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Indefinite Backpack Travel

jeremymaluf.com

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Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#91

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

Arainach wrote: post #78
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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? If you keep your standards modest, the math isn't as bad as it intuitively seems. A $100 hotel per night is the equivalent of a $3000 mortgage/rent. And if you're living out of one bag you don't necessarily need that and probably have cheaper options like hostels (or te…

My mortgage is under a thousand :O

If I had a few million in assets I'd be retired

Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#92

Post by mcdonje »

Mixed feelings. I like how there is a lot of intention about purchases and lifestyle. But then the purchases are from Amazon, and the lifestyle is airplanes. But OTOH, he doesn't own a car.

Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#94

Post by doctorhandshake »

arccy wrote: post #83
doctorhandshake wrote: post #51

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.

if you travel a lot... maybe the co2 saved from not lugging around a cheap thing offsets the production waste.

In the limited amount of experience I’ve had with researching these things, embodied carbon can be a much higher number than you might think, even with something as simple as a cotton t-shirt. Odds are that shirt had already sailed around the world once or twice by the time you buy it, and it might make its way to another continent once you’re done with it as well.

Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#95

Post by carabiner »

delichon wrote: post #10

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…

I thru-hiked the PCT in 5 months 10 years ago. Same experience. I remember eating on the trail 2 bricks of instant ramen for dinner every day and being utterly content. It was the most raw form of living I've ever experienced.

Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#97

Post by tetromino_ »

bparsons wrote: post #35

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.

> What are you putting in there?

Bulky gifts.

Bulky sports equipment.

Lots of kids' clothes. Kids' toys. Kids' books. Kids' medical kit.

Clothes that span multiple seasons or climatic zones: warm, cold, heavy rain, snow. Extra shoes. Especially when you know that your things will get wet and that you will have only occasional opportunities to dry them.

Suit/dress/fancy shoes if going to a wedding or other formal event.

Add that, and 80L is not much volume...

Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#98

Post by Asooka »

nadermx wrote: post #49

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…

>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.

A rolling stone gathers no moss, as they say.

Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#99

Post by ElevenLathe »

Arainach wrote: post #78
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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? If you keep your standards modest, the math isn't as bad as it intuitively seems. A $100 hotel per night is the equivalent of a $3000 mortgage/rent. And if you're living out of one bag you don't necessarily need that and probably have cheaper options like hostels (or te…

In other words, it's not a problem if you're one of the wealthiest people ever to exist in human history.

Re: Indefinite Backpack Travel

#100

Post by zikduruqe »

discomrobertul8 wrote: post #37
nradov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really true since you can't even bring a little pocketknife or other cutting tool with you.

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.

"My good reason to carry a knife is that God gave me rather weak teeth and rudimentary claws in an evolutionary trade-off. The hairy-armed person who figured out how to put an edge on a suitable rock made it possible for us to be recognizably human in the first place. I wear a wristwatch whether or not I have an appointment to keep, and I carry a pen and/or pencil because I am a literate person whether or not I have a specific writing task ahead of me, and I carry a knife because I am a human and not an ape."

- James Mattis

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