I lived out of a backpack for two months on a Pacific Crest Trail hike. I got comfortable with it and told myself that I had overcome my materialism, and could henceforth live happily without a lot of stuff and conveniences.
Not so much. Now a couple of decades later, I've got a house and garage crammed with stuff. Yesterday I had a plumber here working on a leak, and this morning I have no running water, and here I am bravely holding back tears. My inner dialog is "this is unacceptable!" It turns out that climbing on the hedonic treadmill is practically effortless, but sliding down it is full of splinters.
> It turns out that climbing on the hedonic treadmill is practically effortless, but sliding down it is full of splinters.
Not sure if I'm missing a joke, but the whole point of the analogy being a treadmill is that there's nothing to fall down. Regardless of positive (running forward) or negative (going backward on the treadmill) life changes, your happiness will probably stay relatively consistent because you're on a treadmill and there's nowhere to go.
The live out of a backpack lifestyle is definitely a unique way to experience the modern world and I'm sure it's fulfilling for the author, but you can even tell in their post that life caught up with them somewhat and they needed to start staying in one place a little longer in order to maintain social relationships. Their linked post about walking every block of Manhattan and tracking all of their movement since 2015 feels like the exact opposite of a minimalist lifestyle and it seems to me like they live out of a backpack not out of some anti-materialism lifestyle, but instead just as a practical way to fuel this obsession with traveling and tracking.
I admit, I've seen the author's Instagram story about walking 100k steps in a day in NYC and watched the whole thing because it's interesting, but I also take that and posts like this with a grain of salt. I'll happily take my horde of shit I need to get rid of in the garage over obsessing about how I can optimize tracking my every movement.
> My inner dialog is "this is unacceptable!" It turns out that climbing on the hedonic treadmill is practically effortless, but sliding down it is full of splinters.
For me, in situations like this the frustration comes from having invested so much into something that isn’t delivering what it was supposed to.
For example, when my 20 year old car broke down it was an inconvenience, but I could also shrug it off because I got my money’s worth out of the car long ago.
If an expensive brand new car broke down I would be inconvenienced, but the situation would be much more frustrating because I spent so much on a new car to avoid these issues.
Yeah, when we stop moving, it's so easy to start hoarding.
I lived in Mexico for 10 years with just two duffelbags of clothes and essentials. I could carry both on a plane unchecked and be anywhere with nothing left behind, and I loved it.
Now I look around me in my apartment I share with my girlfriend and have things I wouldn't have even conceived of, like a gaming PC with two monitors (for what??) and a closet full of clothes as if I don't wear the same 5 things.
I met a family who had just moved to Wisconson from Italy last week. The four of them (Mom, Dad, ~14yo son, and ~12yo daughter) packed everything they were going to bring with them into a backpack and two checked bags each. Incredible! What would you pick?
I have a garage and a shed (OK, fine, it's a 24x36 barn) and a basement and a home office that barely contain the enormous quantity of my stuff at home. And yet I honestly think the highlight of this summer was waking up to the sunrise on one of the remotest parts of the Appalachian trail through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with no possessions that wouldn't fit in a 22L ultralight backpack - including several of the same items as this guy's kit.
On the one hand, most of the stuff is replaceable, "fungible" if you like, rather than sentimental. On the other, I keep it because I like to have certain capabilities, like cooking and auto repair and home building - I can't fit a tablesaw or pressure washer or food processor in a backpack; I've got a rack of 24 giant totes in the garage with painting supplies and plumbing supplies and bike parts and specialty auto repair tool cases and on and on that each occupy more volume than the one backpack this guy lives out of. I also recognize that this is a colossally inefficient way to allocate things among a group of people: I'm not going to pay a painter $1500 to do a crappy job to repaint my bathroom when I can do it myself with far greater quality for $100 in paint and a couple hundred bucks worth of tools in a giant tote, and neither are most of my neighbors, but this means that a sizeable fraction of people in the neighborhood live around our own personal totes of painting supplies.
If I was going to pay someone else to build and repair and maintain and clean the house/apartment/condo/hotel that I live in (when I'm not in a tent, that's only about 5% of my time), and to take care of the cars and bikes that I ride in and on, and to cook the variety of food that I eat, and on and on, I would have a lot less stuff. If I bought tools to do these tasks that I would use once and then sell/give/throw them away...that would be unaffordable for me. One of the lessons that my Dad passed down to me is to never buy a thing unless you have the resources in time, price of consumables, tools, and space to clean it, maintain it, fix it, and store it - those are real costs beyond the sticker price of a new toy.
