Long-term travel has become a rite of passage. Travel exposes you to different ways of thinking. It presents challenges that reveal your character and personality. For this reason, a 'gap' year with a long stint of travel is a very good idea before starting off a career. As a photographer, it will also reveal your own interests, your style and will develop your story telling ability. I'm in the middle of a 50-day shoot in South America. Whilst this isn't an entire year of travel, packing for the trip is the same. It's a balancing act of bringing what I need to create imagery and what I need to live comfortably.

I would normally bring enough changes of clothes to last 7 days and will get them washed once a week. It's worth looking in local stores for clothing, as it can be cheaper to replace an outfit rather than washing it. I brought 4 pairs of shoes. Two pairs are running shoes that I can swap every other day to spare my feet the torture of being in the same shoes for months on end. For this trip I also brought a pair of hiking shoes, as I'll be climbing to Machu Piccu and walking around Foz do Iguazu. I brought a pair of flip flops for the beaches of Rio which proved to be very useful.

Included in my general luggage is a pair of sunglasses, a hat and sun cream, insect repellent, Imodium (I can't afford to be man down) and an immune booster. Lastly, I printed out all my hotel bookings and air tickets, as I wouldn't have access to a printer.

I roll my clothes when packing my bag. This helps save space and also makes cushions for valuable goods that go in my main luggage, like less important lenses.

This makes up most of the weight when I travel and unfortunately, my back takes the bulk of it. Here is a list of the camera gear I brought with me:

• Canon 5D Mark III, similar still quality to the Mark II but vastly superior video quality.
• Canon 5D MarkII, as a backup.
• Canon 24-105L - what I use most of the time.
• Canon 17mm TSE, for architecture and a wide scenes.
• Canon 100-400L, to compress scenes like beaches and cityscapes. It also helps when I'm in nature parks
• Canon 50mm 1.8, all of the above lenses have a maximum aperture of F4. When that is not enough, I use this lens. So far, it hasn't been used.
• Tamron 17-35 2.8, I’ve used this on occasion when the guard wouldn’t let me use a tripod. I needed 2.8 to get a fast enough shutter speed to work handheld
• Manfrotto carbon fibre tripod with a Manfrotto video yet. The mix I've gone for is a good split between sturdiness and weight.
• Konova camera slider/dolly. I waited 3 months for it to arrive from Korea and nothing comes close to matching it.
• A high spec laptop and 5 external hard drives. I post one off every 10 days to my client.

With all this gear come a slew of chargers that I carry with me as hand luggage. Cameras are useless without power so don't risk them in your main luggage.

As irony would have it, I was writing this from São Paulo airport and when I arrived at Foz do Iguazu, my main luggage didn't arrive with me. I had all my camera gear except for the tripod and slider, so I continued to shoot handheld. I didn't have my laptop charger, which proved problematic. My bag arrived 3 days later with a key lesson. Lesson learnt, carry all your chargers and if possible, a spare outfit. Also, photograph your luggage and make a list of everything you bring with you. It will help if you need to make a claim.