Wheels

Tourers prefer reliability to lightweight in most things and wheels are no exception. Any 32 or 36 spoke wheel of decent quality ought to be just fine unless either you or the stuff you’re going to carry is exceptionally heavy. I would recommend getting your wheels trued and hubs checked out by a good mechanic before heading out; we met two different riders that left with older wheels that hadn’t been maintained and were having pretty big problems.

I actually rode most of our trip with Mavic Cosmos wheels that really aren’t designed for touring though they worked fine. The freehub wore out at the end of the trip though (probably just due to age more than touring) and since the wheel used nonstandard parts, I had to get a new wheel. It’s probably worth leaving anything fancy that is incompatible with normal spokes/freehubs/rims at home.