Where does the money come from that allows one to sleep in hotels, ride in rental cars, travel in airports, and eat in restaurants for years on end?
There’s nothing like the pleasure of idling in a pointless MMO on one screen while half-watching youtube autoplay on the other. Alternate Monster with White Claw and you’ve got peak hedonism.
> I got comfortable with it and told myself that I had overcome my materialism, and could henceforth live happily without a lot of stuff and conveniences.
Same. Exactly the same.
I have often reflected that I have never been as happy as when I had the least stuff, either.
I often wonder if it’s a) correlation or causation and b) whether the stuff is caused by dissatisfaction or the dissatisfaction is caused by the stuff, or both.
Either way, I’m currently undergoing an intentional downsizing in my life, toward minimalism. Not the kind where I use it as an excuse to buy (more) expensive minimalist gear either.
I’m shedding hobbies and interests that I have because I believe that they’ve become distractions that I bury myself in. Replacing them is far from my mind, but prising them out of my fingers is a very real challenge. It’s hardly backpack living, but it’s definitely moving in that direction.
As always, moderation is important for any normal person. I think that applies to minimalism as well. Use it to cut unnecessary stuff out of your life, but unless you're some outlier then it's probably not good to try and live the most minimalist life that you can without causing some terrible mental health effects along the way.
> I’m shedding hobbies and interests that I have because I believe that they’ve become distractions that I bury myself in.
Maybe you just haven't found the right hobby? Hobbies should feel rewarding, not like a distraction.
And perhaps? For me, the reward comes from the learning. (Who would have thought, being a software engineer by trade).
Luckily my brain has a self-invalidating cache, but my home, not so much. Perhaps I will find the right hobby, but it should not be something that involves the accumulation of things, because the things weigh a hidden cost of possession. It’s this hidden cost that hurts, like a tax, an inefficiency of the mind, or being. It’s insidious because it’s almost impossible to attribute the friction with the possession, because you’re often not actively dealing with it, but it’s there. It’s like, you know you have 32gb of RAM, but for some reason you’re only working with 20gb but you can’t inspect what’s stealing the other 12gb. It’s only after removing things from disk, do you start to see the RAM getting freed up, and then you begin to appreciate the extra mental resources.
So, this article is great and has some great items in it if you fit them. The pants look great but max out at 34" waist in the pair I checked. The towel is barely 4.5 feet and is far too short for a beach towel for someone who is 6' (though I still want it because I love these types of towels). I could not do this lifestyle though, not now in my life.
I was in the military and traveled a lot for extended periods of time (year long deployments to the ass end of nowhere) and we traveled HEAVY. HEAVY heavy. Not my favorite way, and I got to the point where I would ship everything home and when we traveled I had a day bag with 3 days worth of clothes and such. So there is a crossover of this and that lifestyle.
I still wouldn't want to go to it, I like having a home too much, even if I am renting.
Before being a digital nomad was cool I went full nomad. I remember being in a hostel in Thailand and just throwing away everything I had brought, going down to the basics. Ended up with a similar setup.
The thing is, after years of doing it, learning new languages, making friends all over, and then leaving knowing you might not see them again for ever or for long stints, you start to feel the yearning to be able to connect with people on a deeper level.
Now I have an apartment and basically only travel for weddings, I still go super light. But there is a joy in having variety in clothing or sneakers to wear. Friends who you've had multiple conversations with over the year's, even family who comes to visit you.
I'm happy I rid myself of it all, but I'm also happy that now my apartment has the basics, and maybe a bit more. And I'm fine with it. Life doesn't have to be binary, you can mix and match and end up happy either way.
I think this is key. I travel nearly zero these days due to a long list of reasons, but the mental exercise of thinking about whether I could travel with my stuff helps me be more conscious about accumulating things that I don’t really need.
I’m all for minimalist travel but I feel like I picked up a number of cues that the author is buying and disposing of (somehow) items seasonally or even on an as-no-longer-needed basis. Hopefully that means donating the item and maybe even buying used to begin with but it’s not mentioned here. I don’t want to make assumptions but in the worst case this could be a very wasteful kind of minimalism.
