The “how to be an experienced traveller” guides they sell all recommend the benefits of travelling light. Well, I don’t do that. I lug around four bags that add up to fifty kilos or more. Taxidrivers blanch when they see me coming out of an airport terminal, hauling my gear.

To begin with, as a BookCrosser, I’m not going to travel light. Forget it. A third of my baggage is books. Apart from my current reads, concealed on my person or carryon bags, I generally have a selection of books to leave as I go. I aim for at least one per destination, just to mark my steps.

Then there’s my reserves, packed in a big bright yellow BookCrossing tote bag. Several dozen books, bulging it out into a cubical shape. I’ve seen women who weigh less. Baggage handlers make to toss it onto a cart and stop short, their bodies jerked to a halt by the unexpected mass.

That’s my small bag. My main luggage is an LL Bean rolling duffle. I selected the bright yellow colour to match the tote bag, and boy, can I spot my bags on a luggage carousel from the far side of the terminal! I figure no thief is going to run off with my baggage, not while there are bags black and anonymous ready to hand.

My big bag fits neatly in the boot of your average sized taxi. Well, no, it doesn’t. Not if there’s a big LPG cylinder or spare tyre sharing the space. This is where those elastic octo straps every taxi driver carries in the bootlid come in handy.

The second third of my kit isn’t all that heavy, actually. But bulky, to be sure. I have these two big plastic storage containers, and I pack ‘em solid with Tim-Tams. These chocolate-covered biscuits are Australia’s gift to world cuisine, and everybody loves them. The true connoisseur (like me) can amaze the locals with what is known as the “Tim-Tam Slam”, which begins with nibbling off one small corner of the chocolate covering (close eyes and moan in delight, for effect), turning the biscuit around and nibbling off a corresponding diagonally opposite corner (more moans).

Second stage is to take a cup of coffee, dunk one end of the prepared Tim-Tam into the coffee, applies the lips to the other, and suck up the coffee through the biscuit. The chocolate filling infuses the coffee with richness and delight, while the biscuit wafers provide support. (Mmmmmmm!}

Tip for young players: timing is crucial during this operation. Let the pleasure linger and the whole thing dissolves into soggy chocolate goo all over your fingers and slides down to the bottom of your coffee cup. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to watch out for.

I’m famous for Tim-Tams. Look up “Tim Tam Slam” in Wikipedia and there’s a picture of me in Frankfurt, giving a master class on the subject. Naturally I need to carry around classroom supplies, and given the turbulence found in the baggage handling area, I need to pack and protect them well, lest they arrive on the other side of the world as a tasty mess of fragments.

The final third is clothing and everything else. I aim for fresh clothes every day, and with quick laundry facilities a scarce luxury, that means I have to pack about five days worth. Good walking boots, thick fluffy socks. Mesh laundry bag for the dirty clothes so I don’t get ‘em mixed up with the clean. A collapsible camera tripod. More books. A wet pack for my bathroom gear. An art folder full of clear plastic sleeves for souvenirs: ticket stubs, maps, postcards and things to paste into my travel journal. My travel journal. And anything else I figure I’ll need.

Both articles of checkin are tough, with strong zippers. I’ve had previous, lesser, bags fail on me, and there is no sense in going cheap. If I’m doing twenty flights in twenty days, I need gear that will last the trip. My tote bag is a beauty, been around the world three and a half times (as I write this) and going like a champion. I’ve chucked it in the washing machine a few times, and the yellow is still bright and the stout material unfrayed. My LL Bean rolling duffle is the largest size, a sled bottom to it (and how many sets of subway stairs has it been slid and bumped down in its life? Lots!) two sturdy wheels, telescopic handle. One exterior pocket (an extra luggage tag lives in here). And that’s about it. Just a big volume I can chuck lots of stuff in, really. I can’t wash this, and the yellow ripstop is stained here and there with baggage rash from the cargo holds of countless aircraft, but it’ll do me.

Two items of carryon, apart from my cargo pants, which can be a whole extra item of baggage all by themselves. A small daypack, which I use for cruising around a destination, but on board it holds a change of clothes and a couple of books. Don’t want to run out. It has a strap that goes over my shoulder or across my chest, but mostly I just carry it.

