RTW Backpacking Beauty Secrets

Fran (left) and Gemma ring in the New Year in Thailand.

I met Fran and her girlfriend Gemma in Ecuador this May. Their 10-day tour of the Galapagos was a much-needed splurge at the tail end of a year-long round-the-world trip that had taken them from their home in the UK, to Asia, and throughout South America. 

Fran is perhaps most notably one of the co-founders (along with myself, Gemma and Katherine) of the Commonwealth Candy Club (because clearly that is what grown adults do while on vacation; form international candy clubs). However, she also holds one other claim to fame—she may be the only self-described "beauty product-obsessed backpacker" that I've ever met in my travels.

I mean, it seems almost oxymoronic. How can you backpack and be obsessed with beauty products?

The question has been plaguing me, so as I prepare for my very first long-distance cycling trip (!), in which I want to a) pack the bare minimum and b) look like less of a "mess" and more like a "hot mess," I decided that it was time to ask Fran for her best beauty backpacking tips. 

The Price of Travel

Last weekend, I was a speaker on a panel discussion at the Toronto Go Global Expo. Afterwards, I had a couple of students approach me. They wanted to ask me what it was like to like to have a mobile office, to have the ability to pick up and freelance from anywhere in the world.

“It must be amazing,” they enthused. And it is.

But in a lot of ways, it’s also very lonely.

Midway through June, I boarded a plane from Sydney to LAX, on route back to Toronto. On only the 26th week of the year, it was already my 21st flight.

That's why I vowed that it would be my last.