I recently returned to Charleston, South Carolina for a month-long visit to see my family after six months backpacking in Colombia and Ecuador. After the initial hugs and kisses, I emptied the entire contents of my backpack onto the floor and laundered every piece of clothing in scalding hot water. One single load of laundry.
We’d been in the western Andes for most of this trip and every time I went out to explore for the day, I had half my belongings with me. Layers, a rain jacket, a puffer, a sun hat, a buff… Four seasons in five minutes, that’s what they call the land of eternal spring.
South Carolina summer, on the other hand, felt like an old forgotten friend. Consistent. Dependable. Sticky.
Each morning, I’d throw on a pair of shorts and T-shirt over a bikini and make sure my mom’s pups went on a good long walk before the heat rolled in and all movement became a sluggish shuffle.
Our morning walks weaved us through the familiar streets framed by matured oaks draped in lacey Spanish moss. The magnolia and mimosa trees were in full bloom, and the Carolina jasmine had not yet begun to tickle my nose.
Many of the houses in my family’s borough had been renovated in the last few years while I’ve been away and doubled or tripled in size. 1950’s bungalows were now mini mansions. Southern porches adorned with porch swings and flowers tumbling from planters now accumulated pillars of brown pack boxes each morning. FedEx, UPS, and Amazon flex drivers hopscotched each other down the wide residential streets delivering boxes of joy and monthly supplies of dish pods.
After our morning walks, I’d lie on the bed under the ceiling fan and survey the remainder of my belongings in the USA. After nine years away, I had five plastic storage bins plus a surfboard.
This was what was left. This was all.
Everything else felt excessive.
Finding Charleston
One of the biggest draws of College of Charleston was how the historic campus blended seamlessly into the city. Students lived amongst architects, lawyers, and doctors, restaurants, bars, and boutiques.
College was tough and I struggled to find my place. I desperately wanted to fit in, feel seen, and make friends. Mostly, I wanted to grow up and escape the burdens of student life- roommates, regrets from the night before, the uncertainty about my future.
By sauntering down King Street, I found solace in shopping.
All problems were solved in those paper bags. A new pair of Seven jeans or a brightly colored sun dress, they worked their magic to lift me out of my funk. Momentarily.
In my final semester, I moved into my very first apartment on my own.
My mom brought down a brand-new set of white dishes from Ikea. We painted the walls. And I had a blank slate ahead of me.
Over the next 12 years, I carefully filled my apartment with things I loved. I created a life I’d always dreamed of and that very apartment shaped literally every aspect of my future.
My careers, my hobbies, my relationships, my identity.
I scoured thrift stores and vintage markets to furnish my home with unique and functional fixtures.
The walls were adorned with artwork I commissioned, saved for, or gifts from friends who knew me well.
There were platters for dinner parties and glasses for cocktails. Appliances for every purpose, and single purpose tools like an avocado slicer or a melon baller.
Overflowing closets with vintage clothes and boxes of shoes.
Books arranged by color that I swore I’d read one day. Cookbooks, design books, book club reads, travel magazines.
My apartment wasn’t cluttered; it was styled. It became a place where I felt comfortable to be myself and where I could finally open my heart and let people in. A perfect reflection of everything I’d ever wanted.
Dismantling a Life
When my rent went up, I was shattered.
In this moment, I decided to let go of everything and travel for one year. I’d invested everything I had into this apartment and this life in Charleston. If I really was going to travel, I’d have to let go of my biggest financial anchor. I didn’t have much savings, and I also didn’t have a clue what else the world had to offer.
Scaling down felt like I was dismantling my life, quickly chipping away at pieces of myself before my lease was up.
These were all my things.
My memories, my identity, my lifestyle, and my relationships I was letting go of.
When I shared my plans with friends, I got peppered with questions and told “how exciting” all these adventures would be. Really, I felt guilt-ridden for mourning a life I deeply cherished.
I downsized everything and reverted to the dreaded co-living with craigslist strangers again. My personal sanctuary was narrowed down to the confines of my tiny bedroom.
