Why is Minimalism important to how you travel?

Quick Read: Everybody loves traveling. But not everyone enjoyed packing and mobility of their luggages. And it’s not surprising. One Netflix documentary “Minimalism”, shares how it starts from our mindset to only think of the necessities. By adopting this mindset onto our traveling lifestyle, it results in us being able to travel-light. Read on to find out more…

I recently just watched a documentary on Netflix about Minimalism and I thought about how much that resonates with me on travel and the modern world. The documentary show is called “Minimalism” and it shares about all the common problems in our current society.

Have you seen this yet? If not, you probably should.

But why am I talking about Minimalism all of a sudden? Because, minimalism is a way of life. Not just for anything in particular, but a change in mindset, behaviour, adapting simplicity and necessity only.

It’s about having only things that add value in your life.

And for any travellers who are considering about perpetual, financially free, or reducing the things that are holding you back from being able to move freely – this show says it all. So I’m writing this note that illustrates some of my thoughts and how I felt it will make us a better traveler too.

So… What is Minimalism?

The show talks a lot about this concept or way of life. So if you really want to learn more, you have to watch it first. But I would like to share my brief experience in how I adopt it in my life and my traveling.

In my mind, minimalism is really about reducing. When you start embracing it, you will tend to think, “Do I really need this?” and stop yourself from making an impulsive purchase. To a certain extent, I’ve been practicing this concept by questioning every purchases I’ve made.

And it works. For the most part of it.

After watching that documentary, if I could summarise the concept of minimalism in my own perspective, that would be:

Reduce your wants and only keep to your needs
Be light so you can be free
Financially-free from the very things you thought made you happy
The less things you have, the happier you are

The above realisation had a few that I managed to adapt into my way of traveling, and it has worked out pretty well so far.

How does it affect us in the way we travel?

Because “Minimalism” is about changing of habits, this carries itself across the lifestyle and activities we do, including travelling. The good thing about it is, it really does help in many ways.

Try imagine just carrying a simple backpack with you for traveling in your next trip. Bizarre huh? But it’s most definitely possible.

There are 2 types of people who travel – Travellers and tourists. There are already many written articles out there talking about this differentiation, so I wouldn’t dwell on this topic. That’s not my intention.

But as travelers, we want to experience things and making the whole journey as part of the life. It’s not about the materials we bring there or get back from our adventures. It’s about life values and memorable experiences. And what that truly means is, all you needed really, is you. Bringing yourself, your heart and soul there.

Let your eyes see the world for all you can, let your legs take you miles away, let your hands feel the connection we shared with all the living things on Earth.

Do we really actually needed more? I guess the biggest impact in the way we travel, is our mindset. You must realise that you don’t need to bring more than the necessity for you to get by each day.

By traveling light, it makes one generally happier and easier to explore the whole new experiences with little to worry.

What it really means to pack light

This is the part that appalled me the most. Often not, I observed many others packing a full luggage filled with many, many things. I wasn’t sure if I packed too little, or they packed too much.

Maybe… those people are migrating overseas or something?

To pack light, it doesn’t mean to exclude necessity. Depending on your situation, medical needs, gender needs, and just about any other situation-dependent necessities, those are exceptions. But everything else, you ought to reduce them.

So here’s my experience after making multiple trips packing light. In my luggage, all I needed (most of the time) are:

A few pieces of clothing
Toiletries
Your usual cables and chargers
A laptop and camera

Bearing in mind that, the above packing is meant for an almost 14 days trip. Absolutely not kidding at all. You’re going to think I don’t change my clothes huh? No, of course I do! Only difference is, I had them washed and reused.

To be honest, I still think that’s still a little too much. I was even exploring if I could reduce further. Especially on the cables/chargers department.

And yes, depending on where you go and when you go, you may need certain additional items too. For example, during winter these are the additional items that you may have to pack in.

1x down coat
2x innerwears
1x Glove, hat, scarf and ear muffs
A few thick socks
1x fleece jacket

Yeah that’s about it. No really, what more do you need?!

My mind explodes, literally, when people packed a full luggage onboard for a trip. But I get it. Everyone’s different and has different needs.

Maybe they forget there’s laundromats? Or just didn’t want to do those during a holiday I guess…

Sure, you may say “well, I’m traveling you know. I don’t wanna cook or wash clothes when I’m supposed to be shopping and enjoying my trip!” Fair point. But I guess I’m up for experiencing “life” there more than just fulfilling the “been there, done that” thing.

So, if I were to be traveling for 1 month, across multiple countries, I will have to bring multiple luggages then?

At the end of all my trips, I always end up with many stories to tell, many adventures to share. (For example we followed the locals who showed us where the fireworks would happen on the dot of the New Year. That was one hella good memory that I still remember 4 years ago.)

Sharing from my experience, there’s this one trip where we interacted with a few other fellow travellers/tourists (I don’t really know), they were dragging their huge luggage that looks seemingly heavy as hell. And they were trying to board a bus. With it. Yeah really.

