"Oh my god they smell like burnt fish."

"Robyn, you're being dramatic. I'm sure they're not bad."

"Really? You smell them."

"OK ... yeah ... OK maybe that's bad. No, that's really bad."

I was down to one clean skirt and a shirt. The reason? As they often say: It was laundry day. My problem? I handed all of my clothes (minus clean skirt and shirt) to the hostel the night before (I swear I did plan ahead) and was promised clean clothes the next day.

The next day my $3 produced two kilos of clothes smelling not of detergent, but of ... well, I said it before – burnt fish.

I went down to the reception. "This isn't going to work. My clothes are still wet and they smell."

I was near breaking point after a seven-hour bus ride the day before. I just wanted clean clothes!

"OK. We will fix it."

I followed the clothes to the "laundry room" and discovered why they were more eau de poisson than Tide.

The "laundry room" consisted of two women multi-tasking: cooking lunch, washing clothes and hanging them above the open grills full of fish to dry.

I took my "smoked" clothes and returned to the room. Out came the travel-sized detergent. In I went to the bathroom. Out I came in half an hour to hang all sorts of laundry around the room. My Californian travel buddy loved me.

But that's a way of life. Fish food pants or not, washing clothes when travelling is the way to keep things light and clean.

So how to pack tip one is: Do not bring seven days of clothes. For one, sinks are incredibly useful tools and if detergent comes in all sizes (e.g. sugar packet-sized Tide is sold everywhere) and why do you need seven shirts?

Only the person travelling with you will know you've repeated. They will also know it is clean (well, hopefully). Plus, regardless of my Cambodia ordeal, laundry services at hostels are short, sweet, cheap, and usually very good.

Tip two: Helping with the clean factor of clothes is the colour. Why oh why did I take my favourite cream-coloured shirt around the world? Yes it made it around the world but more out of sheer will power than actual wearability. Go dark! Black dress, black skirt, brown shorts and one pair of jeans are about all that made it back to Bermuda with me.

Tip three: Besides hiding the dirt, coordinating colours helps with creating "new" outfits. Easy to match, easy to buy new, matching clothes and they can be dressed-up or down depending on how you need your clothes to work with you. Buy a pair of earrings in Laos for five dollars that make your black dress work for Buenos Aires!

Tip four: So you pack dark clothes and they match. What happens when they tear? You could buy new clothes, but ... why bother when you have sewing kit and can keep those things together? Steal one from a hotel worth its salt and keep it with you. A sewing kit was the best thing I could have done. It also doubled as a medical kit when blisters popped up in Patagonia ... five-day trek ... it's gonna happen.

Which brings me to tip five: Take a medical kit, but not a lot of medicine. Why? Because you can buy almost everything you need where you are. Best thing I had? All-purpose antiseptic cream! It kills everything! What did I have by the end? ... oh, anti-diarrhoeas from Egypt, painkillers from Bali and bandaids from Chile.

Tip six: All-purpose shoes! Mine scaled mountains in Peru, kick-started a motorbike in Thailand and shuffled through snow in Switzerland. But by Bolivia they made it into the bin ... trash that is. What did I have? Adidas, all-purpose trainers. What didn't I need? My gold high-heels. They never saw the outside of my backpack.

And on that note, never bother with ... (tip seven): Make-up. I don't know why I brought it. I think I used it twice? Sorry, guys, guess you really don't have to worry about this question. So women ... don't bother. You look beautiful and it just causes more back problems from...

Tip eight: A backpack. I can't tell you how cliche and happy I was to have a backpack. Boarding the bus in Bolivia or wading through the floods in Greece (OK ... rain) it was so much easier than battling rolling luggage. My first travel buddy brought a wheelie bag. The rotund bottoms lasted two months. He spent our further two months carrying the especially heavy bag (thanks to a ridiculous frame for the, now-defunct wheels) on his back.

And if you can handle it (which you should) and I wish I had, bring (tip nine): A small day-pack. No. Not a fanny pack. A small backpack for day-trips. I was lucky to have a friendly, Irish roommate in Thailand and he let me borrow his backpack for a three-day hike through the surrounding hills. What did I have? A one-shoulder bag, which was totally unsuitable. It hurt and made it very heavy to carry the last and final item that saved me more than once.

What is it? Some might call this glam backpacking. I don't care. Tip ten: Bring a laptop. No, not some 15-inch, multi-million-dollar Apple computer. Find the little PC notebooks that fail to accept DVDs. I used a Compaq. Everywhere I went I could connect to Wifi, which made staying in touch with moms and pops very easy. I downloaded Skype (the online, free phone service) and could call Bermuda on the cheap. But of course not everyone wants to backpack. Are these tips helpful for the short hauls? I think so ... but want more? Check out my website for more packing tips: www.robynswanderings.com

And on that note, next week's column: How to stay in touch abroad. I did it for 12 months in all types of places so no excuses!