Sure, I had an end goal and an exit strategy, a map of the world hanging on my wall with all my future adventures charted out, but I secretly wondered if I could rebuild my Charleston life once again with my remaining treasures when I returned.
The Backpack
I planned to be gone for a year and wanted to be prepared for everything from the get-go. Every single piece needed to be intentional and strategic.
Living simply wasn’t initially a desire for wanting less. It was logistical.
Should I work with what I already own or splurge on the right gear?
A rolling bag versus buying a backpack. A microfiber towel, a Turkish towel or both? Lightweight hiking boots and sandals comfortable enough to walk in all day. Yet, when it came time to pull the trigger and buy these things, I squirmed letting go of the money.
I was saving my money for traveling. I’d been downsizing, damn it!
The evening of my flight, my mom drove me to the airport. I was nervously excited and squeezed her hand while she waited with me in the queue to check in for my flight. I stepped up to the agent’s desk, heaved my backpack off my shoulders and onto the scale, 16kg. The service agent clacked away at the computer before handing me my passport and boarding pass with the baggage sticker attached.
I impulsively kissed my hand, tapped my kiss right onto my backpack, and watched all my possessions for the next year glide along the belt into the airport abyss.
My stomach dropped and I turned to my mom to see us both have tears building up.
Arriving in Iceland the next morning, I paced along the luggage carrousel anxiously anticipating being reunited with my backpack. Thoughts whirred through my head, everything I owned could disappear.
Just then my lovely gray Osprey backpack drifted out. My whole body relaxed and I exhaled long and deep unaware that I had even been holding my breath.
By the height of summer, a full backpack audit was in order.
The meticulous backpack ready for anything, now felt cumbersome.
I emptied everything out and laid it out on the bed as I had before I left.
I’d donated a bulky winter coat to Oxfam, shipped my Zero-degree Marmot Sleeping bag back from Italy, and acquired a straw summer hat in the meantime.
I couldn’t imagine traveling without a pair of jeans. At home they were a basic; on the road they were bulky, heavy, and slow to dry.
The jeans had to go.
Gone was an unused she-wee my sister had gifted me in Greece. Gone was the unwieldly Nalgene bottle to be replaced with a flexible water bladder. Gone was the wooly headband I’d used in Iceland in April but no longer needed in July.
All these places I visited, people lived there.
They didn’t walk through their neighborhood markets with a passport pouch hidden under their shirts, why should I?
I was down to a manageable and liberating 11kg.
Each item found its own place in my bag. Packing cubes became a traveling chest of drawers and slid under beds or into cupboards. I fell into a routine and packed the same way each time, interlocking my packing cubes like Tetris pieces. And could empty my pack and move into the next place just as fast.
I’d notice when I’d left a bathing suit drying on the pool deck in Jordan or was missing a sock from a launderette in Malawi.
Home became carrying groceries to a fifth-floor walkup in London or clambering into the top bunk in a hostel in Kigali, Rwanda. Home was becoming less about what I owned and more about where I felt comfortable, even when that home had a daily rotation of roommates.
Perusing the antique markets of France and the riads of Marrakech, I’d envision a basket or a rug in my home, but where would it go?
Was I really going to haul an authentic Moroccan tagine around for the next 6 months?
If I was going out in Spain, I could no longer stress about what to wear. What I had was what I had and that was that.
The clothes that remained after the purge became threadbare over time, normal wear and tear from daily use and washing.
I struggled letting go of something that had once been my world, even if it no longer functioned properly.
As I moored through the South African bush in my navy-blue puffer jacket, it would catch on jagged branches, rough fynbos, and sharp rocks. Molted feathers trailed behind me like breadcrumbs. Each tiny hole was patched with a small strip of duct tape, until one day, there seemed to be more duct tape than jacket.
When the frame of my trusted Osprey backpack wore through, the reps tried to repair it but couldn’t. Osprey stood by their All Mighty Guarantee and sure enough replaced my bag.
I cried.
I blew one last kiss and handed over the backpack that had carried my life across continents.
