Packing list for a photography trip
Kyoto, Istanbul, Hong Kong or Venice with a camera and an alarm set for an hour before sunrise: one body and two lenses, a tripod and the places that will not let you use it, a backup habit for your cards, a rain cover, the drone you should probably leave at home, and a flask for the light before breakfast.
On a phone with Waystop installed, the button adds the list to your trip as a bag you can tick off. Otherwise copy it and paste it into Waystop’s Chat with “add this to my packing list”.
Checked October 10, 2026.
Tick things off as you go and this browser will remember. Changed your mind?
0 of 18 packed
The camera bag
0/5Power, cards and the backup habit
0/5The gimbal and the drone
0/3The early morning
0/5What the weather is like
The kit is packed for the light, not the heat. Sunrise in Kyoto is about 4:45 a.m. in June and 7 a.m. in December; Hong Kong summers run 88°F (31°C) and 80 percent humidity, so a lens from an air-conditioned room fogs for ten minutes outside; Istanbul winter mornings sit around 41°F (5°C) with wind off the water; Venice fogs in November and December, which is the point of going then.
- The third lens and the second bodyTwo lenses cover a city, and the rest is weight you carry up every staircase and never use.
- The full-size tripodIt is banned at most of the places you want it and heavy everywhere else. A small travel tripod or a beanbag on a railing does the two-second exposure.
- The droneRegistration and permit rules differ in all four countries, and most of Kyoto, Tokyo and Osaka are restricted. Take the stairs to a rooftop instead.
- Memory cardsYodobashi in Kyoto and Tokyo and the shops of Mong Kok in Hong Kong sell every brand at fair prices; buy a spare rather than reuse a full one
- Silica gel sachetsCamera shops and some drugstores in Japan and Hong Kong sell them; one in the bag stops the lens fogging on the way out of the hotel
- A disposable rain ponchoConvenience stores in Kyoto sell one for a couple of hundred yen; it covers you and the bag while the rain cover covers the camera
Worth knowing
- Scout at midday, shoot at dawn. Walk the location in the afternoon with the crowds, pick the frame and the lens, and come back in the morning knowing where to stand.
- Ask before you raise the camera at people. Kyoto has banned photography on Gion's private lanes and fines for it; in Istanbul a nod and a smile at a fisherman on the Galata Bridge gets a yes most mornings.
- Back up every evening, no exceptions. Copy the cards to the phone or an SSD before dinner; a hotel safe holds the SSD while the camera goes out with you.
- Think hard before packing a drone. Japan registers anything of 100 grams or more, and flying over densely inhabited districts or near airports needs MLIT permission in advance, which rules out almost all of Kyoto. Rooftop bars in Hong Kong, the Galata Tower in Istanbul and the campanile in Venice give the high angle without a battery or a permit.
Trips to pack this for
Never leave the charger in the hotel again.
Waystop keeps a list for each bag and each person. On the morning you change hotels it walks you through a quick pack-up check, and Chat can suggest items to add when you ask what to bring.