Red Hook, Brooklyn
It’s not about weight limits.
Its not about wheels and straps and pockets.
It’s not about avoiding baggage claim.
It’s not about saving on baggage fees.
It’s not about being a superior packer to anyone else.
It’s about recognising the difference between wants and needs.
And feeling the fear.
For a long time I packed light. One small suitcase when I was in Beijing, then one half-empty backpackers rucksack when I was in New Orleans, to finally just a carry-on duffel and side bag when I went to London.
But it was always about packing light; about the nuances of packing light that made traveling tiny increments easier. Less on the shoulders, no more worries for subway steps, no more locks for zippers or padding electronics in the middle of clothing. Less time standing in humid airports after days without sleep. Fewer lines to queue up in.
But so much of it was difficult. So much was the headache of finding favourite products in miniature, having to buy things upon arrival and throw them away upon departure; so much terrifying wastage. So much forward planning required; packing cubes and universal adapters and double, triple use items of clothing. So much sacrifice; discovering the weather in the destination is colder than expected but refusing to buy appropriate clothing for fear that it won’t fit in the bag. And always waking up at obscene hours of the morning to correctly pack the bag in a hostel room full of sweating, snoring backpackers.
And no matter how light the packing was, that bag grew heavier every day.
I hated packing light almost as much as I hated packing heavy.
Couchsurfing drama cracked this whole issue wide open for me. Moving accommodation 23 times in 79 days would probably do it to anyone. It certainly hones it all down to a fine point. But more enlightening than the multiple moves were the times away from the bag. When my host was dramatically kicked out for ‘running an illegal hostel’ in his apartment both he and myself did not return to his place for three days. Three days without my stuff. Three days without a toothbrush, deodorant, clean underwear and a phone charger. Three days where each day began with the high likelihood of being able to get my stuff. Three days where buying new toiletries or underwear or phone chargers seemed ridiculous as it was only a matter of hours before those things would be in my hands once again.
Those three days taught me what to carry in my daily satchel. I learnt what I needed and what I wanted. What I needed was not toothpaste and not even deodorant or clean underwear, what I needed was the phone charger to line-up alternative accommodations, new hosts, and hassle my old host for my stuff. I learnt what to carry in my bag each day to keep me free. How to keep myself light.
So when the second couchsurfing drama came around, this time with five days without my stuff, I found it to be a non-issue. I was wearing my usual functional attire for summer in New York, I had money and passport and phone and charger in my bag. I was light and unconcerned. So much so that when I decided to take a six day trip out to St Louis I took nothing beyond those items with me. And when I ended up sleeping in a North Carolina airport adding a seventh day to that jaunt I was also just fine.
By the end of the first month of the journey I had realised something about packing light. I realised that it was the ‘packing’ that was the problem.
I would see people in the airport with their stacks of luggage toppling from trolleys or sit in my seat in the plane watching passengers stuff their carry-on into overhead bins, and no longer was I comparing the size of my luggage to theirs or eyeing off the practicality of that particular REI or Northface. Instead I was wondering just how much fear we carry around each day. How much fear I felt each time I packed that little suitcase or that bulky rucksack. I wondered what scenarios I had envisioned myself in where there would be no one around whom I could ask for help, whom I could ask to borrow something from. I wondered what had me so convinced that carrying around a bag full of ‘essential’ traveler apparatus was not actually just a fear of the unknown – so deeply ingrained in the action of travel to unexplored lands it’s practically synonymous. I wondered on what planet I was living that I couldn’t recognise the fearful psychosis of the minimalist packing phenomenon I had so whole-heartedly embarked upon.
How have we forgotten our connectivity? How have we managed to erase from our minds the fact that humans love each other and share that love freely? How have we forgotten how to ask for help when we need it? How have we looked out in the world each day full of animals living together peacefully and symbiotically whilst unable to communicate to each other and still have thought ourselves alone in a country where the humans don’t speak our language. How have we let this fear creep into even the smallest aspect of our lives – into packing?
And how do we undo it?
Overpacking, packing light, packing minimal or packhacking, whatever it is you are doing or how well you are doing it, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the motivation. If you feel overpacking frees your mind of the fear of being unprepared for the changing seasons of Melbourne, or if you feel that packing only carry-on luggage makes hiking the Andes easier, then do that. But don’t forget that the creature with everything to fear, the creature that is soft skinned and slow and awkward requires a shell, but the creature who relies on the herd, its senses and its social skills fears less, and carries nothing.
Filed under: Advice from the Wild, Backpacker Culture, Couchsurfing Adventures, Lessons in Living, Minimalism, Notes from the Wild, That's New York Tagged: backpacking, brooklyn, couchsurfing, pack light, stlouis
