Minimalism: A Digital Nomad’s Best Friend

Photo by cottonbro

People love stuff. It’s inevitable. Stuff makes people happy. Stuff stuffs your house. Stuffing stuff in stuff makes stuffy people stuffy.

Stuff is great, except when you’re a digital nomad. Stuff will drag you down. It makes you reconsider your travel plans. Baggage fees. Back pain. Stuff is not a good thing to stuff in your backpacker’s backpack.

So how do we keep our back pain to a minimum and keep some extra money in our pockets? Simple. Become a monk? Donate everything to charity and live in ashrams while you’re traveling?

No need to go to extremes my young padawan! Just adopt the minimalist mindset, and many of your troubles will vanish away for your digital nomad journey.

What is Minimalism?

Minimalism is a mindset and outlook that helps you only keep the physical things that you value. Think of it as the opposite of being a hoarder. The hoarder will keep everything, even things that they don’t value anymore. The minimalist will only keep the physical things they care about and that they get use out of.

Some might think of this as Marie Kondo’s adage of “does this spark joy?”. While for the most part yes, I agree with her, to be a minimalist in my view you also need to ask the questions of “do I use this anymore”, “would I use this in the future”, and “do I already have another of this”. If the answer to one of these questions is no, then it might be time to let that thing go.

For digital nomads, it’s essential to ask these questions before you get on the plane to your next destination, and I’d argue that to be a happy nomad, you need at least some level of a minimalist mindset.

How Minimalism is a Digital Nomad’s Best Friend

“Mo money more problems”, right? Wrong. It should be “more stuff more problems”. Stuff requires upkeep and time. Resources to keep them going. Less stuff → less upkeep.

1. Renting a serviced…