Is Your “Stuff” Keeping You From Your Travel Dreams?

Tim Leffel regales us with a fantastic little blurb on how anyone can travel if they’re willing to stop accumulating unnecessary “stuff”:

I just spent most of the day helping my sister move into her new house … A dozen of us took four hours to move it all. Does one person really need all that? Does anyone?

When I interviewed Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, we spent a good bit of time talking about how most people can’t imagine long-term travel or living abroad because they are such slaves to their possessions. They’ve built a cage around themselves of debt, material goods, and jobs they can’t afford to step off of even for a week. Staying at home, surrounded by your increasing pile of stuff, is no way to live.

I’ve found that breaking free of the consumerist lifestyle wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. It’s about consciously placing your purchases, actions, etc. into two buckets – want and need – and making a vigilant, concerted effort to know and acknowledge the difference. Easier said than done, for sure.