

How to comfortably live out of a 26 litre backpack indefinitely - monort
https://medium.com/@jamesturnerux/a-small-bag-on-a-big-adventure-5e4851ac7801

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dalke
Step 1: have a life that doesn't require much. Step 2: have enough money to
rent what you want, and buy food when you want.

Otherwise, here's no snowboarding or woodworking hobby with a 26 liter
backpack. There's no amateur astronomy. There's no antique sparkplug
collection. There's no home-made Bundt cake or fondue dinners. There's no
stocking up bulk foods to save money. There's no place to store the boar meat
from your hunting trip, or your hunting rifles.

For instance, in the summers I go on multi-week cycle camping trips. With a 26
liter backpack, I would have to rent the bike (long-distance cycles are not
easy to rent), the sleeping bag and tent (or bivvy bag), and similar gear. My
current lifestyle is not compatible with a 26 liter backpack.

That said, I once lived out of a suitcase for a year. I carried more then 12kg
because my lifestyle then included having enough clothes to go out salsa or
tango dancing every night, without having people wonder why I was wearing the
same clothes all the time.

And that's okay. There are plenty of people for whom steps 1) and 2) are
entirely reasonable and appropriate. But it all boils down to 1) and 2).

My favorite example is Nellie Bly. She went around the world in 72 days, in
the late 1880s, with "the dress she was wearing, a sturdy overcoat, several
changes of underwear and a small travel bag carrying her toiletry essentials.
She carried most of her money (£200 in English bank notes and gold in total as
well as some American currency) in a bag tied around her neck." As she wrote:

> "After-experience showed me that I had taken too much rather than too little
> baggage. ... It will be seen that if one is traveling simply for the sake of
> traveling and not for the purpose of impressing one's fellow passengers, the
> problem of baggage becomes a very simple one. On one occasion–in Hong Kong,
> where I was asked to an official dinner–I regretted not having an evening
> dress with me, but the loss of that dinner was a very small matter when
> compared with the responsibilities and worries I escaped by not having a lot
> of trunks and boxes to look after. "

On the other hand, if you have a _lot_ of money, then you can still be a
'professional traveler' with no backpack - there are people who will do your
shopping for you - or with a lot of trunks and boxes, that other people take
care of for you.

