Our Hiking Gear List for the 850-km Carian Trail (Turkey)

It’s Day 3 of waiting out the storm, which hopefully will be our last before we can finally start our 850-km-long hike along the beautiful coast of Southwestern Turkey.

We are ready for the Carian Trail!

(Here is how we spent day 1 and day 2 in Marmaris).

And so, with not much else to do, I figured it would be a good moment to make a hiking gear list of what we will be carrying on the trail.

The gear list is based on the experience we have of hiking the 750-km-long Baekdu-Daegan Trail in South Korea (in 2016) and the 650-km-long Jordan Trail last year.

Our Gear List for the Carian Trail Thru-hike

01- Hiking Gear List – Clothes & Shoes

What we Wear on the Trail:

• Pants – each (KM Pinewood / Coen Tatoo)
• Long-sleeved shirt – each (Pinewood)
• Hiking shoes – each
• Cap – each
• Sunglasses – KM

For the evening/night:

• Thermal long-sleeved shirts – each (Armadillo merino)
• Thermal short-sleeved shirt – each (Armadillo merino)
• Long johns – each (Armadillo merino)
• T-shirt cotton – KM (for when it gets warmer)
• Camp shoes – each. This is new and we think they may be a bit more versatile than flip-flops (e.g. more easily worn with socks)
• Down jacket – each (Big Agnes)

Other:

• Underwear – Coen Armadillo 2x underpants / KM 4x cotton panties + 2x bras
• Socks – 2 pair each, one for walking and one for the evening (Armadillo merino)
• Rain jacket – each (Pinewood)
• Rain trousers – each
• Bandana – each
• Buff – each (Armadillo)
• Woolen gloves – KM
• Swimming gear – each

Both Pinewood and Armadillo have been very generous in providing us with clothing over the past couple of years. We pretty much live in them while traveling in the Land Cruiser as well as on our thru-hikes.

• Pinewood clothing – find here
• Armadillo clothing – find here

02- Hiking Gear List – Toiletries & First-aid Kit

Toiletries:

• Toothbrush – each
• Toothpaste – one to share
• Comb – KM
• Tiny bottle with liquid soap/shampoo – to share
• Cream for dry skin – KM
• Washing cloth – to share
• Tiny towels – each
• Tiny bottle of sunscreen – to share

First-aid Kit:

• Typical first-aid-kit stuff like bandages, iodine, compeed cold sore patches, emergency blanket, etc.
• Water purification tablets – at many points we’ll be able to fill up on water that’s safe to drink but these will be useful when hauling water from a well.

03 – Hiking Gear List – Camping & Cooking

Camping:

• Tent – Tarp Tent
• Instead of dedicated tent poles, we use our trekking poles to set up the tent
• Tent stakes
• Groundsheet – to put underneath the tent
• Sleeping pads – 3/4th Therm-a-rest – each
• Big Agnes sleeping bags – each (KM a thicker one than Coen)
• Picnic mat – to use outside the tent to put our gear on when the ground is wet
• Two small foldable pads to sit on – each

Big Agnes has given us the sleeping bags and down jackets. We’ve been grateful for both during the severe winters in Japan and Siberia.

Cooking:

• Swiss knife
• Cooking pots 2 and lid 1 – pots double as food bowls
• Folding windscreen for the stove
• Panhandler
• Spork 1, fork 1, spoon 1
• Primus OmniFuel Stove
• Gas canisters + converter – we carry 2, generally needing 1 every 4 days to cook 3 meals a day. Gas canisters are not commonly sold in Turkey (but found them in Marmaris) so we expect to cook on wood fire as well.
• Foldable cups
• Lighters – 2
• Water bottle (1/2 liter) with a wide opening – primarily used to soak lentils to be cooked in the evening

04 – Hiking Gear List – Electronics/writing

• iPhone – each
• Kindle – each
• Foldable keyboard – KM
• Camera 1 – Coen
• The necessary chargers, USB cables & the likes – each
• Mini notebooks & small/lightweight pen – KM
• Carian Trail Guidebook & paper map – KM

05 – Hiking Gear List – Miscellaneous

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• Head lights – each
• Multiple-use clothes line and some small clothes pegs
• Vaseline and cotton pads – to be used to start a fire
• Platypus water bladder – we each carry one of 3 liters
• Passports
• Reading glasses – KM
• Montane 32-liter backpacks
• Dry bags
• Trekking poles

06 – Hiking Gear List – Food

What we eat largely depends on what we can get along the way, but this is the basic stuff we try to get because it’s light and/or nutritious:

• Breakfast – If possible we buy oatmeal and mix it with raisins, cinnamon, nuts & seeds and we even may be carrying apples.
• Lunch – Bread with hummus was a favorite in Jordan. In South Korea it was noodles with dried seaweed. In Turkey we’ll probably find bread but with what we don’t know yet. Hopefully we’ll find hummus. Non-vegetarian options will be easier to find, such as cheese.
• Dinner – Noodles and red lentils, added with e.g. dried tomatoes, dried seaweed, dried mushrooms.
• Extra – We’ll buy fruit / simple vegetables such as cucumbers/carrot/tomatoes and eat them on the spot or with the first one or two meals.
• Snacks – The obvious such as nuts and dried fruits but in Turkey, like in Jordan, we’ll be adding to the weight by bringing halva, which is heavy, because it’s so delicious.

We each carry our own stuff with Coen additionally carrying the tent and cooking stuff. We divide the food, with Coen carrying breakfast and part of lunch/dinner and Karin-Marijke the snacks and part of lunch/dinner. Without food and water, we carry about 5 kilos (KM) and 7 or 8 (Coen).

Here is a short video with Coen detailing how he fits all his gear in a mere 32-liter Montane backpack.

Update: Day 4 and we’re finally on the trail – section one, the Bozburun Peninsula.

Practical Information on the Carian Trail

• The Carian Trail is an 850-km-long hike in Southwestern Turkey, and Turkey’s Longest Coastal Hiking Trail. Find all info here.
• We use the Carian Trail Guidebook, by Yurus Özdemir, Altay Özcan and Dean Livesley. Find it here and the Insight Guides Turkey.
• We are hiking without laptops. The pictures are snapshots I took on my iPhone and new on this hike is a foldable keyboard. I’m super happy with it despite it adding to the weight I carry.