A Simple Paracord Travel Hack You Didn’t Know You Needed

Heard about the paracord travel hack and wondering what it’s about?

We pack paracord for almost every trip and we are here to tell you why you should get one too!

And no, paracords are not just for hikers or rock climbers.

Regular travellers (what a weird term, but you get what we mean!) can get lots of use out of them too!

So let’s talk more about this paracord travel hack.

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Here’s a little bit about our journey, if you are new here! If you know us, feel free to skip this part.

After leaving our old life in Scotland in March 2022 (it rains too much there), we travelled full-time for almost 2 years. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well, it was. If you think that carrying overpacked backpacks in 45°C heat around streets that aren’t even on Google Maps is fancy. And that’s just 1% of all the fun we had! 😆

During the 2 years we volunteered in Italy and Bulgaria (free travel while learning new skills, anyone?), explored other amazing European countries and backpacked Southeast Asia. Even our secret wedding was more of an expedition than a wedding. 😅

And, of course, we researched and planned everything ourselves, because you gotta keep the budget low, right? If you are like us, you’ve come to the right place, because we want to share all the useful tips and info with you!

Excited? Good. Let’s get into it so you can go on your own adventures too!

A little disclaimer

There is a lot to be said about paracords when it comes to climbing, hiking or survival skills. 

That’s not what this post is about, though – we are not experts in any of those areas.

What we are experts in is packing weird stuff for our trips to make sure our travels are easier and better.

If you also want to upgrade your travels, read on to learn more about this paracord travel hack.

What is paracord?

Paracord is a magic rope used to repair things in space, and yet it’s so affordable, you can use it for your travels too!

Think we are making things up?

Okay, here is more info:

• The term paracord stands for parachute cord
• It’s a nylon rope originally used in the suspension lines of parachutes
• It really was used by astronauts during the 82nd Space Shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope – cool, right?

Why is paracord so cool?

If you are wondering what makes paracord so special, here are its benefits:

• Lightweight – paracord is incredibly light, yet, and this is another point, super strong.
• Strong –  wondering how come people used to trust paracords with their lives in parachutes? That’s because the cord can be super strong (strength varies based on the type). For example, the 550 cord can hold up to 550 pounds (249 kg) – how wild is that?
• Packable – you can wrap a lot of paracord pretty tight, meaning you can carry metres and metres of it while still packing light.
• Multifunctional – we’ll get to this, but you can use it for so many different things (not just spacecraft repairs).
• Fast-drying – paracord not only dries fast, but is also unlikely to go mouldy as it’s made of nylon. This means you can use it even in wet conditions without worrying too much! (We’ll also get to this in a true story we’ll share with you.)
• Resourceful – some types of paracord aren’t just one rope. Inside, there are multiple inner strands just waiting for an emergency situation. A cord-ception!
• No-faff – the cord is easy to cut, if you need to make it shorter. Knots hold well, but are easy to untie – perfect, if, for example, you are running late for your flight, so you jump on a local motorbike taxi, tie your bag to the back, so you don’t lose it on the way, and then quickly untie it when you get to the airport.

Now that you know what paracord is and why it’s awesome, let’s talk about how you can use it. It’s time to talk about the paracord travel hack.

Paracord travel hack

If you’ve read all the great stuff about paracords and are now wondering: “Okay, but what can I use them for, as a traveller?” we are about to tell you.

If you are an outdoorsy, adventurous traveller

If you are camping/hiking/doing other adventurous activities, you can use paracords for all sorts of things, from securing your tent in the wind to hanging bags of food up, away from animals – there are so many uses.

As we said, though, this post is about the paracord travel hack – how any traveller can benefit from packing paracord on their trip, not just the ones who venture into the wild. 

So let’s talk about what to use paracord for when travelling in a way that doesn’t involve fighting badgers over your dinner.

If you are a “regular” traveller (for the lack of a better word)

This post is for all the regular travellers – the people who explore the world full-time, fly to Slovakia for insanely cheap glamping or roam Italy in search of the best tiramisu. 

Hold on to your parachute – this is the travel hack you didn’t know you needed.

Here’s what you can use paracord for on your travels:

• as a clothesline for drying clothes, towels, beachwear etc.
• as a substitute for any string – shoelace, necklace, belt… 
• for fixing wardrobe malfunctions 
• to strap backpacks to motorbikes/bicycles
• to tie bags together or to a railing/chair etc. to keep them safe. And we are all about increasing your travel safety here!
• for tying a smaller bag to a bigger one, so you can carry them more easily (e.g. a tote bag full of wet beachwear to a daypack). Same applies to any other gear you want to strap to your bag so you don’t have to carry it
• for emergency repairs such as broken straps or suitcase handles
• to create shade at the beach by stringing it between trees and throwing a sarong over it. You can also use it in a room without curtains if you need more darkness

…and much more!

When thinking about the different uses for paracords, remember that you can cut it – it’s not a string like a shoelace that has an exact length. You can travel with 5 metres and then cut off a short bit to fix your flip-flop if it falls apart halfway through exploring a fairytale palace in Austria.

What we use paracord for

Shockingly, despite all the 💩 that happens to us, we haven’t needed to use paracord for any emergency situations aside from one. 

We’ve just jinxed it, haven’t we?