I've done this before (not indefinitely, but for many trips around the world.)
I agree with the author on a lot: 1) it's not a good way to live long term, 2) traveling with as little as possible completely transforms the traveling experience, 3) zero-bag travel is great, 4) a good quality small bag with well designed compartments is critical, 5) M-series Macs are the only way to go, 6) two thumb drives is very convenient if you're not worried about searches, 7) darn tough socks, 8) first aid with bandaids/antiseptic/mylar blanket, I also include benadryl, ibuprofen and other common OTC meds.
I disagree on: 1) I prefer a 2M USB-C cord over 1M, 2) I have mostly cotton or merino clothes and try not to use any synthetic fabrics, especially no synthetic underwear, 3) I prefer jeans, especially in colder climates and 4) carrying "stuff" on you long term (like a jacket with things in the pockets) can get sort of annoying after a while.
And finally, extra stuff I carry that the author doesn't: separate camera, snacks (mostly nuts), Garmin inReach, handkerchiefs, wired earbuds, flashlight, knife, an eye mask, sometimes a Travelrest pillow, and two sizes of paper notebooks and pens.
> Onebag travel is unquestionably the best way to travel. Traveling without luggage removes just about every pain point associated with flying, such as checking bags, overhead compartments, bag fees, waiting in line, and needing to drop off luggage before an adventure. Just stroll into the airport an hour before your flight, and walk off your plane directly to your destination.
This is absolutely true, especially when traveling solo.
People freak out about this, but all it boils down to is bringing enough socks, underwear, and shirts for ~5-6 days, 2 pairs of bottoms, and (depending on weather) or a combination of 2 and/either sweaters and an outer shell. Wear the biggest stuff (pants/sweaters) on the plane. After that be willing to do laundry, which will often put you in a position that's outside the tourist mainstream and force you to slow down and take stalk for a few hours (single use detergent packs are a thing, but you can also just bring a few tide pods in a zip-lock bag). Freak weather events can be used as an excuse to shop for clothing, too (the best rain jacket that I ever bought was in this situation in the Netherlands - it was expensive, but I'm still using it a decade later - a fantastic souvenir that people always complement me on when wearing it).
Of course, if you need to lug more (for special occasions or business), that's another matter, but it still makes my jaw drop when I see people travelling on vacations with massive roller luggage that often sucks on cobblestone streets or lugging up stairs.
Yes, that's one thing that I really dislike. I'm very used to carrying my Leatherman supertool around with me, and it irks me that I can't do that.
But I do have a Wallet Ninja that's useful that's only ever been questioned once, and never taken away. And I used to carry a small knife that folds into a key, and nobody ever noticed until one particularly bored TSA agent decided I couldn't take it with me. I should really order another one, or dozen, and treat them as "disposable" for traveling with.
why do you need one? I see a lot of "edc" stuff online where people seem to carry knives and tools with them everywhere they go. I've never found a need to do so and never been caught out in a situation where I would have benefitted from a knife.
Always fun to lose your contact lens solution at a transit airport that doesn’t embrace “one stop security” and find yourself tracking some down on a Sunday. Fuck you Heathrow.
You can fly with a swiss army knife in europe, or at least nobody ever questioned me. If you buy local everywhere you fly look for opinels, for $10 you get the perfect camping/food knife
Shoes are always what get me. Wearing the same pair 2 days in a row isn't great for bacteria etc. Plus wanting sandals/flip-flops for the beach. Proper boots for any kind of hiking. Then I feel awkward particularly in Europe in the evening going to restaurants in trainers, so a pair of smart shoes is useful.
Not saying I always take that entire combo, but almost always more than 1 pair.
but really, every person i've seen who "activates" a lifestyle like this one only ever seems to wear black. i suppose it's the choice of any committed rationalist, but i think it's dull
also, fine so long as you don't need to go any where that requires a different type of shoe
It's the most versatile. It's more smart, hides sweat/stains, less noticeable if still damp etc. So if you're min-maxing it seems like an obvious choice.
Though I agree a colourful linen shirt for example (pink, yellow) or a merino pullover wouldn't break your back
I did this for a year and half as I travelled around South America.
Hard to describe how liberating it is to have so few possessions. So many choices you don’t have to make. You become so fleet of foot that serendipity is everywhere.
