Nuns assessment works great for his setup, a light bike, a very light load. His view on the range of gear inches is very realistic, but again, depends on the load and the terrain.
A mountain double and an 11/34 or 11/36 cassette will work for loaded touring in any terrain. Compact doubles and 12/25 ish cassettes are probably best used with light touring loads.
I find doubles simpler to use than triples, but with any gearing you should try to get your most used gears with the least amount of chain angle.