Tag Archives: travel

Nomadic Travel

Flying harms the environment. In fact, a round-trip international flight can burn around one ton of gasoline (1). So to lessen our environmental impact, we ought to reduce the number of miles we fly each year. The best choice is to not fly at all. And for the most part, I’ve stopped flying in order to practice conservation. But when I need to visit family overseas, I’ve decided to practice nomadic travel. The basic idea is to carry all your belongings with you when you travel, so that there’s never a need to return home.

By not having a home base, I won’t be in a rush to leave. I can stay longer each trip, reducing the total number of flights each year. As a nomadic traveler, I intentionally avoid owning a house, a car, or extra possessions at home. I also take my work online, which gives me greater time and flexibility while traveling. I hope to spend months (even years) in the same country, and when possible, I try to get around using slower forms of transit (rail and bus instead of flying). By staying longer and flying less frequently, I can help conserve fuel, which lessens the impact of travel.

But nomadic travel does more than just protect the environment. By flying less frequently and staying longer, I immediately save thousands on plane tickets alone. Less flying also means less time spent in uncomfortable plane seats, and more time to experience the country first-hand. I can learn the native language, meet new people, and see more sites. Vacation is more relaxing when done slowly since there’s no need to see the entire country in a single weekend. Instead of staying in expensive hotels, I can rent an apartment. These slower experiences will be far cheaper, more meaningful and more authentic.

To become a nomad, you need to adjust your traveling mindset. An average tourist is limited by all the possessions he has back at home–his house, job, and car. As a result, he’s bound by a tightly fixed schedule, which limits his flexibility to travel slowly. For a nomad, however, home base is wherever he’s currently staying. There’s never a rush to “return” when you travel with everything you own.

Giving up a permanent dwelling isn’t as painful as it sounds. Permanent assets can feel like deadweight. There’s the cost of paying for space you’re not using, and the emotional burden of caring for your possessions. Without a fixed dwelling, the cost of traveling can actually be cheaper than the cost of living back home. This is because of you’ll likely rent a cheaper apartment and own fewer possessions.

The major difficulty with the nomadic lifestyle is finding work on the go. In the past, being a traditional nomad meant you were confined to a life of tending sheep and raising cattle. But today, it’s possible to start an online business or find telecommuting work. Programming and design jobs are probably the easiest to find, but you can probably find online work in marketing, accounting, and engineering. Freelance Switch has compiled a monster job board you should check out, and FlexJobs looks promising as well.

Once you make the leap to become a nomadic traveler, you’ll find traveling to be a lot less stressful and expensive. You can travel once and stay put for months (years) at a time. And if you can get to your destination by bus or train, then you’ll literally save a ton of fuel.

Of course, if you can avoid it, don’t travel at all. That’s always the greenest (and cheapest) option available. When that’s impractical, try to take the train or bus instead, since both options get far better mileage than flying. But when you must fly, consider becoming a nomadic traveler. You don’t need to become the yak-herding shepherd type, either.

According to Michael Bluejay, a plane averages around 43.0 pmpg (passenger miles per gallon). The one-way distance between Los Angeles and Taipei is 6800 miles, so the round-trip distance is 13,600 miles. This in turn gives 13600 ÷ 43.0 = 316.3 gallons of gasoline burned per round-trip. Gasoline is about 6.073lbs/gal, and there are 2000lbs./ton, so you’ll end up wasting 0.96 tons of gasoline per passenger per round-trip flight.

The Freedom to Change Your Mind

11 Replies

About 3 months ago, Hsinya and I left Irvine, hopped on a plane, and flew to Taiwan. We expected to return early March—then we changed our minds and decided to stay for an entire year.

By becoming a Greenimalist, I had opened up a whole new world of possibilities. With no baggage or burdens tying me down, I had no obligation to return to California. If I didn’t want to return in 3 months, I didn’t have to—I was free to go wherever I chose.

There’s something amazing about being able to change your mind. I’m not talking about being indecisive, but rather the ability to pursue new opportunities as they come. Too often, we turn down new opportunities—not because we choose to, but because our obligations force us to.