Its SO ANNOYING to have to carry an Apple Silicon macbook AND an ipad. I'd love to see a touchscreen option for macbook and the option to run in ipad mode. But that would probably cannibalize sales.
As it is, you can theoretically run ios apps on Apple Silicon, but most app vendors disable that..
My main use case for an ipad while traveling is to watch downloaded movies on a plane. "AR" (not really) glasses like nreal air are way smaller and lighter than an ipad and makes watching movies on my phone pretty amazing..
Me personally? Nothing. I hate them. I never want anybody to touch my screen.
However, I've talked to at least one team that has disabled their app on MacOS who thinks having a UI designed for touch-screen run via a trackpad is too janky and would lead to a bad UX for their customers.
I've run their app via playcover, and it IS janky, but its a lot better than the weight of an iPad in my backpack.
not the person you're responding too, but I'm writing this on an older ThinkPad L390 Yoga with touchscreen, and I gotta say, being able to scroll on the screen when reading large documents (like PDF textbooks), or to just touch the part of the screen you'd like you're cursor to be if you've got multiple windows open is really nice.
I am always confounded when I get off a flight at a vacation destination and see people dragging these 80L roller bags around. What are you putting in there?
Pack the absolute minimum. If you really need something, you can almost always buy it wherever you are going. Even trekking in the deep Himalayas, there was always a spot to buy an extra t-shirt or socks every day or so.
If I'm going scuba diving at a vacation destination then I need a large roller bag just for dive gear, plus another carry-on bag for my camera rig. There's no way I'm going to dive with shitty rental gear (except for simple, heavy stuff like tanks and weight belt).
Back when you could bring the more fun stuff back from Europe (meat, cheese etc) my big suitcase would be well over half empty on the way out. Quite a bit heavier on the way back ;)
As the author says: The post is 10 years old and updated and read millions of times. Why would you _not_ put referral links there? It's just a more direct form of advertisment.
I spent 18 months doing this as a digital nomad. When I started out I had a rollaboard suitcase, a checked 60 inch bag, a pelican full of camera gear, and a 28L backpack. By the end I had a 28L backpack only. All that said, there were things I gave up in my travels that I missed and make it a point of taking now when I go on shorter vacation-like trips. Simple example was having good coffee. When I started out I had a jet boil, an aeropress, a hario hand mill, and a vacuum container of good beans, by the end I had given that up to save space, but there's really no reason not to have good coffee if you have the space to do so. I also had given up my much better camera gear for a single point and shoot camera to cut down on space requirements, since then I've taken to traveling with the pelican again most of the time, and when I don't I have a micro 4/3rds camera that is better than the point and shoot, but almost as compact.
I do think there's value to learning how to live with less, and it also helps unencumber you more than just in physical weight, but spiritually, to allow yourself to explore and go forth without concern. I could just hop on a train, bus, plane, and go somewhere else even as a side trip without needing to be concerned with any of my belongings because it was all with me all of the time.
I lived out of a backpack for two months on a Pacific Crest Trail hike. I got comfortable with it and told myself that I had overcome my materialism, and could henceforth live happily without a lot of stuff and conveniences.
Not so much. Now a couple of decades later, I've got a house and garage crammed with stuff. Yesterday I had a plumber here working on a leak, and this morning I have no running water, and here I am bravely holding back tears. My inner dialog is "this is unacceptable!" It turns out that climbing on the hedonic treadmill is practically effortless, but sliding down it is full of splinters.
> It turns out that climbing on the hedonic treadmill is practically effortless, but sliding down it is full of splinters.
Not sure if I'm missing a joke, but the whole point of the analogy being a treadmill is that there's nothing to fall down. Regardless of positive (running forward) or negative (going backward on the treadmill) life changes, your happiness will probably stay relatively consistent because you're on a treadmill and there's nowhere to go.
The live out of a backpack lifestyle is definitely a unique way to experience the modern world and I'm sure it's fulfilling for the author, but you can even tell in their post that life caught up with them somewhat and they needed to start staying in one place a little longer in order to maintain social relationships. Their linked post about walking every block of Manhattan and tracking all of their movement since 2015 feels like the exact opposite of a minimalist lifestyle and it seems to me like they live out of a backpack not out of some anti-materialism lifestyle, but instead just as a practical way to fuel this obsession with traveling and tracking.