We’ll let you know – make sure to follow us on Instagram where we share all of our FML stories. 😅

What’s the one thing we use paracord for?

Drying clothes! 😄

A true story

The first time we discovered how useful paracord is was when we got to Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia.

We booked an apartment* there, and it was the first time since we left for our full-time travels that we had a washing machine and could do our own laundry.

What that means, when you are a long-term traveller, is that we washed EVERYTHING.

Okay, not everything, cause we did totally overpack, so we had more than we needed, but we did have a limited number of underwear, and it was all being washed along with most of our other clothes.

*We say an apartment but what it means is one big room that is a kitchen, a dining area, a living room, as well as a bedroom.

The joys of full-time travel

Can you guess what happened?

We put the clothes in, pressed some buttons and the washing machine started doing its magic.

The washing cycle was followed by a drying cycle, which didn’t dry anything, though.

So we thought we’d run it again.

The settings didn’t make any sense, of course (one of the fun tasks when travelling – deciphering foreign devices), and we ended up running the washing cycle again, by accident! 😭

This time, though, something else went wrong, and the rubbish drying cycle didn’t even come on, so the clothes were double-washed and still completely wet!

By this point, it was 11 pm, we had no clothes for the next day of exploring the city, and on top of that, we had to somehow dry a full load of soaking wet laundry.

Paracord to the rescue

With no clothes drying rack available, we were so grateful for this paracord travel hack. 

We pulled out our 3 paracords and strung them up all over the apartment.

It looked like that scene from Entrapment when Catherine Zeta-Jones practises avoiding laser beams to steal a valuable Chinese mask. (We might have re-enacted the scene in Cambodia. 😄)

Did the clothes dry by morning?

Most of them did. This is why it’s important to pack well – including the right kind of materials. We talk more about that in this post, which has lots of packing tips.

For us, this was an early lesson to never travel without a paracord. Now we take it with us every time, because you never know when:

• A washing machine will let you down
• You will get soaked by rain (if you are us, this will happen every time without fail)
• You will have wet swimwear from the beach or the pool, and nowhere to dry it, because why do hotel rooms never have any solution for this??

Basically, even if you never use the paracord for anything else, it’s handy at least for drying clothes.

Types of paracord

As you have probably gathered by now, there are many different types and colours of paracord available. And you can buy different lengths, so there are a few things you need to decide on, if you want to use this paracord travel hack.

You can even get paracord that glows in the dark – perfect for camping, so you don’t trip over it!

What we would suggest you do is:

• Find a shop(s) that sells paracord in your area or online
• Have a look at the options they have
• Compare prices
• Pick based on what you are planning to use it for

Where can you buy paracord?

There are online shops specialising solely in paracords (e.g. paracord.cz in Czech Republic), but you can also buy it on Amazon, of course.

If you would prefer to buy in person, your local outdoor store is a safe bet.

We bought our paracords from a store that specialises in knives and torches, because they sold them per metre and for a good price.

What paracords did we buy?

When we were getting ready to go full-time travelling, we didn’t know what we were going to get up to on our journey.

For us, it wasn’t a trip with a set plan.

It was a new life – leaving Scotland for good and seeing where the road takes us.

So when choosing paracords, we wanted a variety that would cover different situations (you know us, we like to be prepared).

Here’s how we picked ours:

Black (Microcord)

• this is our super-thin option
• black colour, so it can be used for more “fancy” jobs – e.g. as a necklace chain replacement 

Green (Paracord 550)

• this is our “nature” option, so it can be used if we ever need it to be invisible in nature
• it’s long, so ideal for drying clothes (because, let’s face it, that’s what we use it for 99% of the time 😅)

Orange (Paracord 550)

• this is the one that you’ll never lose if you drop it on the ground in a forest (also means you won’t trip over it if you string it up somewhere low down!)
• it’s also our super long option – 5m (though remember, paracord packs pretty small). It’s perfect for big jobs, but it can also be cut into smaller pieces, if needed

Our 3 lifesavers

Paracord bracelets

You might have seen these.

Paracord bracelets. Or keyrings. Or dog leashes. Or any other colourful creation that might look unstylish, but can save lives. 

Here is the deal.

You can buy paracord bracelets, which let you always have the paracord on you – this is great for hikers, campers, rock climbers etc. – taking the paracord travel hack to the next level.

You can also buy unbraided paracord and make the bracelet yourself based on YouTube tutorials, if you are all about saving money, like we are.

The problem

The issue with this? To use the paracord, you need to first unravel the bracelet (or another creation). So, if you are planning on using it, in one of the ways we listed earlier, what’s the point of spending money on it being braided into a bracelet?

Imagine buying a paracord bracelet only to get to your holiday in Phuket and unravelling it on the first day when you discover you need to dry your beachwear and the hotel, for some reason, doesn’t have drying racks in the rooms.

Kinda pointless, right?

The reason we included paracord bracelets in this article is so that:

• You know what these colourful creations are, if you ever see them somewhere
• You are aware of this option, if you one day want to have paracord on you as an emergency solution rather than a clothesline 😅 (also, it might make a good present for your outdoorsy friend!)

What do you think about this paracord travel hack?

Will it become one of the weird things you take travelling too?

If you have any questions, give us a shout in the comments below. 

And if you end up buying paracord, let us know too – we love to know whether our tips helped someone!