We’d been places. But these couldn’t just be replaced.
We had history.
Somewhere between Turkey and Thailand, I stopped wishing I had more and became content with everything I had.
What I missed was mustard.
Spices. Vinegar. Soy sauce.
Cooking became a huge part of my life in Charleston and while I ate my way around the world, I craved my own cooking. The smell of toasted cumin seeds and my homemade lasagna.
Buying staples time and again, just to leave them behind made me cringe, but a leaky bottle of olive oil in my backpack seemed worse.
When I met my partner, he was overlanding through Africa. I readily threw my backpack into the back of his Land Rover. I was burnt out by my radical simplicity and delighted in extra space. The backpack was freedom. A kitted-out Land Rover through Africa was luxury.
He generously shared his home with me. A fully equipped kitchenette, a consistent place to sleep, and the ease to move on our own schedule. Now this carried everything. I’ll admit, I fell madly in love with both him and his built-in spice drawer.
Now, I could buy mustard and soy sauce.
And this was enough.
When Less Came Home with Me
After nearly two and a half years on the road, I returned to Charleston and moved into my sister’s house. My furniture, artwork, and kitchen equipment had quietly been absorbed into her home. My possessions seemed different now that they were hanging on her walls, lining her shelves, propped up on her counters.
I lugged the remaining boxes and garment bags in from the humid garage.
I pulled tissue-wrapped shoes from their boxes and marveled at how I’d ever managed to walk in some of them, especially after a few drinks. I strutted through the house as if I were trying them on for the first time.
Little black flecks followed me.
The soles had dry-rotted and crumbled across my sister’s teal-colored rug.
Gently, I peeled open the vacuum-sealed bags, everything slowly expanded and the smell of plastic fanned out. One by one, I tried everything on.
The vintage gold brocade dress worn on my 30th birthday. The red seersucker beach coverup I’d worn on 4th of July at least four times. The cozy wool sweaters I’d amassed since college, only ever useful in February in Charleston.
With each piece, I slipped into former versions of myself, only this time, neither of us fit quite the same way.
My bed disappeared under the mountain of sequins, silks, florals, and stripes.
I stepped back, and I too felt like I was drowning.
I never expected abundance to feel heavier than the boxes I’d just lugged inside.
The Hidden Cost of Owning More
As the weeks went on, I tried to settle back into owning more.
It now took so much longer to get ready and leave the house, ruminating on what to wear. More clothes meant more choices. My bedroom chair became a landing strip for clothes, too clean for the laundry, but not clean enough for the closet.
The only time when I was relieved of those decisions was getting ready for work in a restaurant. Five chef coats, five pairs of pants, five undershirts, five pairs of socks, five bras, and five linen bags kept everything together in sets, just as my packing cubes had. My mental energy was reserved for the chaos that awaited once I walked through those kitchen doors.
While traveling, I could prepare and cook a full meal with a cutting board, knife, spoon, and pot. Now, the same meal required half the kitchen and a whole lot more to clean.
I made multiple attempts to sort through thousands of travel photos, only to be defeated by the scale of my project. I’d close my laptop and walk away. Turns out, paying monthly fees for more cloud storage is far easier than sifting through my collection.
A 50-liter backpack was easy to fill.
Shelves, cabinets, closets, and homes are just as easy.
More laundry. More storage. More decisions. More energy. More responsibility. More cleaning. More upkeep. More cost.
Everything came with invisible strings.
What is Enough
Back in Charleston, I was visiting a friend and her husband when the rug they had ordered arrived. Half sarcastic, half optimistic, in unison they said the thing aloud, “This will fix everything.”
I chuckled, knowing good and well I’d said some version of this to myself plenty of times.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not out here peddling minimalism, nor do I believe living out of a backpack is for everyone. I still admire, desire, and buy things. My possessions simply feel more intentional.
When I felt like less, I bought more.
Now I don’t confuse acquisition with improving my life, fixing my problems, or creating my identity.
I found that when I stripped away most of my possessions, I remained. And I was enough.