I admit, I've seen the author's Instagram story about walking 100k steps in a day in NYC and watched the whole thing because it's interesting, but I also take that and posts like this with a grain of salt. I'll happily take my horde of shit I need to get rid of in the garage over obsessing about how I can optimize tracking my every movement.
> My inner dialog is "this is unacceptable!" It turns out that climbing on the hedonic treadmill is practically effortless, but sliding down it is full of splinters.
For me, in situations like this the frustration comes from having invested so much into something that isn’t delivering what it was supposed to.
For example, when my 20 year old car broke down it was an inconvenience, but I could also shrug it off because I got my money’s worth out of the car long ago.
If an expensive brand new car broke down I would be inconvenienced, but the situation would be much more frustrating because I spent so much on a new car to avoid these issues.
we are all goldfish
we grow with our container
we forget quickly
Yeah, when we stop moving, it's so easy to start hoarding.
I lived in Mexico for 10 years with just two duffelbags of clothes and essentials. I could carry both on a plane unchecked and be anywhere with nothing left behind, and I loved it.
Now I look around me in my apartment I share with my girlfriend and have things I wouldn't have even conceived of, like a gaming PC with two monitors (for what??) and a closet full of clothes as if I don't wear the same 5 things.
I met a family who had just moved to Wisconson from Italy last week. The four of them (Mom, Dad, ~14yo son, and ~12yo daughter) packed everything they were going to bring with them into a backpack and two checked bags each. Incredible! What would you pick?
I have a garage and a shed (OK, fine, it's a 24x36 barn) and a basement and a home office that barely contain the enormous quantity of my stuff at home. And yet I honestly think the highlight of this summer was waking up to the sunrise on one of the remotest parts of the Appalachian trail through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with no possessions that wouldn't fit in a 22L ultralight backpack - including several of the same items as this guy's kit.
On the one hand, most of the stuff is replaceable, "fungible" if you like, rather than sentimental. On the other, I keep it because I like to have certain capabilities, like cooking and auto repair and home building - I can't fit a tablesaw or pressure washer or food processor in a backpack; I've got a rack of 24 giant totes in the garage with painting supplies and plumbing supplies and bike parts and specialty auto repair tool cases and on and on that each occupy more volume than the one backpack this guy lives out of. I also recognize that this is a colossally inefficient way to allocate things among a group of people: I'm not going to pay a painter $1500 to do a crappy job to repaint my bathroom when I can do it myself with far greater quality for $100 in paint and a couple hundred bucks worth of tools in a giant tote, and neither are most of my neighbors, but this means that a sizeable fraction of people in the neighborhood live around our own personal totes of painting supplies.
If I was going to pay someone else to build and repair and maintain and clean the house/apartment/condo/hotel that I live in (when I'm not in a tent, that's only about 5% of my time), and to take care of the cars and bikes that I ride in and on, and to cook the variety of food that I eat, and on and on, I would have a lot less stuff. If I bought tools to do these tasks that I would use once and then sell/give/throw them away...that would be unaffordable for me. One of the lessons that my Dad passed down to me is to never buy a thing unless you have the resources in time, price of consumables, tools, and space to clean it, maintain it, fix it, and store it - those are real costs beyond the sticker price of a new toy.
Where does the money come from that allows one to sleep in hotels, ride in rental cars, travel in airports, and eat in restaurants for years on end?
> like a gaming PC with two monitors (for what??)
There’s nothing like the pleasure of idling in a pointless MMO on one screen while half-watching youtube autoplay on the other. Alternate Monster with White Claw and you’ve got peak hedonism.
I think in general we fill whatever amount of space we have available. Nature abhors a vacuum.
> I got comfortable with it and told myself that I had overcome my materialism, and could henceforth live happily without a lot of stuff and conveniences.
Same. Exactly the same.
I have often reflected that I have never been as happy as when I had the least stuff, either.
I often wonder if it’s a) correlation or causation and b) whether the stuff is caused by dissatisfaction or the dissatisfaction is caused by the stuff, or both.
Either way, I’m currently undergoing an intentional downsizing in my life, toward minimalism. Not the kind where I use it as an excuse to buy (more) expensive minimalist gear either.
I’m shedding hobbies and interests that I have because I believe that they’ve become distractions that I bury myself in. Replacing them is far from my mind, but prising them out of my fingers is a very real challenge. It’s hardly backpack living, but it’s definitely moving in that direction.
