gap year travels - any handy packing tips/useful gadgets etc

[Simonandrod]

My daughter leaves for Australia/South East Asia in a couple of weeks and I just wondered if anyone's children have done it recently and mentioned anything that they are really glad they packed/or wished that they had got?

a easy drying towel,

adaptor plug
light sleeping bag

Dribag and or waterproof phone pouch.

When I used to travel a lot in my 20s the best advice I received was to lay out everything I intended to pack, then halve the amount of clothes and double the amount of money.

love this. So true. When I used to go, I didn't think twice, would stuff a random selection of clothes into a rucksack (once packed hungover for six week trip, took 15 pairs of pants and not much else) and off I went.
I'm doing an early Christmas for my daughter as she won't be here and wanted to get some 'useful' presents

Head torch best thing ever. Plus a rucksack that zips open at the side so you don't have to pull everything out the top to find one thing.

Packing cubes, empty suncream tube or similar to store some money, never keep it all in the same place.

more than one bank account as a fall back to those lost cards!

If she's staying in hostels then definitely a torch.
Upload lots of audiobooks to her phone. (I used to take a CD walkman and audiobooks on CD back in the olden days - great for long train or bus journeys).