Try carrying a heavy luggage that’s half the size of you, up a couple of steps onto a bus. That’s no joke. Really.

I was like wow. You dragged that thing all the way through the snow?! That’s really impressive, I must say! Really, I do. Because I know by the time I’m done dragging or packing it when leaving the hotel or apartment, I’ve been dead tired already.

Then again, these are just some of my thoughts. Cause I know for sure that if I’m traveling for months or super long journeys, I probably wouldn’t want to haul such a heavy baggage with me wherever I go.

All the more the reason why I would rather just pack light for such a long long journey.

What I needed as shared above, more or less can be packed into a small bag. In fact, if it’s not winter season, I would just have a hand-carry bag with me. It’s not about cost savings. Or at least, not just about that all the time. If you’re doing a long-haul flight, checked-in luggage is almost always included for you anyway.

No, it’s about not having to constantly worry about the load you’re carrying around, and trying to reduce in every department where you can reuse easily.

Don’t you just find it easier to move around, explore and feel “light” when you have much lesser to worry or drag through the city streets?

In all my trips, I tend to include a few days spread out to spend time at the apartment and neighbourhood. It allows me to calm and slow down while “healing” myself from fatigue or being overwhelmed.

These are the opportunities that allow you to fall back a little into the routine to feel at “home”. Making some light cooks, washing the clothes, packing a little stuff, and taking a gentle stroll down the neighbourhood area.

It’s all about making the journey a part of your life.

Having lesser financial weights in our life

In the documentary “Minimalism”, they talk about reducing wants of things or things that doesn’t add value to your life.

In travel, everything is pretty much the same too. Not only do you want to travel light, but you also want to travel cost-efficiently. If traveling is your way of life, then you want to make sure you can keep planning and moving ahead.

For those who travel a lot, don’t you just agree that you really don’t need a car for example? The amount spent there could sponsor you several trips already. Much less to say the instalments you had…

And to be able to do that effectively, you cannot constantly deal with high cost. These costs will eventually snow ball into a big problem and you find yourself caught in a deadlock situation.

I know that because I fell in one before. And I couldn’t travel at all for a full year. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that, would you?

In my experience thus far, it’s possible to reduce your travel costs quite a fair bit. It’s also the reason why I’m sharing some of my itineraries, reviews and travel tips here. For most of my trips, I’ve managed to work on a fixed budget that seems to work out fine every single time. Check out my notes on these itineraries here.

But can we really reduce the cost, drop the fancy, keep it light?

Perhaps the truth for most of us city dwellers is, we may not always be able to. At least not completely. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying. If there’s ever one thing I learned, it’s to be persistent in pursuing your life – in this case, traveling.

To all my like-minded travellers, don’t you agree?

Doing it now or never

But perhaps, not all of us are looking at perpetual traveling as the end goal. Some of us just wanted to go travel for 2 weeks, get crazy and come back to the routine. But even then, all the above still kind of applies to you too. Because it all just means that you’ve enabled yourself to travel more often, travel more freely.

If this doesn’t appeal to you, then perhaps you’re looking for something else. Perhaps, you’re still looking for your purpose or meaning. But for the rest, being able to start somewhere is better than nowhere.

If perpetual travel or traveling often is what you want and have been trying to do, then it’s doing it now or never. Instead of saying something cliche like “life’s too short” – seriously, what? You have a death wish or something? 😆 – I would like to think closer to reality.

The days of being young doesn’t last longer than you think.

Your commitment level, your energy and physical abilities, your health and responsibilities, will all only increase as you grow older.

Do it now, do it fast, do it smart.

All the best to you if you’re already pursuing this and I hope the documentary helps further strengthen your resolution and thoughts. And I certainly hope my share of opinion provides some value into helping you shape your ultimate dream.

Let me know your thoughts in the comment below, and what you would like to hear me talking about next.

Watch the documentary on Netflix now

My final thoughts on the documentary

We often buy many things. With the rise of digital commerce and big sales, the impulse of making a purchase is almost an existential problem for everyone. Including me.

But what do you need? What do you really need in your life that you purportedly felt missing? In most of our lives we often make annual upgrades.

I agree that for about 40% of it, it’s possible that it’s necessary. Things break down, more security, child-friendly amongst other reasons for us to do so. And then there’s that other 60% where we buy because it makes us feel good and we somehow convinced ourselves we needed it.

I still remember the times where it’s simply a duplicated item we had back home, but we bought it because we said “it has this added feature that will help us…”. And we discarded the old one.

But it was still working fine!

It’s important for us to realise that we didn’t have these in the past and we don’t need them now too. Some of which improved our lives, but many things else simply don’t.

I share the same thoughts and mindset as the people in the documentary. But the courage to take the first step in doing so, is what most of us lack and fear to do so.

If you have already done so, let me know how it turns out and what you would’ve done better? Share your thoughts and comments below.