My backpack’s reason for existence is to protect my laptop. It never goes as checkin, always staying in close proximity to me. I’d rather have it under my feet on a long economy class flight than stowed overhead. It’s a Targus, with heavy duty impact padding around the laptop compartment, including semi-rigid inserts that guard the corners. Three internal dividers make four compartments, going from the laptop area forward, I have one for documents, such as itineraries, hotel reservations, contact information for friends. If I get an email with phone numbers or booking numbers, I print it out and slide it into one of several transparent sleeves. Second is a space for books and my Moleskine. Third is for cords and dongles, headphones and miscellaneous. This has a tendency to become a tangled mess, so I have a series of small black drawstring or zipper bags to keep things organised. Little items such as batteries and thumb drives need to be kept in their place, otherwise, they get lost. One indispensable item is a travel kit of cables and connectors. The cables have their own little spring reels to keep them compact and tidy. The kit includes a tiny optical mouse and a USB lamp. Middle of a long night flight, it illuminates the keyboard and I can keep on working.

That’s the main compartment, and I have two other spaces, one that fits my codriver, camera, mobile phone, the other for stationery (such as pens, BookCrossing labels) and consumables like tea bags, dried apricots, headache tablets, bandaids and stuff. Two mesh pockets on the outside – one for a water bottle (of limited utility nowadays, though I always try to get something airside), the other for my backup amenities kit. This is an old red leather Qantas first class bag, filled with the small handy items that will keep me looking trim. Razor, toothbrush, collapsible hairbrush, floss, sleeping mask. A ziploc bag of the right size holds fluids and gels. One treasure is shaving oil. Instead of a bulky can of shaving foam, I have a small thumb-sized container of oil. Three drops is all I need for a shave. Amazing stuff.

My laptop is my life. It keeps me connected, it stores my photographs, it lets me write anywhere. I love it. This current model is a Compaq Presario B1900, and it’s small enough to function on an economy class tray table with the seat in front fully reclined. Full sized keyboard so my fingers hit the right key. Optical drive included – some ultralight laptops have a separate drive, which I find to be a royal pain – for backup and watching DVDs. Slots for memory cards and a PCMIA card. Three USB slots.This is a recent purchase, and it has Vista and Office 2007. I included Microsoft Onecare for keeping the laptop safe and organised. The whole thing weighs less than two kilos.

I ditched the official power supply and bought a Targus AC/DC adapter. I can plug in to a wall socket or a car supply and keep on working. A handy little kit, with tips for several brands of laptop and cords with little velcro straps so I can keep them neatly looped, all in a zip up pouch with internal mesh pockets.

I have a couple of compact battery chargers. Every chance I get, I plug it in and add some juice to my rechargeable batteries. Both have flip out US power prongs as well as plugs for other nations. A hotel room always has a shaver socket. And finally, a nifty little power adaptor, that has push out prongs for US, UK, Australian and European styles on one end, and plug sockets for all of the above at the other. It changes anything into anything else.

Mobile phone is also a pocketPC with miniature versions of Word and Excel (and a tiny qwerty keypad). I can keep writing even when I don’t have a lap (or time or space) for a latop. It has a USB cradle which also keeps it charged.

Two cameras, both Canons so as to keep software and controls as uniform as possible. One is a S3IS with 12x optical zoom, a lovely camera, but just a touch too big to slide into a pocket. The other is a Powershot A710 with 6x zoom, compact and powerful. 1 gig memory cards for both, but I’m thinking of going large on both.

One final item of equipment is a bright yellow DayTimer zipup organiser. A diary, a planner, a holder of maps and information, a credit card holder, a dozen other things, it is vital to my existence. It fits in a cargo pants pocket, and it has an external sleeve into which I fit my passport and boarding pass.

I can’t say that I travel light, and realistically, you don’t fly around the world on carryon alone, but I like to think that I’ve taken steps to stay as compact and organised as possible, given the fact that I travel with a shelf full of books, and a cupboard full of chocolate biscuits.