As always, moderation is important for any normal person. I think that applies to minimalism as well. Use it to cut unnecessary stuff out of your life, but unless you're some outlier then it's probably not good to try and live the most minimalist life that you can without causing some terrible mental health effects along the way.
> I’m shedding hobbies and interests that I have because I believe that they’ve become distractions that I bury myself in.
Maybe you just haven't found the right hobby? Hobbies should feel rewarding, not like a distraction.
Of course.
And perhaps? For me, the reward comes from the learning. (Who would have thought, being a software engineer by trade).
Luckily my brain has a self-invalidating cache, but my home, not so much. Perhaps I will find the right hobby, but it should not be something that involves the accumulation of things, because the things weigh a hidden cost of possession. It’s this hidden cost that hurts, like a tax, an inefficiency of the mind, or being. It’s insidious because it’s almost impossible to attribute the friction with the possession, because you’re often not actively dealing with it, but it’s there. It’s like, you know you have 32gb of RAM, but for some reason you’re only working with 20gb but you can’t inspect what’s stealing the other 12gb. It’s only after removing things from disk, do you start to see the RAM getting freed up, and then you begin to appreciate the extra mental resources.
Two months isn't really that long.
So, this article is great and has some great items in it if you fit them. The pants look great but max out at 34" waist in the pair I checked. The towel is barely 4.5 feet and is far too short for a beach towel for someone who is 6' (though I still want it because I love these types of towels). I could not do this lifestyle though, not now in my life. I was in the military and traveled a lot for extended periods of time (year long deployments to the ass end of nowhere) and we traveled HEAVY. HEAVY heavy. Not my favorite way, and I got to the point where I would ship everything home and when we traveled I had a day bag with 3 days worth of clothes and such. So there is a crossover of this and that lifestyle. I still wouldn't want to go to it, I like having a home too much, even if I am renting.
Before being a digital nomad was cool I went full nomad. I remember being in a hostel in Thailand and just throwing away everything I had brought, going down to the basics. Ended up with a similar setup.
The thing is, after years of doing it, learning new languages, making friends all over, and then leaving knowing you might not see them again for ever or for long stints, you start to feel the yearning to be able to connect with people on a deeper level.
Now I have an apartment and basically only travel for weddings, I still go super light. But there is a joy in having variety in clothing or sneakers to wear. Friends who you've had multiple conversations with over the year's, even family who comes to visit you.
I'm happy I rid myself of it all, but I'm also happy that now my apartment has the basics, and maybe a bit more. And I'm fine with it. Life doesn't have to be binary, you can mix and match and end up happy either way.
I think this is key. I travel nearly zero these days due to a long list of reasons, but the mental exercise of thinking about whether I could travel with my stuff helps me be more conscious about accumulating things that I don’t really need.
I’m all for minimalist travel but I feel like I picked up a number of cues that the author is buying and disposing of (somehow) items seasonally or even on an as-no-longer-needed basis. Hopefully that means donating the item and maybe even buying used to begin with but it’s not mentioned here. I don’t want to make assumptions but in the worst case this could be a very wasteful kind of minimalism.
I've done this before (not indefinitely, but for many trips around the world.)
I agree with the author on a lot: 1) it's not a good way to live long term, 2) traveling with as little as possible completely transforms the traveling experience, 3) zero-bag travel is great, 4) a good quality small bag with well designed compartments is critical, 5) M-series Macs are the only way to go, 6) two thumb drives is very convenient if you're not worried about searches, 7) darn tough socks, 8) first aid with bandaids/antiseptic/mylar blanket, I also include benadryl, ibuprofen and other common OTC meds.
I disagree on: 1) I prefer a 2M USB-C cord over 1M, 2) I have mostly cotton or merino clothes and try not to use any synthetic fabrics, especially no synthetic underwear, 3) I prefer jeans, especially in colder climates and 4) carrying "stuff" on you long term (like a jacket with things in the pockets) can get sort of annoying after a while.
And finally, extra stuff I carry that the author doesn't: separate camera, snacks (mostly nuts), Garmin inReach, handkerchiefs, wired earbuds, flashlight, knife, an eye mask, sometimes a Travelrest pillow, and two sizes of paper notebooks and pens.
