This is my entry for the Lonely Planet Travel Tips Contest.

This is the Oh S..t Kit, or the "I have old Game Boy cartridge cases lying around, I think they can hold things" Kit.

My wife and I went on a two month backpacking trip around Europe, and having to live out of our bags was going to be a challenge. We were thinking about ways to compress all of our stuff without sacrificing items, and we were left with a few odds and ends that we thought would be helpful, they just had no place to go. Enter my Nintendo addiction.

Step 1: Find a Game Boy Cartridge Case.

Remember those cheap clear cases that used to come with original Game Boy games? The useless and damn-near-impossible-to-open ones that hardly anyone used? Go get one.

You can find these for silly cheap on eBay if you must, or you can just go rough up some kids at a garage sale and get them for even less. Ask at your local EB or GameStop too, most places that take take original Game Boy games in on trade (if they still do, that is) don't want the cases.

Alternatively, you can make smaller versions of this using a Game Boy Advance cartridge case, but that is too small for most things I'm putting in here.

Step 2: Put the Stuff in the Case

This is pretty well the last step.

In my Oh S..t Kit I had the following:
- 1 large wound band-aid
- 2 regular band-aids
- 1 alcohol prep pad
- 2 Immodium (Basically for when the "oh s..t kit" lives up to its name). You can fit whatever drugs you want in there, I guess. I also had Lactaid at one point.
- 1 cheapo multiknife. This thing honestly sucks, but it's tiny and had a bottle opener, knife, file, and screwdriver.
- 2 zipties
- 2 safety pins
- 1 tiny USB Stick with my contact info and Portable Firefox on it
- 1 little sheet of paper with my contact info (in case it's lost where there's no computers...imagine!)
- 1 glasses repair screwdriver
- 1 elastic (in this case a hair elastic) You can wrap it around the Kit if you don't think it is 100% secure.
- 1 guitar pick. They're great for prying, scraping, and rocking.

I considered putting tweezers, a guitar string (helps support a broken strap on a bag), and a sewing kit in, they would all fit.