I will be touring Spain and Italy for two weeks... which is more efficient - a rucksack or backpack? and how available are the laundry mats? Thank you.

What's a rucksack? As far as laundromats I think it depends on the city and area. There are many in Salamanca but once in Madrid I asked at least 10 people and no one could point me to one. Maybe I was just in the wrong neighborhood....

I thought a rucksack was the unstructured kind of thing you might carry stuff in for a day hike. When someone says "backpack" I tend to think of one with support, as in what one would use to backpack...but I hike, so my interpretation could be specialized!

I use a daypack for the stuff I need to have with me during a day trip/tour of the city: camera, bottled water, sunscreen, camera, light jacket, tour book, umbrella. That would never be enough for me to take in terms of serious packing.

About laundries, in Spain there use to be very few, because people washes clothes and irons them at home. There are some where you can wash, and even less where your things will be ironed - used by hotels, ... -,

Salamanca may be an exception because it is a town with a high population of Universitary people studying there, and they may not have a house or a 'mom' to wash and iron.

According to Random House, rucksack is a kind of knapsack carried by hikers, bicyclists, etc. If you go back to the origin of the term, the frame is the 'ruk,' and the sak hangs on the ruk. I think of rucksacks as early external-frame backpacks as seen in Bavaria and the Austrian and Italian Tirol. The external frames were mostly made of wood and secured with leather thongs. Picture a Tiroles dressed in lederhosen and carrying a ruksak.

I think the external frame pack w/magnesium or aluminum frame is a bit lighter (i.e., more efficient) than the self-contained 50 or 60-litre backpacks w/internal metal reinforcements. Either way, you should have a protective cover if you're going to check the pack on an airline.

If your internal frame backpack is small enough (30 or 40-litre) it may qualify as a carry-on. That might be something to consider. I, for one, couldn't make it 2-weeks with such a small pack, though.

[ 08-09-2001: Message edited by: Eddie ]

In 1995 I purchased an internal-frame pack made by Gregory. It has a 5600 cc capacity (rather large...) and served me very well in my five-week odyssey throughout Europe. In order to transport the pack on the plane ride over and on various trains in Europe, I brought along my Eddie Bauer XL duffel bag. The entire pack fit inside the duffel and I bike-locked the straps to the train shelves in my compartment (when possible).

The advantage to an internal-frame pack over a rucksack (thanks for the definition, Eddie!) is ease of movement while wearing it. After having to run to the metro, the train station, and to chase a taxi, I'm all for ease of movement, compactness of your pack load and the compression straps/formed shoulder straps that are usually standard on an internal-frame pack, but less common on an external-frame or "rucksack".

Happy trails!

[ 08-09-2001: Message edited by: CaliBasco ]