How the Art of Traveling Light Can Help You to Lighten Up Your Soul

A guest post by Alessandro Haas

I heard the music in the middle of last year when I was sweating over my bachelor’s thesis and it started to get louder and louder but I could not quite identify the song.

I was too busy and had my playlist on endless loop to carry me through the writing process.

But on the final day when I was sending in my thesis it became clear to me. It was the song of the open road. I was a free man again. And the world was waiting to be discovered.

Though this time I wanted to do it differently. I’ve traveled before and it’s not something I am uncomfortable with but I made a mistake last time. A heavy mistake. It weighed exactly 18.9kg and was just at the limit for my flight to Canada.

As I was preparing for my next life-changing challenge in New Zealand I was clear that I didn’t want to have too much baggage with me. The weight of the task ahead alone was heavy enough. It meant relocating alone to a faraway country with no plan and almost no contacts to fall back on. There was only the will to accept this challenge and to get into an adventure.

I set one simple rule for myself: Only one carry-on sized bag is allowed and everything has to fit in there.

So I made my packing list, bought a small netbook and left everything that isn’t necessary for essential comfort at home. Heading to the airport I was afraid that I may miss something but 3 months later I now know that I actually did miss several things. Fortunately, New Zealand is a civilized country and people here seem to have the same needs as everybody else – so I could get what I needed.

Feeling free and learning to be content with your own company

If you leave most of your possessions behind and live out of a carry-on bag for months, interesting things happen. The first thing that I enjoyed was the flexibility and the freedom that it brings. In 15 minutes flat I could pack all my belongings and be on the move again to wherever I wanted. I was never stuck anywhere because it might be too inconvenient to change venues.

The second amazing thing was that I realized that I can be happy with a lot less stuff as long as I have good company. And for some stretches on the lonely South Island good company meant just me and myself. It was a great opportunity to discover myself without any distractions. Nonetheless, I am happy to have found a great circle of friends in the Tango community of Wellington.

And if I really forgot something, I could easily get it here or use my imagination and my talent for improvisation.

Become your own travel light guru

It’s been an amazing way of traveling so far and I have put together some resources to help you become a travel light guru:

Doug Dymont’s website www.onebag.com is a great starting point to dive deeper into the finer details of traveling light. It offers exhaustive information from choosing the right backpack to the science of wrinkles and how to avoid them.

Another great resource that explores the philosophy and the mindset of traveling lightly and at your own pace through this world is Rolf Pott’s inspiring book “Vagabonding – An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel”. For Rolf vagabonding is not only the art of long term world travel but more an outlook on life in general that encourages simplicity, open-mindedness, creativity and self-reliance.

Traveling light as an outlook on life

I hope you found some inspiration and are going to give it a try. It will help you prioritize when you’ve lost sight what’s important in life.

It helped me to truly understand that life is about relationships and the connections we make along the way. It’s not about the material stuff we carry around or the possessions that drag us down and bind us to one place.

Travel lightly through the world and take your own time about it!

Alessandro Haas is blogging (in German) on www.alessandrohaas.de about his travels with light baggage and light soul around the world. Currently he’s living in Wellington, New Zealand. See his blog for impressions from the coolest little capital in the world.