Reasons to Travel Light

Travelling is a fun thing – yes – until the time when it comes to packing your stuff. Yes, packing can be a nightmare for many because this is something which, in the end, decides how free or imprisoned you feel while travelling.

Here are a few points that might help you decide why you should be travelling light –

It will be easier to move faster

When I say moving faster, I mean it literally. When you are travelling light, with maybe just one backpack, you care the least when changing your plans or moving from one place to another. Multi-destination travelling gets less of a headache and you will hit less people on the road while walking through the crowd.

Your bag will always be by your side

If you are travelling with just one bag or at max two, you will always be care-free because you know that your baggage is always with you by your side. When travelling, you have to keep in mind a lot of stuff – if you are sure that your luggage is safe with you all the time, you have less things to worry about.

It will be cheaper for you

From not paying the flight for extra baggage, to paying the attendants at the railway stations, from being to walk around places with your baggage on your back to restricting yourself from buying another souvenir, you are in luck when you are travelling light as you are saving a lot of money.

You will be faster in packing

Packing takes a hell lot of time, from choosing your items to packing them into the baggage that you chose. When you are travelling light, you have one thing less to worry about as you have so less things to pack, which in turn, brings us to the first point that we saw, it makes your life easier to travel, making multi destination travelling so much easier.

You have less chance to forget

As you are travelling, you have to take care about a lot of stuff – be it about being safe, about flight informations, the documents, the food, your health, etc. If you are travelling with really less things, you have less chance of forgetting things while packing – you will have less chance of leaving things behind at the hostel or hotel, etc.

It is easy on your back

If you are backpacking, you tend to make quick plans than a normal tourist. This leads to a lot of travelling here and there. When you are travelling light, you have giving less strain on your back. While I was travelling Vietnam, I was there for 3 months and I had only one backpack. Although it got heavy over time, but it was not more than 10kgs throughout my journey. This helped me a lot when I was taking buses or scooters here and there; I thought so little before moving to another place because the weight was easy for me to carry even for like whole day. The most I walked a day was 26kms in a day with that backpack (averaging about 4-5kms a day) and I was relieved that I carried so little.

How was my overall experience with travelling light?
When I travelled Vietnam, which was my first ever backpacking, first solo travel and first international travel (more about it here), I chose a flight that was the cheapest for me at that time. But while choosing the cheapest flight, I chose Thai Air Asia which allowed only 7kgs total cabin baggage and any additional baggage (or extra weight) would cost be extra.

That was a blessing for me, although I didn’t understand that at that time. I had very less things but the main were – Laptop, Camera and their accessories. The bag that I chose along weighed like 1.7 KG. It is a good backpack as it has a laptop compartment which I needed (you can check it here). So all these alone weighed like 6.8 KGs – excluding clothes. So the only option I had was to wear everything – although it was pretty hot in HCMC (my first stop).

Well, coming to the main point, as I had only one backpack (and a small one that I got from Decathlon for my daily commute), I would stuff everything inside that backpack and would roam around. I was less worried because I was sure that everything that I have is with me. But yeah, with time, I began to leave things in my hostel as I knew the people there were good enough and cared less whatever I owned (I wouldn’t advice you to do that though, I was just pretty lucky).

In short, when you are travelling, TRAVEL LIGHT. This will make your life of travelling way easier, because let’s face it, out of all the things that you pack, you aren’t going to use even 30% of it. So why take those and be that angry traveller who is cussing every time before and during travelling – who would say that it is so hard to travel whereas it was you who chose to make it a difficult choice.

What do you think of these points? Have anything else in mind?
Do share in the comment section below.

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Your Friendly Neighbourhood Traveller