What to Pack When You’re Moving Abroad
Not the socks-and-chargers list. The other one: the things you only learn to pack after you’ve stood in a foreign pharmacy trying to mime what you need, or watched a hair dryer die in a puff of smoke. I’ve been living out of a suitcase across Southeast Asia and South America for a few years now, and this is what actually earns its space.
An adapter, and then a small power strip
The adapter is obvious. The power strip is the one nobody tells you about, and it’s the thing I’d repack first.
One universal adapter plus a small strip turns a single foreign outlet into four. Phone, laptop, watch, headphones, all charging from one wall socket. Hotel rooms and short-term rentals are famously under-outleted, and the one working socket is usually behind the bed.
Check the voltage, not just the plug shape
Two things change at the border, and only one of them is obvious. The plug shape is the visible problem: Type A and B in North America and Japan, C and F across most of Europe, G in the UK, I in Australia, D and M in India. An adapter solves that.
Voltage is the sneaky one. Most phone and laptop chargers say “100–240V” somewhere on the brick, which means they handle anything. Hair dryers, straighteners, and some small appliances often don’t. Plugging a 120V tool into a 240V wall is how it dies, sometimes dramatically. Read the label before you pack it.
To find yours: search “[your country] plug type and voltage” before you start packing, not the night before you fly.
Your documents, in three places
Photos of your passport, visa, and cards stored offline on your phone. The same set in the cloud. And a paper copy kept somewhere separate from the originals, because the day you need this is the day your bag is gone.
Two spare passport photos take up no space at all and will save you a wasted afternoon at some government office that only accepts them in person, printed, in a size you don’t have.
A small medicine kit
Your usual brands may not exist where you’re going, may be called something unrecognizable, or may need a prescription you can’t get. Pack pain relief, something for an upset stomach, rehydration salts, and any prescriptions in their original labeled boxes with a copy of the script.
The rehydration salts are the one people skip and then wish they hadn’t. New water, new food, long flights. They weigh nothing.
Money that works the moment you land
A card with no foreign transaction fee, a backup card kept somewhere completely separate from the first, and a little local cash for the taxi or the stall that doesn’t take plastic.
Plenty of ordinary cards quietly add one to three percent to every purchase abroad. Over a month of living, that adds up to real money for nothing. Check yours rather than assuming, and set a travel notice with your bank before you fly so the first purchase in a new country doesn’t look like fraud and freeze the card.
Never rely on one card, in one pocket, in one country.
The apps to install while you still have wifi
An offline translation app with the language pack already downloaded. Google Translate’s camera mode turns menus, signs, and medicine boxes from a guess into a certainty, and it works with no signal once the pack is on your phone.
Offline maps, downloaded for your city before you leave. And if you’re going anywhere rural, a backup like Organic Maps, which covers trails and small towns that the big apps thin out on.
What I stopped packing
Most of the clothes. Almost anything I could buy there for less than the cost of the luggage fee. Books, after the second move. Anything I packed “just in case” two trips running and never touched.
The honest test is whether you’d buy it again at your destination, at local prices, knowing you’d have to carry it home.
The part packing doesn’t cover
You can have the adapter, the documents, and the right card, and still find the first months harder than you expected. That part has its own preparation.
Open the free journalsBefore you fly
Packing is one half. The other half is the setup you do in the week before, so that arrival is calm rather than frantic: the eSIM, the local apps, the screenshots. That’s the week before you fly →
Common questions
What do people most often forget to pack when moving abroad?
A power strip, rehydration salts, spare passport photos, and copies of their documents stored somewhere other than the bag holding the originals. None of them are expensive; all of them are annoying to source in a hurry abroad.
Do I need a universal adapter or a converter?
An adapter changes the plug shape and is what most people need. A converter changes the voltage and is only necessary for devices that aren’t rated 100–240V, which mostly means heat-based appliances like hair dryers and straighteners.
How much should I actually pack for a long-term move?
Less than feels comfortable. Anything you can buy at your destination for roughly what it costs to fly it there is usually better bought there. Pack the things that are genuinely hard to replace: documents, prescriptions, and anything specific to your body or your work.
More on the inner side of all this is in the journal library →