> Onebag travel is unquestionably the best way to travel. Traveling without luggage removes just about every pain point associated with flying, such as checking bags, overhead compartments, bag fees, waiting in line, and needing to drop off luggage before an adventure. Just stroll into the airport an hour before your flight, and walk off your plane directly to your destination.
This is absolutely true, especially when traveling solo.
People freak out about this, but all it boils down to is bringing enough socks, underwear, and shirts for ~5-6 days, 2 pairs of bottoms, and (depending on weather) or a combination of 2 and/either sweaters and an outer shell. Wear the biggest stuff (pants/sweaters) on the plane. After that be willing to do laundry, which will often put you in a position that's outside the tourist mainstream and force you to slow down and take stalk for a few hours (single use detergent packs are a thing, but you can also just bring a few tide pods in a zip-lock bag). Freak weather events can be used as an excuse to shop for clothing, too (the best rain jacket that I ever bought was in this situation in the Netherlands - it was expensive, but I'm still using it a decade later - a fantastic souvenir that people always complement me on when wearing it).
Of course, if you need to lug more (for special occasions or business), that's another matter, but it still makes my jaw drop when I see people travelling on vacations with massive roller luggage that often sucks on cobblestone streets or lugging up stairs.
If only it could solve the pain points from other people, especially overhead compartments and TSA/customs.
Not really true since you can't even bring a little pocketknife or other cutting tool with you.
Yes, that's one thing that I really dislike. I'm very used to carrying my Leatherman supertool around with me, and it irks me that I can't do that.
But I do have a Wallet Ninja that's useful that's only ever been questioned once, and never taken away. And I used to carry a small knife that folds into a key, and nobody ever noticed until one particularly bored TSA agent decided I couldn't take it with me. I should really order another one, or dozen, and treat them as "disposable" for traveling with.
why do you need one? I see a lot of "edc" stuff online where people seem to carry knives and tools with them everywhere they go. I've never found a need to do so and never been caught out in a situation where I would have benefitted from a knife.
If you can’t go without, just buy one at the destination. Leave it at the hotel with a note that it’s free for the taking when you leave.
And different countries having different rules.
Always fun to lose your contact lens solution at a transit airport that doesn’t embrace “one stop security” and find yourself tracking some down on a Sunday. Fuck you Heathrow.
Swiss army knives are cheap and easy to find in every city.
You can fly with a swiss army knife in europe, or at least nobody ever questioned me. If you buy local everywhere you fly look for opinels, for $10 you get the perfect camping/food knife
And throw it away every time? Or at least give it away or so?
Leave it at the hotel/hostel. I leave a small note so the cleaning staff knows it’s abandoned, not lost and in need of return.
I’ve done this with various things I forgot, like a phone charger for the local outlet type.
I have every time I've traveled. Lighters as well. TSA is fucking useless.
Most airports allow for 1 < 5cm knife and 1 lighter.
Nope, not in the USA.
https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/...
A rather depressive color pallet, pick your black, silver or white :)
I'm going to steal their approach at rolling up clothes, though.
Shoes are always what get me. Wearing the same pair 2 days in a row isn't great for bacteria etc. Plus wanting sandals/flip-flops for the beach. Proper boots for any kind of hiking. Then I feel awkward particularly in Europe in the evening going to restaurants in trainers, so a pair of smart shoes is useful.
Not saying I always take that entire combo, but almost always more than 1 pair.
are we allowed to have any colours, though?
but really, every person i've seen who "activates" a lifestyle like this one only ever seems to wear black. i suppose it's the choice of any committed rationalist, but i think it's dull
also, fine so long as you don't need to go any where that requires a different type of shoe
It's the most versatile. It's more smart, hides sweat/stains, less noticeable if still damp etc. So if you're min-maxing it seems like an obvious choice.
Though I agree a colourful linen shirt for example (pink, yellow) or a merino pullover wouldn't break your back
Ten years huh. I think when I was younger I'd look at this and say "cool lifestyle".
Now I just see a man publicly advertising he's a genetic dead-end. Some kind of Peter Pan thing.
I did this for a year and half as I travelled around South America.
Hard to describe how liberating it is to have so few possessions. So many choices you don’t have to make. You become so fleet of foot that serendipity is everywhere.
Glad I got the chance to do it
I also recommend the 3F UL Gear tents. I bought the Taiji 2 for motorcycle trips. Very roomy for one person.
https://3fulgear.com/product/freestanding-tent/taiji-2/
I love this post but ain’t no way I’m going minimalist and carrying a MacBook AND an iPad.
