Do You Have to be a Minimalist to Travel Full Time?

Today our lives are pretty simple. We’re full-time travelers who spend a month or two in each country and then we move onto the next. At this stage of life, we’ve decided to focus on experiences and not on possessions. So everything we own fits into two suitcases and two backpacks. Plus a few boxes of mementos tucked away in Gillian’s parent’s garage.

But this was a pretty radical change for us and we’re still getting used to living with so little. Not that long ago we were expats working in Singapore. We lived in a spacious two bedroom apartment filled with the normal amount of stuff. So we had all the furniture and other things that you accumulate over a lifetime. Plus all kinds of odds and ends crammed in every drawer and cupboard. 

Not only that, we also had a 10 by 10 foot storage locker back in Canada also crammed full of things we didn’t necessarily want but couldn’t get rid of either. That included equipment for half a dozen sports that we would likely never play again. 

Obviously there’s a huge difference between then and now. Here’s how we went from an average, stuff-filled apartment to the nomadic life we have today.

Our journey 

Our journey started when we realized that we didn’t have to be stuck working corporate jobs forever. After some very stressful years in high pressure jobs, we came upon the concept of financial independence. We realized that if we cranked up our saving and investing, we would have enough money to live on for the rest of our lives. 

We made it our goal to retire early and live out our dream of seeing the world. But it was one thing to decide on a goal, it was quite another to make it happen. If we really wanted to travel the world full time, we realized that we seriously needed to downsize.

We started by selling a few odd items here and there. At this stage, we still thought that we might put some of our furniture into storage. And, we were still struggling with emotional attachments to so many of our possessions. It was hard to consider giving up a fancy bowl that was a wedding gift even though we never, ever used it and the person who gave it to us had long forgotten about it. 

Eventually we realized that it didn’t make sense to pay to store belongings we weren’t using and may not use again. If we were going to start a new life and not be tied to any one location, it all had to go.

After months and months of selling and gifting everything we had in Singapore, we were able to hop on a one way flight with just two suitcases, two backpacks and our two little dogs. 

That said, we still had a storage locker full of goodies to tackle back in Canada. And during our first year of travel, it cost us more than $1,100 USD to maintain that storage locker. That’s a lot of money just to store some old photo albums and year books. Fortunately we were able to get rid of our locker last year and just have a few things tucked away with family.  

What are we carrying today?

We don’t feel that we’re traveling light. We’re not backpackers with just a change of clothes and a toothbrush. There is literally no way we could do a carry on only flight with what we have right now.

And that’s because we’re traveling long term. We need to effectively bring our household with us wherever we go. We want to be comfortable. It’s a lifestyle, not a vacation so we need to have all our necessities with us all the time. And that takes up a lot of luggage space. 

How much stuff are we talking about? 

• We have a three-season wardrobe, so we can handle any weather from t-shirts and flip flops to down coats and cozy sweaters.

• We love having an active lifestyle so we have lots of workout clothes, hiking gear and a yoga mat.

• We also love cooking and we’ve discovered that no matter how much you pay, every Airbnb is missing something in the kitchen. So we travel with some cooking essentials, like a cutting board, chef knife, vegetable peeler and lots more. 

• We also have our two dogs and they seem to have almost as much stuff as we do, like a grooming kit and bed and coats and so much more. 

• And of course, there’s all our technology, like our computer and vlogging equipment.

It all adds up; our suitcases are jam-packed full. Still, even though it seems like a lot of stuff to travel with, once we’re all packed up and rolling out the door to a new location, we’re reminded how few belongings we really have.

Are we minimalists?

Despite how much is crammed into our suitcases, we have a lot less stuff than the average North American. We no longer have any furniture. We don’t have a kitchen full of pots and pans and all the rest of it. We don’t have drawers and closets filled with old clothes and sporting equipment and gadgets we’re not using. 

From the perspective of someone who has a whole home full of stuff, of course we would be minimalists. But from the perspective of a person who can spend a year living out of a small backpack, we’re still far from living a minimalist lifestyle. 

Certainly we feel that our nomadic life has given us a more minimalist mindset. Everything in our luggage needs to have a role and be used regularly — otherwise we can’t afford the space to bring it along. There’s just no room for deadweight. 

Of course, that also means that we tend not to accumulate anything. Anything we buy needs to be carefully considered and we try to operate on a one in, one out system. So if we buy a new t-shirt, an old t-shirt has to go. 

This is quite a contrast to our lifestyle before we started this early retirement, nomadic journey. Previously, if we wanted something, we would just buy it. We used to keep a running list on Amazon of things we wanted. And we wouldn’t think twice about tossing something else into the cart just to make the minimum requirement for free shipping to Singapore.

We don’t miss online shopping at all. I don’t miss the hours we used to spend reading reviews, considering all the possible options, and obsessing over the perfect choice. Now we find that there are very few things we actually need once we spend some time thinking about it. And when we do actually need something, we go into a store, make the best choice based on what’s available, and we’re done in five  minutes.

Do you need to be a minimalist to travel full time? 

There’s no one right answer for everyone. It really depends on your personal circumstances and what’s right for you. 

Maybe you’re ready to strip your life’s possessions down to just the essentials and travel full time with a backpack.

Or maybe you love all your possessions and wouldn’t dream of selling them off. It’s perfectly legitimate to keep a home base with all your stuff or even park it in a storage locker for a few years if you have room in your budget. 

Yes, we got rid of everything. But we were living in Singapore as expats at the time. We knew that when we left Singapore, we would be leaving permanently. And we didn’t know when or where we would have a home again. And we still don’t! So downsizing to a couple of suitcases was the right decision for us.

We can say from our experience how liberating it is to have less stuff to worry about. We’ve found that becoming full time travelers has really broken that consumer cycle. And now the only things we’re accumulating are experiences. 

We certainly don’t need to plan our whole lives based on where our furniture is; we’re free to make a home anywhere. So if you’d like to know exactly what we’re carrying with us on this adventure, you can download our complete packing list.