No bags, will travel
My first act on arrival in Morocco was to mispronounce the name of my destination while arranging a long-haul taxi from the ferry port at Tangier. My plan had been to hit Chefchaouen, a picturesque old backpacker haunt with a reputedly laidback vibe.
While negotiating for taxis, however, I made the mistake of saying ‘Chefchaouen’ with two syllables and Anglophone pronunciation (‘Chef-chwan’) instead of the more accurate three-syllable, French pronunciation (‘Shef-sha-wan’). When the taxi driver replied with the name of another two-syllable town, ‘Tetouan?’ (‘Tet-wan’) I nodded optimistically and we were off.
In less than an hour, the cab driver steered me into a medium-sized city not far from the coast and asked me where I wanted to be dropped off. I told him a gate to the Chefchaouen medina (old city) called Bab Souk, and when he replied ‘Bab Tout?’ I shrugged at the monosyllabic simplicity of the word and answered in the affirmative.
I entered the medina through Bab Tout and wandered the old city, looking for my hotel for upwards of an hour before a Belgian traveller named Jean-Marc informed me that instead of arriving at the town of Chefchaouen in the Rif Mountains, I had landed myself in the city of Tetouan, near the Mediterranean Sea.
Jean-Marc went on to explain that although less popular with foreign tourists than Chefchaouen, Tetouan was fascinating in its own right: it had an extensive old market and medina studded with low, cube-like white houses; it was surrounded by almond, orange and pomegranate orchards; it had a historical reputation as an operating base for pirates preying on Mediterranean shipping; and during the 15th century, it was rejuvenated by Muslims and Jews kicked out of Spain during the Inquisition. Moreover, he said, my timing couldn’t have been better, since farmers and merchants from the surrounding mountains were taking advantage of a once-a-month tax break for ethnic Berber vendors: Tetouan’s narrow market alleyways were jammed with women in colourful costumes selling little piles of spices, onions and goat meat.
Under normal circumstances, I might not have been able to stay and explore the charms of this accidental destination. I was due in Chefchaouen that evening, and dragging luggage through the crowded alleys of the Tetouan medina for four hours would have been tiresome for me and annoying for the vendors.
Fortunately, however, I happened to be travelling without any luggage: no suitcase, no daypack, no bum bag or man-purse, not even a plastic bag full of socks and jocks. On that journey – which had started in New York a week earlier and would eventually take me around the world over the course of the next five weeks – I had reduced my gear to a handful of small items that fit into the pockets of my travel vest.
Thus unencumbered, I was able to able to make the most of my foolish travel mistake and spontaneously explore Tetouan for an entire afternoon, watching woodcarvers and leather craftsmen at work, chatting with Berber vendors in rudimentary Spanish, and (as is inevitable for any Western traveller entering a Moroccan medina) having tea with carpet salesmen.
Although I eventually moved on to the gentrified old hippy haunt of Chefchaouen that evening, my spur-of-the-moment Tetouan adventure proved to be my most memorable experience that week. And it wouldn’t have been possible had I been burdened with baggage.
Childhood fantasies
My initial decision to travel around the world without luggage sprang from a desire that went back to the travel fantasies of my childhood. When I was a kid dreaming of faraway places, I didn’t imagine what I would pack – I imagined what I would do.
When I got older, I eventually learned that world travel was cheaper, easier and more life-changing than I had ever imagined, and I shared these lessons in my first book, Vagabonding. Going light is essential to the notion of vagabonding, and the more I travelled, the more I became intrigued by the idea of giving up luggage altogether. Wandering the world without baggage would be a physical and logistical challenge, I reckoned, but it would also allow me to field-test a more philosophical idea: that what we experience in life is more important than what we bring with us.
Once I had resolved to put my no-baggage travel experiment into action, I was faced with the prospect of choosing which items to bring with me. By that point in life, I had been
vagabonding the world for so many years that I had fallen out of the habit of putting together formal packing lists. Usually, ‘packing’ consisted of tossing a few familiar items into my Eagle Creek Thrive 65-litre backpack and closing the door behind me. If, for some reason, I forgot an item, I could usually pick it up on the road. In that same spirit, I didn’t want to micro-manage my no-baggage packing list.
Still, I wanted to strike the proper balance between travelling ultralight and bringing the items I would need to make my journey function on a daily basis. I did a fair amount of trial-and-error testing at home, using my Scottevest Tropical jacket/vest, which – with its 18 pockets – was my key item of gear.
Beg or borrow
Eventually, I boiled my essentials down to a minimal list of kit: deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste; a small bottle of liquid soap for body hygiene and a small bottle of liquid detergent for my clothes; sunscreen and sunglasses; passport and a credit/cash card; a pen-sized flashlight; earplugs and a bandanna; a small digital camera; and an iPod Touch. Given that I would be wearing a standard set of clothing each day (boots, socks, cargo pants, underwear, T-shirt, pullover, travel vest, baseball cap), I packed a spare pair of socks, underwear, and a T-shirt that I would wash each day in rotation.