Its SO ANNOYING to have to carry an Apple Silicon macbook AND an ipad. I'd love to see a touchscreen option for macbook and the option to run in ipad mode. But that would probably cannibalize sales.
As it is, you can theoretically run ios apps on Apple Silicon, but most app vendors disable that..
My main use case for an ipad while traveling is to watch downloaded movies on a plane. "AR" (not really) glasses like nreal air are way smaller and lighter than an ipad and makes watching movies on my phone pretty amazing..
I believe product design votes against it because it would make all macbooks always be smudged and scratched, looking shit.
Out of curiosity, what is it about touchscreens that's such a big selling point for you?
Great question..
Me personally? Nothing. I hate them. I never want anybody to touch my screen.
However, I've talked to at least one team that has disabled their app on MacOS who thinks having a UI designed for touch-screen run via a trackpad is too janky and would lead to a bad UX for their customers.
I've run their app via playcover, and it IS janky, but its a lot better than the weight of an iPad in my backpack.
not the person you're responding too, but I'm writing this on an older ThinkPad L390 Yoga with touchscreen, and I gotta say, being able to scroll on the screen when reading large documents (like PDF textbooks), or to just touch the part of the screen you'd like you're cursor to be if you've got multiple windows open is really nice.
apple pencil
Wacom tablet?
Darn Tough socks.
My wife dropped a small mint for darn tough socks like three years ago as a father's day gift. It's been delightful.
I find them too small, they're hard to get on my feet. Good quality tho.
check out Wide Open, new line of wider socks from DT
I still have mine from ~7 years ago. I only wear them during winter but still.
I had a small hole in them and contacted support and they told me to send another photo of the socks after I destroyed them. Then I got reimbursed.
I was under the impression I have to send them in and they are repaired. Nope. Probably my mistake to assume.
I am always confounded when I get off a flight at a vacation destination and see people dragging these 80L roller bags around. What are you putting in there?
Pack the absolute minimum. If you really need something, you can almost always buy it wherever you are going. Even trekking in the deep Himalayas, there was always a spot to buy an extra t-shirt or socks every day or so.
If I'm going scuba diving at a vacation destination then I need a large roller bag just for dive gear, plus another carry-on bag for my camera rig. There's no way I'm going to dive with shitty rental gear (except for simple, heavy stuff like tanks and weight belt).
Back when you could bring the more fun stuff back from Europe (meat, cheese etc) my big suitcase would be well over half empty on the way out. Quite a bit heavier on the way back ;)
Often mine is relatively empty on arrival and I fill it with wines and other souvenirs to take home
"Indefinite backpack travel." We used to call this being a hobo.
The only difference here is that this person is well-funded, so uses the latest high-end gear to do it, instead of a bindle.
Yes, hobos do still exist. My recently deceased cousin-in-law was one, and proudly called himself a "hobo."
Yes, they have smartphones.
I'm always suspicious of a long list of affiliate links in one article.
As the author says: The post is 10 years old and updated and read millions of times. Why would you _not_ put referral links there? It's just a more direct form of advertisment.
I hope this doesn't mean I start looking to buy another bag or edc stuff.
this is like if patrick bateman read the 4 hour work week
I spent 18 months doing this as a digital nomad. When I started out I had a rollaboard suitcase, a checked 60 inch bag, a pelican full of camera gear, and a 28L backpack. By the end I had a 28L backpack only. All that said, there were things I gave up in my travels that I missed and make it a point of taking now when I go on shorter vacation-like trips. Simple example was having good coffee. When I started out I had a jet boil, an aeropress, a hario hand mill, and a vacuum container of good beans, by the end I had given that up to save space, but there's really no reason not to have good coffee if you have the space to do so. I also had given up my much better camera gear for a single point and shoot camera to cut down on space requirements, since then I've taken to traveling with the pelican again most of the time, and when I don't I have a micro 4/3rds camera that is better than the point and shoot, but almost as compact.
I do think there's value to learning how to live with less, and it also helps unencumber you more than just in physical weight, but spiritually, to allow yourself to explore and go forth without concern. I could just hop on a train, bus, plane, and go somewhere else even as a side trip without needing to be concerned with any of my belongings because it was all with me all of the time.