One Backpack, One Trip: The Gear That Carried a Croatia Trip in 24 Liters

Introduction

A September trip to Croatia, with weather ranging from the mid 50s to mid 80s Fahrenheit, is a great test case for minimalist one-bag travel. The whole trip ran off a 24 liter backpack packed with three outfits, a compact electronics kit, and a handful of small utility items. Total packed weight came out to 11.3 pounds, about 5.3 kilograms, and the bag was actually underpacked.

This roundup goes through the gear that earned its place, what worked, and what needs improving next time.

The Packing Strategy

The foundation of the kit is clothing: two shorts, two t-shirts, two pairs of socks and underwear, a long-sleeve button-up sun shirt, sandals, and a lightweight wind and rain jacket, plus worn-weight gear including pants, shirts, a hat and a pair of minimalist Vibram barefoot shoes.

Synthetic fabrics were the deliberate choice here. Merino wool t-shirts tend to feel itchy, while merino socks and underwear work better. Compared with cotton, synthetics take up far less room in the pack, weigh less, and dry much faster. Even without dedicated cold weather gear, layering a thin t-shirt, sun shirt and windbreaker kept things comfortable down into the low 50s.

Footwear was kept minimal for the same reason: shoes eat a huge amount of pack space. One multi-purpose pair plus a lightweight pair of sandals covers most situations.

Best Backpack: Evergoods CPL 24

The Evergoods CPL 24 is the core of this setup. Everything, clothes and gear combined, packed into its 24 liter main compartment with room to spare. It has a large laptop compartment that doubles nicely as a home for an e-reader, sensible pocket layout for a notebook, cords, wallet and sunglasses, and a top pocket for small accessories.

One practical trick: pack the day bag ahead of time, transfer gear from the main compartment into the top pocket, and you have a ready-to-go mini bag for flights or days out. The bag lacks locking zippers, but a small micro lock on the zipper pulls solves that.

Best Day Pack: Matador Freefly 16

The Matador Freefly 16 is the companion bag and it performed well. It is mostly waterproof, to the point where it almost works as a dry bag, and offers decent organization with a large front pocket and two side water bottle holders. It is big enough to hold everything needed for a day and reasonably comfortable to wear.

Best Compression Cube: Eagle Creek Compression Cube

All the clothing went into a single Eagle Creek Compression Cube, roughly 13 by 9 inches, which fits perfectly into the CPL 24’s main compartment. Compressing three full outfits down to one small cube is what makes a 24 liter bag viable for a multi-week trip. Dirty clothes simply rotate out of the cube into the bag’s large front pocket as the trip goes on.

Electronics That Earned Their Space

The electronics kit stayed lean: a 10,000mAh Anker PD Redux battery pack, a multi-port travel adapter with four ports (three USB-A and one USB-C) charging up to 45 watts, a Google Pixel running eSIM service that switches networks automatically between countries, a few charging cables including a six-foot USB and a short one for charging multiple devices at once, and a small car charger for rental days.

Two newcomers stood out. The Boox Nova 3 is an Android-based e-reader with no proprietary format, so any epub or pdf downloaded from the internet can be loaded directly, which removes the format lock-in that comes with most dedicated e-readers. And the Aftershokz Aeropex headphones use bone conduction, sitting over the ear rather than in it, with good sound quality, long battery life and a waterproof build. The only downside so far is the case, which is a little heavy and worth replacing.

Toiletries and Small Utilities

The toiletry kit is deliberately minimal: a small zipper pouch holding hair gel, a solid shampoo bar, pocket laundry soap sheets, a universal sink stopper, and a small first aid kit with pills. Liquids are kept to a minimum, which keeps the whole kit light and airport-friendly.

The Matador Flat Pack holds all of it. It is lightweight and holds everything comfortably. One design gripe: the hook is on the side, so you cannot open the bag and access its contents while it hangs in the bathroom.

Best Travel Towel: Matador Nano Dry Towel

The Matador Nano Dry Towel in large size was a first-time test. It is a very thin towel large enough to actually dry off one person, it doubles as something to sit on at the beach, and it dries very quickly. It is arguably heavier than it needs to be for the job, but the small clip on it is a nice touch. On reflection, it may be one item that could be dropped from the kit.

Laundry on the Road

The laundry system is simple and it works: a universal sink stopper that fits almost any sink, plus papery pocket laundry soap sheets that dissolve into soap when wet. The stopper works great, though the process can be a little messy.

With three outfits and mostly synthetic fabrics, pants and shorts could go a day or two between washes, but t-shirts, underwear and socks needed washing after every wear. The flexibility to do laundry when the opportunity appeared, and skip a few days when it didn’t, was one of the biggest wins of the whole system.

Money, Security and Odds and Ends

The money strategy is redundancy: two of everything. A mini wallet carried on the body holds cash for the day, an ID, and credit and debit cards. A second wallet holds another credit card, another debit card, a couple hundred dollars in cash, documents and receipts, and stores either in a different pocket or in the backpack at the hotel.

Other items in the kit: a one-liter water bottle, an eye mask, a deck of cards and dice for games, a Hero Clip hung on the outside of the bag for quick access, and a small zipper clip for securing zipper pulls.

What Worked, What Didn’t

The clothing system was the clear success. Stable weather and three outfits created real flexibility around laundry, and the synthetic fabrics made one or two wears between washes realistic for pants and shorts.

The experiments for next time are already lined up: a Scrubba mini and a plain dry bag as alternative laundry methods, other soap options to compare against the sheets, and a push to improve the food game, since plastic bags, binder clips and eating utensils keep proving their worth on the road. The Aeropex case could also stand to be lighter.

Conclusion

This Croatia trip is a good proof that a 24 liter backpack can carry a comfortable multi-week trip when every item earns its place. The core picks here, the Evergoods CPL 24, the Matador Freefly 16, the Boox Nova 3, and the small compression and laundry accessories, each solve a specific problem without adding weight or bulk. If you are trimming your own kit, start with lightweight synthetics, one compression cube, and redundancy in your money and document setup.