Packing for an everyday adventure

The contents of my adventure kit (the one labelled 'EVIDENCE' contains my notebooks)

I ran across a site asking 'tell us about the items you never go exploring without' and I can relate with the author's obsession with always carrying an explorer's kit. So here's what I generally have on hand:

1. A first aid kit with bandages, gloves, cough drops and non-medical things such as chopsticks, soy sauce and tea. I think there is even a few emergency hair elastics in there two as there's nothing worse than being on an adventure and getting hair blown into my face.

2. A notebook kit - including several notebooks, a pad of paper for giving notes to other people and various writing/drawing implements (which now have their own nice pouch). In my fantasy land, my notebooks would be illustrated like this guy's ones (aren't they amazing).

3. Maps - I prefer physical maps over electronic ones. On my recent trip to Paris, I had three street maps with me (I have a general love of looking at maps).

4. A ziplock bag full of ziplock bags because my husband is a zoologist who works at a museum. More than one we’ve been out and encountered a dead thing (small birds, shrews, lizards, snakes etc) he’s wanted to take back to the museum and add to the collection. Through first hand experience, I know that wrapping a not-necessarily-recently-dead animal in a tissue and putting it in my bag is a bad idea. My world is simply better if there is an sealable bag on had to put the animal in. Larger bags are kept in the car-- lesson learned from a rotten swan incident a few years back (some smells are hard to get out!).

5. I also carry a smartphone, an ereader and a memory stick. Plus ordinary things one would expect (like a wallet, sunglasses, lip balm, random receipts, gum wrappers and other flotsam of daily life I shove in there).

Everything can easily be transferred over to my packback for longer trips.

If I’m going on a long trip, I make sure I pack a significant amount of food. This stems from a trip to the Arctic I made a few years ago. The community was tiny and it’s only grocery store (and store of any kind) was open from 1-4 pm, and there was no restaurants in town. I arrived around 5 pm to discover the dorm style place I booked didn't have food and all I had on me was a small bag of trail mix and a couple pepperoni sticks. Now I travel prepared to feed myself for at least 24 hours.

In my car, I keep another kit in a backpack (more of an emergency kit). It contains a larger first aid kit, food and water, toilet paper, a blanket and proper walking shoes (just in case I’m caught with impractical shoes on).

What's in your adventure kit?