Oliver: LOL! Thank you! You made my day. 🙂

You’ve reminded me
That the best in life is free
Thank you Nora D

O

Elaine and Dyanne, thank you both very much for your stories. I can imagine the moment of making the leap was hard, but you made it happen!, and that encourages me.
As nora said, the first step is awareness

Thanks Nora! 🙂

Great article, Elaine! 🙂

You all take care. Next destination to go to;)

First of all, very nice “confession”, Elaine. 😉

And to Paul (a bit of a follow-up to my comment above): 5 years ago I sold every.blessed.thing (save for what fit into a rollie and a backpack) and bought a one-way ticket to Vietnam…

And never looked back.

My many travels and expat experiences since (I’m now living in a wondrous UNESCO World Heritage site at the tippy-top of an 8,000 ft. Andean mountain in Cuenca, Ecuador – and I might add, hope to welcome Nora here sooner rather than later) could fill a TOME (and indeed have filled nearly 400 blog post), but most importantly:

Shedding all that “stuff” – I’ve never felt so utterly FREE!

It’s honestly impossible to describe what it’s like – you really have to try it for yourself. I can’t even REMEMBER 95% of the stuff I dumped when I made my “Great Leap”. I miss none of it, and indeed get an anxiety attack now whenever I have to buy anything larger than a pair of earrings or a scarf. I’m a fully free-spirited citizen of the entire GLOBE now, and would never dream of going back to my life with all that “stuff”.

So to answer your question – it might seeeeem like it’s impossible to buck the mindset that we (in the U.S.) have been brainwashed since birth into swallowing hook, line and sinker (for it is indeed, a deliberate system to perpetuate a capitalist system that DEPENDS on you believing what you have isn’t good enough, and you NEED ever more shiny, bigger, new), but…

Surely you’re not a robot. You have a mind of your own. Just a matter of CHOOSING a different path. If you’re truly serious about traveling the world and/or living a simple life not dependent on “stuff”, just DO IT.

It CAN be done. Many of us are proof of that.

Hi Paul,
That’s a great question to which I don’t have a great answer. 😉
I escaped this “addiction” myself when I started traveling full-time, since I was forced to fit everything I owned into a bag and fell out of any habits that come with living in one place.
But as soon as I started to create a home in Peru, it’s amazing how I started to accumulate stuff again! I wasn’t necessarily spending a ton more money, but I felt old habits coming back.
So how do you achieve this shift out of wanting more without turning your whole life upside down? I’m really not sure. But I think that your sheer awareness of the situation and the traps thereof is a big step.
Good luck!