Material things I thought I needed in life but traveling proved me wrong
There are so many reasons why I travel and how travel changes me as a person and how it makes my life better or worse. I have spoken about it many many times until now. Before I started traveling permanently I needed a huge bunch of things. You know, that’s what the materialistic approach of the world and life in the 21st century tells us, right?
We do need a lot of things in life to survive and to be happy.
And I was also one of the people who believed it.
Unfortunately, I was one of them until I quit my cabin crew job back in March 2011. However, fortunately, that was the beginning of a continuous change.
One of the positive effects traveling has had on my life is that travel makes me realize things that are truly important in life and also forget/avoid those that are not. Besides all those abstract things like relationships, love and other feelings, I want to dedicate this post to material things I thought I needed in life but traveling proved me wrong.
I never really liked shopping, at least not that much like other women do. And I hate to have too many things as it makes difficult to choose the best then. So when I got rid of 5 bags of clothes and shoes and gave them to charity when leaving Brindisi and becoming nomadic, it cleaned up more than just my wardrobes.
I realized these are the things I don’t need in life any more:
- a shoe cabinet of shoes of different colours and shapes – I swear I was never one of those shoe obsessed girls. I hate high heels so the biggest part of all my shoes have always been comfy flat shoes, ballerina shoes or sports/trekking shoes. Now I am pretty fine with a pair of flip flops and trekking shoes, sometimes I take black ballerina shoes to match all the dresses too.
- 3 wardrobes of clothes – yes I still have them full of unnecessary stuff back in my home town in Snina and never wear 80% of it. Hence, I enjoy light packing even though sometimes I might find it difficult to do the laundry pretty often when on the road so more clothes would come handy.
- wear a different piece of clothes every day – I am guilty of making this rule one of my obsessions in the past. Now it doesn’t matter that much when traveling as I meet new people almost every day so they don’t know what I wore the day before.
- a lot of jewelry – 99% of you don’t even know my left ear is pierced 3 times simply because since I travel more, I don’t use all the three earrings like I used to. No one cares when on the road. I have a big jewel-case back in the apartment where I was raised but hardly ever carry anything with me abroad. When I am at the beach, I never wear jewelry, when it’s cold either as it’s annoying me when I have a scarf, hat and gloves. Also many rings bother me when carrying a suitcase.
my jewel-case
- tons of cosmetics: I stopped using powder, make-up, soaps, shower gel, body lotion, make-up remover, nail polish, hair spray and hair gel. I am more than fine using some natural wonders instead of chemically made cosmetics. I don’t die my hair when on the road as the sun and sea salt mess up with the colour then anyway.
- a comb: no, I don’t even use a comb. If styling my hair with fingers cannot make up for it, then I try a simpler hair style – usually none.
- pajamas – I never really liked them so since I’ve been traveling, I just sleep in shorts and a T-shirt. Oh yes, and you might see me in pajamas outside too. Just because you wouldn’t guess it’s my pajamas :D
- bras and bikini – if you’d looked into my underwear wardrobe years ago, you would have found all the possible colours and sexy styles. I was an underwear maniac! Now I just cannot and don’t want to carry them all with me in the suitcase so 2 pairs have to be fine.
- handbags – I am one of the few women who cannot stand handbags. I have always preferred small bags and never understood what other women carried in the huge heavy ones. Now I own only 2 handbags, a black Playboy one and a weird elegant one with a real high heel that can be used for annoying guys :) It is also the only high heel you could (almost) ever see me wearing. I don’t carry the handbags with me on the trips though.
my high heel handbag from Egypt
KarolinaPatryk Travel
| #
Great post idea :)
Crazy Sexy Fun Traveler
| #
Thanks, Karolina, I bet you don’t travel with many material things either ;)
ChinaMatt
| #
There are definitely things I miss having while traveling, but I like keeping it simple. Most of all I miss my books, but the Kindle is so much easier (plus it forces me to read the classics I never read in school because they’re free). Other than basic comforts of home, there isn’t much else I miss–I never was one to want much.
Crazy Sexy Fun Traveler
| #
Matt, I could not agree more. I go back to reading the classics too, how funny :D
jual sepatu
| #
congrangturalions
Moncika
| #
suhlasim s myslienkou. faktom je aj ale, ze ak cestujes, tak potrebujes ale zase ine, nove veci, ktore si predtym nepotrebovala.
Crazy Sexy Fun Traveler
| #
Ako napriklad? Ja vyuzivam stale to iste, co sa tyka oblecenia, obuvi aj vsetkeho ineho, ci cestujem, alebo nie. Ale zaujumalo by ma, co konkretne myslis :)
Crazy Sexy Fun Traveler via Facebook
| #
yep, much agreed ;) never had any of those
Eric De Silva via Facebook
| #
All those big houses and nice cars are really just for aesthetic purposes.
Crazy Sexy Fun Traveler via Facebook
| #
I agree :) I don’t really care about material things since I started traveling :)
Eric De Silva via Facebook
| #
material things can’t make you happy. it’s the thrill, happiness and experience of traveling.
Crazy Sexy Fun Traveler
| #
Comment@ Missy l Sole of Missy:
Thanks :) I love to see other girls with the same opinion as there are still SO many who thing they need hundreds of cosmetics and clothes :D
Missy l Sole of Missy
| #
hahaha! Very true! I also gave up a lot of girly stuff when I started backpacking. Very interesting post you have here!
Crazy sexy fun traveler
| #
Comment@ Stephen S.:
Very true! Life is much easier now …
Stephen S.
| #
From the title of this post I knew it was going to be good. One part I love about traveling is that you not only realize how much you don’t need some things, but also how much your life unburdened and better without them.
Crazy Sexy Fun Traveler
| #
Comment@ Jeff @ Go Travelzing:
Right, same here! Even though I wish I was smarter in this a long time ago :)
Jeff @ Go Travelzing
| #
It is great that you figured this out before you got too much stuff. I used to think that I wanted a lot of stuff. Now that I have it I just want to get rid of it. It is now more important for me to spend my money on travel than acquiring more things.
The Guy
| #
Great to see that you’ve adopted the travel light philosophy. It becomes essential really when you are a frequent traveller and you learn to make do with what you have. You sound like a reformed / changed person from the one you used to be.
Kenin Bassart
| #
My wife and I are the same way. We managed to go on a 60 day trip with only two duffel bags between the both of us. When we got home we both looked at eachother and asked ourselves why we had so much other stuff. We are actually in the process of selling many of our belongings just for that reason.
Crazy sexy fun traveler
| #
Comment@ soloflightEd:
Right! Society can be a bitch sometimes :) Would be interesting to see what guys realized they don’t need any more!
soloflightEd
| #
a lot of female items! lol.
but truly, these items have lesser meaning when you’re travelling. really nice to wake up with only a few items in your closet and you don’t have to be pressured by society because you feel confident about what you wear because you actually don’t need it!