I get more than a few questions about packing list specifics from candidates preparing for SFAS. I’m a gear guy at heart and I have a knack for ‘gaming the system’, so I like to digest these sorts of topics with an eye towards maximizing opportunity and minimizing risk. Taken as onesies and twosies, the packing list items are just that, items. But if you can tweak enough of them in just the right ways, you can start to realize some cumulative gain. And some seemingly mundane choices can have big impacts later down the rabbit hole.

I get more than a few questions about packing list specifics from candidates preparing for SFAS. I’m a gear guy at heart and I have a knack for ‘gaming the system’, so I like to digest these sorts of topics with an eye towards maximizing opportunity and minimizing risk. Taken as onesies and twosies, the packing list items are just that, items. But if you can tweak enough of them in just the right ways, you can start to realize some cumulative gain. And some seemingly mundane choices can have big impacts later down the rabbit hole.