Your ability to change depends on how many burdens you carry. The more weight, the harder it is to pack your bags and leave. Possessions increase your weight, and so do long-term contracts and financial debt. Each one is a type of shackle on your freedom.

A house can be a great investment, except it weighs you down. A car could get you to work faster, except it weighs you down. A dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, and refrigerator are all great, useful stuff, but each one slowly takes away your mobility. You lose the freedom of being able to spend time with your family, move to a better job elsewhere, or volunteer on worthwhile work. Once you start making irreversible commitments, it’s hard to turn back.

Some obligations are totally worth taking on. It’s worth losing some mobility to have a family or to work on a meaningful job. But I refuse to surrender my mobility in exchange for more stuff.

Life is full of unexpected surprises. It’s impossible to predict what opportunities will present themselves 10 years from now. 10 years ago, I was still in middle school; cell phones were a novelty; and Google was a small company. I have no idea what the next 10 years will bring. All I know for sure is that the more mass I take on, the fewer opportunities I’ll be able to pursue.

Last year, I could never have predicted that I’d have such a great time staying in Taiwan, that my Grandpa would be happy to have visitors, and that I’d be able to find a solid church here. If I had kept all that extra baggage back in Irvine, I would have to return—like it or not—because the high price of storage was driving me back home.

But because I didn’t carry so much dead weight, it was easy for me to change my mind. And so I did.

This post was inspired by Less Mass from software company 37Signals. I took their unconventional guide for creating lean, mean web apps and adapted it for everyday life.

I Sleep On The Floor Now

78 Replies

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with minimalist sleeping–which translates, in less poetic terms, to sleeping on the floor.

My reasons are half-philosophical and half-practical. Philosophically-speaking, mattresses are anti-minimalist. They’re large, heavy, and expensive; I can’t imagine packing one in a backpack. Practically-speaking, my shared apartment in Taichung can’t fit another mattress. I couldn’t use one even if I wanted to.

Many cultures throughout the world don’t use mattresses. The Japanese, for example, sleep on tatami mats. The modern mattress can actually harm your spine if it’s too soft. The harder the mattress, the better it is for your back. So I figure I should just use the hardest support of all and sleep on the floor.

The benefits of sleeping mattress-free are legion. Mattresses are extremely difficult to transport, which makes moving an enormous hassle. Professional moving teams are expensive to hire, but it’s grueling to carry a mattress by yourself.

In general, I dislike furniture, because it limits my flexibility and freedom to travel light. I don’t mind sleeping on a mattress if it’s offered, but I don’t want to have to depend on one. If I rent an unfurnished apartment of my own, I don’t want to own any furniture. I love the freedom that comes from minimalism; I can pack my bags and move in an hour. If I bought a mattress, I would lose that flexibility.

I’m also trying to reduce my pollution by reducing consumption. For all of this year, I’m trying to never buy anything new. I’d have to buy a used mattress, then, but this idea doesn’t sound appealing to Hsinya. She would be perpetually worried about sleeping on a dirty mattress.

For the last two weeks, I have been sleeping on the floor. The first week was terrible. I’ve slept on mattresses my whole life, so I didn’t expect the floor to be so uncomfortable. I had difficulty sleeping each night; I would spend an hour lying awake from back pain. Every three hours, I’d wake up feeling sore and groggy.

Maybe the problem was due to my poor posture. Because of the curvature of my spine, all my lower body weight rested entirely on my tailbone. The pain was unbearable at times, but I refused to give up. I was determined to adjust my posture and get used to sleeping on the floor. Eventually, I conceded to borrowing a thin bamboo mat to give my tailbone some cushion against the hardwood floor. In the future, I’ll try to use spare clothes for minimalist padding.

I’m gradually easing into it now. Sleeping on the floor definitely isn’t as comfortable as sleeping in a mattress, but I have now confirmed that it’s possible to sleep anywhere without paying a dime for a bulky, anti-minimalist bed. So the next time I spend the night at a friend’s place, don’t look for me on the sofa-bed; you’ll find me on the floor.

Do you think minimalist furniture is practical?