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

Posted by Mike Richard on August 2, 2007
Filed under: Odds + Ends, Pre-Trip, Sidelines

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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.

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Vagabondish editor Mike Richard lives in Rhode Island - a small patch of land in the northeastern U.S. He is a professional web designer and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, camping, hiking and seeing the world. He enjoys knit hats and speaking in the third person.



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Comments

Stacy
August 2nd, 2007 - 9:15 pm

Here is another link for you, Mike: http://www.getrichslowly.org/b.....use-to-rv/

Talk about living simply!


Mike
August 3rd, 2007 - 8:37 am

That’s a fantastic article, Stacy! I think Tynan’s my new personal hero!