY washing on the go!

Two Monkeys Travel – Craghoppers – How to Choose the Best Outdoor Clothing

4. Multipurpose is King!

Anything that can serve more than one purpose (and do it well) is worth twice whatever you paid for it! Think zip-off trouser legs, that “buff’ headscarf thing, sandals with hiking soles, jackets with multiple lightweight layers that can be worn separately… there are new examples coming out all the time! All of these things save you space in your bag and weight on your shoulders.

One of my favourites are my Craghoppers zip-off trousers with NosiLife permanent insect repellent technology. I’ve had them for two years and they’re still going strong!

Two Monkeys Travel – Craghoppers – How to Choose the Best Outdoor Clothing

5. Use The Force … of insect repellent fabrics!

Your health and safety are the most important part of planning an adventure, so the more you can do without having to think about it, the better. Mosquitoes are carriers of over a dozen potentially deadly diseases and if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time then medical help might be far away. While vaccines can help to some extent, the best way to avoid getting sick is to avoid getting bitten in the first place. There are now new clothing technologies available, such as the NosiLife insect-repellent clothing from Craghoppers, which is the only permanent insect repellent clothing technology out there! The fabrics are impregnated with insect repellent to provide some level of protection simply by getting dressed. In some areas, mosquito bites are simply annoying and itchy, but in others they may spread disease, viruses and parasites, so cover up and use insect repellent on exposed areas.

Two Monkeys Travel – Craghoppers – How to Choose the Best Outdoor Clothing

6. Make the most of the new technologies

As technologies develop, the more amazing things that outdoor clothing can do, like being waterproof and breathable at the same time! There is no doubt that borrowing materials from mother nature can be just as effective and also very comfortable; I have a lovely alpaca wool jumper that my sister bought for me in Peru, and it’s really soft and warm, but it takes up a lot of space compared to a thermal base layer under a Gore-Tex waterproof jacket! There are plenty of other features being designed into clothing these days too, like RFID protection pockets, advanced wind-proofing, improved insulation, even solar protection. It’s a brave new world out there, so go wear it!

Two Monkeys Travel – Craghoppers – How to Choose the Best Outdoor Clothing

Above all else, just make sure that you are prepared for the journey you have ahead of you, because while the unexpected can be pretty exciting (stumbling across a hidden beach, or finding a cool market because you accidentally took a wrong turn), being caught out by freezing weather and extreme conditions is the wrong kind of exciting. Let your travel clothing take care of you so that you can get on with the important parts of travel. Craghoppers technical clothing, with its “Protect | Liberate” philosophy, can help you do exactly that, so check out their destinations kit guide to help you choose the right travel clothing for your adventure!

This article is made possible by Craghoppers UK, but all travel stories, personal experiences, and opinions are our own! 

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