zen habits : breathe
Living Lightly with the One-Bag Lifestyle
By Leo Babauta
I’ve been on a handful of long trips this year and in recent years, and on all those trips, I lived out of a small bag.
I loved living so lightly, but every time I came home, it felt weird: all of a sudden I had about 10x more stuff. It didn’t feel in alignment with the light, minimal lifestyle.
So after a 25-day trip to Asia last month, I came home with a mission: to live only out of the same bag I traveled with.
I’ve been doing it for a couple weeks now, and I plan to keep doing it for as long as it feels right. I think of it as my One-Bag Lifestyle — though it’s not for everyone, and it doesn’t make me better than anyone, I really like it.
To be clear, I have more things than fit in the bag: furniture, an iMac, tools, a handful of books that I can’t bear to get rid of (about 10 of them). But as for clothes and other personal items, I boxed up everything else and am pretty much only using what can fit in my 21-liter backpack.
I don’t expect anyone else to want to do this, but in case you’re interested, I thought I’d share more about what I’m doing and why.
The Bag
I’ve been beta-testing an amazing backpack this year, the Minaal Daily, for about six months now, and I really love it. It’s not a cheap bag, but if you care about quality and live out of your bag, you’ll want to get something built well. If you’re interested, you should grab it here, as they just launched a Kickstarter campaign for it. The guys who make it are friends of mine, and are really good people.
I dragged this bag around for 28 days all over Europe this summer, with Eva and the kids. I carried it in Melbourne for a writer’s festival. I took it to San Francisco, Portland, Tokyo. And all over southeast Asia, on planes, trains, and hundreds of thousands of steps though the streets of Hanoi, Hoi An, Saigon, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Chiang Mai. I ride my bike to the grocery store with it.
Anyway, it’s awesome, and I don’t think I”ll get another bag for years.
Cutting Down to Fit in the Bag
I’ve been traveling for years with one bag, so I can easily fit what I need in something that’s less than 20 liters (my smallest was 15 liters). I’ve slowly winnowed down what I need for traveling, to fit in a small bag:
I wear a pair of pants and a T-shirt I can work out in, and some tennis shoes that are comfortable for walking.
Packed clothing: workout shorts, workout shirt, a couple extra pairs of socks, a few extra pairs of underwear, a lightweight hoodie, lightweight rain jacket.
Gadgets: I carry my 11-inch Macbook Air, iPhone 5, travel adapter, cords.
Toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, floss, nail clippers, razor, small electric clippers (for my shaved head), ear plugs, eye mask.
Misc: Passport, notebook, pen, napkins.
I don’t bring running shoes, a Kindle, books, extra clot