By Andrea Zaghi
The end of 2018 brought a drastic change in my life. I had been on the road for sixteen months before I moved to the charming town of Ann Arbor. I went to Italy over Christmas to visit family, and until then I had been travelling around Asia. My plan was to carry on with my nomadic life. I was going back to Thailand for the month of January, then I was going to make my way back to China, where I was temporarily living and working as an outdoor guide. I had decided that when I grew tired, I would move on toward new horizons, maybe to New Zealand or Australia.
Yet, here I am, with a one-year lease on an apartment. I couldn't even have pointed to Michigan on a map before....How did I end up here? I am in a new country (I mean continent) in a state that seems as flat as a pancake. The kindness and warm welcome I’ve received reminds me of the Netherlands, the last country I lived in before packing my life into a backpack.
After a lot of adventures and experiences alone I started traveling with a cute American guy, and the magic happened. Last January we met up again after six months apart and realized that we wanted to spend our lives together. Right before we made this decision, he had accepted a job offer in Ann Arbor. So, I decided to give up my nomadic lifestyle and come with him.
We moved here with very little, and we have very little, materially speaking. We do have basic comforts like a roof above our head, kitchen supplies, a bed, but everything inside was found on the street or at second-hand shops. We bought a new memory foam, though the mattress beneath it is second hand. We do not own a car, but bike everywhere. Thank goodness we have amazing friends that lend their car to us when we need it.
Now, I am not saying that when I am waiting at the bus stop, and it is pouring rain, that I don’t sometimes wish I had a car, but that thought is fleeting, and as soon as I reach my destination, and I am dry, it stops defining my moment to moment experience.
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Backpacking taught me a new art of living. The most uncomfortable and challenging circumstances have become a great source of wisdom. When you live a nomadic lifestyle, everything is always changing at the speed of light, from vast landscapes to the beach; one night I slept in a cozy bed, the following night I was trying to rest in a noisy bus in India. One day I was by myself, and the next I met the companion I decided to share the rest of my life with. Good times follow difficult times, and those difficult times follow good times again.
It was August 2017 during a scorching summer in Maastricht (Netherlands), and I was stuck in a traffic jam, at 7 a.m. on a daily basis. I was longing to be somewhere else, but I wasn’t following through. I kept sitting every morning at my desk, with my pretty dress and a grey Dutch sky above my head.
One morning, I was stuck in my routine traffic jam when my car broke down. I had a 20-year-old Twingo, and the mechanic told me that repairing it would cost more than the value of the whole vehicle. That was it; that was the moment where I would either gather the courage to leave, or decide to buy a new car and keep getting stuck in traffic every morning.
I had a whole house packed with furniture, decorations, clothes, shoes, a bike, more shoes, and a lot of climbing gear. I was born in Italy, and I moved to the Netherlands in my twenties for undergrad. After my studies I found a job, and I extended my stay. Year after year, I accumulated more “stuff." I had a bank account, a phone plan, medical insurance, a pension scheme, friends, a broken car, and a house (with all the related bills). I decided to leave, and suffice to say, my life became chaos. I began to panic. I was overwhelmed. I thought to myself, “I can’t leave anymore; it’s too complicated. It’s impossible." I took a deep breath, went to yoga, and ended the panic. How could I tackle all of this? I made a plan and set the following steps into action.
Step 1 - Plan of action. I made a list of everything I needed to take care of, and I gave myself a deadline.
Step 2 - Financial plan. I calculated that my budget was $54 per day for a year.
Step 3 - I resigned from my job.
Step 4 - First lesson of minimalism. If I wanted to travel and live out of a backpack, it needed to be light. I had to learn how to get rid of a lot that had sentimental value. First, I sold all my furniture, because plane tickets are expensive. I placed the most precious memories in two boxes that I shipped to my mum's house in Italy. Finally, I organized a massive party at my place for my birthday, invited all the people I’d met while living in the Netherlands, and I gave away all my clothes and unsold items. It was hard at first to donate, but generosity is a muscle, and it can be trained. The more I tried to smile and willingly give, the easier it became.
Step 5*- Not mandatory. I could have stopped at step four; maybe what I needed was just to feel lighter, but I wanted to go all the way. So I left. I booked a one-way ticket to Vietnam, and my adventures began.
I broke down my process in five straightforward steps, but it was hard and emotionally tasking. Nevertheless, the transition only lasted two months once I decided to make a drastic change. Like generosity, minimalism can be learned, and backpacking across the globe was the best teacher. Having lived with no possessions highlighted the essentials for me, and now I can appreciate the comfort of having a wardrobe, and a choice, once again.
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