One terrible night in Bangkok.
It was 3am in Bangkok and Tom had run out of paracetamol, a phone charger, and optimism. James was three rows back, neck pillow wedged against the window, trying to sleep through the overhead light someone had forgotten to turn off. They'd been travelling together for two weeks — Thailand, then across to Bali, back through Singapore — and somewhere between airport seven and airport eight, they'd had enough of bad travel gear.
They'd started the trip with too much. Ended it with exactly what they needed. The stuff that worked was small, lightweight, thoughtful. The stuff that didn't was in a bin in Chiang Mai. That flight home was spent writing the list of things that every trip needed — not the marketing version, the real version. What a person actually reaches for at 3am. What saves the day at immigration. What turns a red-eye into something almost bearable.
Back home in London, they built the first version on a kitchen table. Then tested it across Europe — Rome, Amsterdam, Lisbon. Then America — New York, LA, a road trip through the American South. Every trip taught them something. The kit got lighter, the thinking got sharper, the obsession grew worse.
GO PAC launched in 2023 with two kits. We now have six, ship to 47 countries, and still write every insert card by hand. The studio is still in London. The kettle is better. Tom has not once been caught without paracetamol since.
✈ Bangkok — where it started
✈ Bali
✈ Rome