I figured I could find most of what I didn’t pack en route. If a given city proved rainy, cheap umbrellas would no doubt be in plentiful supply. If I got sick, I knew the world had no shortage of pharmacies, many of which were better suited to curing local ailments than whatever medicine I might have packed in advance. I also figured I could beg or borrow things – a few aspirin, a spot of toothpaste – from other travellers along the way.
Since a circumnavigation of the globe seemed like a good physical goal through which to put my plan into action, I created an itinerary that mixed flights and overland transit from New York to Western Europe, northern Africa, South Africa, Southeast Asia and New Zealand, before returning to North America and circling back to my point of origin. Covering all of this in six weeks meant that I would be constantly on the move, but I reckoned that the pace and variety would help keep my challenge focused and force me to improvise on the go.
Once I had packed my vest pockets and set off on my journey, the earliest challenges were psychological more than physical. After years of travelling with a backpack and a wallet, I still had gut-level instincts to keep track of those items. This started at JFK airport in New York, when I had a moment of alarm upon realising that my wallet was missing (it was in storage in Manhattan). And I continued to get hit with occasional, irrational micro-flashes of ‘where’s my bag?’ panic as the first week wore on.
Those initial seven days (which took me from London to Paris to Madrid) also proved to be my crash course in daily hygiene, as I had no choice but to wash a rotation of clothes – socks, T-shirt, underwear – each night. On my first few nights, I made a big production of this, preparing the hotel sink with soapy water and going through several washes and rinses.
After a few days of this, however, I began to take my dirty clothes into the shower with me and wash them as I washed myself. Before long, this became an easy habit, as instinctive and enjoyable as brushing my teeth before bed. In this way, I stayed largely clean and odour-free for the duration of my trip.
Since personal hygiene and travel fashion were the most consistent topics of scepticism among friends and strangers alike, I tested both 25 days into the trip by making it past the velvet rope at one of Bangkok’s most exclusive nightclubs. In this way, I was able to illustrate that hygiene and fashion on the road are less a matter of how much you pack than how diligent you are about keeping yourself, and your gear, presentable.
Less is less
Will I spend the rest of my life travelling without luggage? Probably not. Bags do serve a purpose: they make some aspects of a journey easier, and one can still travel ultralight while carrying a small bag.
In the end, then, my no-baggage experiment was less a test of extremes than a simple illustration of what you do and don’t need on the road. The less you bring, the less there is to forget or lose, and you don’t have to stow anything, guard anything, or wait for anything (aside from the occasional train or bus). You can just throw yourself into the adventure and make the most of your travels.
Life without luggage
After I had adapted to the minimalism and simple routines, luggage-free travel proved to be rather easy, and I began to focus my journey on the simple joys of international travel. In Paris, I explored the city in a vintage Citroën 2CV; in Madrid, I threw myself into learning the art of tapas. I turned travel mistakes into unexpected adventures in North Africa and used a barbershop straight-razor shave as a pretext to get to know a local neighbourhood in Cairo. I went on safari in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, ate dried frogs in Bangkok’s Chinatown district, and dove into Kiwi canyons near Queenstown.
I didn’t find myself missing any essential items of gear. In fact, I had given away or disposed of half a dozen items (including the digital camera, the flashlight and the bottle of detergent) by the time the trip ended. The only item I added to my kit along the way was a belt (purchased for less than £6 in an Egyptian souk), and the only major item I borrowed in six weeks of travel was the sweater a friend lent me to keep warm in the late-winter chill of New Zealand.
By the time I got back to New York, my ‘no-baggage challenge’ felt less like a challenge than a downright sensible and enjoyable way to travel.
Ten of the best
If you’re travelling without baggage, then the clothes you wear are of paramount importance. Rolf needed comfortable clothing that would keep him cool in hot weather and warm in colder climes, had plenty of pockets to stow additional items, yet would not smell after being worn for days on end – and would look smart enough to get him through the door of a Bangkok nightclub. Here are some of the garments he wore – not to mention some of the products that kept him clean and smelling nice – during his around-the-world trip
Don’t forget…
…a tiny, foldable keyboard for road-blogging from your iPhone or iPod Touch
Rolf Potts is the author of Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, and Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer. www.rolfpotts.com. To see how Rolf gained entry to a Bangkok nightclub, and to watch other videos from his no-baggage challenge, visit www.rtwblog.com
June 2011
While negotiating for taxis, however, I made the mistake of saying ‘Chefchaouen’ with two syllables and Anglophone pronunciation (‘Chef-chwan’) instead of the more accurate three-syllable, French pronunciation (‘Shef-sha-wan’). When the taxi driver replied with the name of another two-syllable town, ‘Tetouan?’ (‘Tet-wan’) I nodded optimistically and we were off.
In less than an hour, the cab driver steered me into a medium-sized city not far from the coast and asked me where I wanted to be dropped off. I told him a gate to the Chefchaouen medina (old city) called Bab Souk, and when he replied ‘Bab Tout?’ I shrugged at the monosyllabic simplicity of the word and answered in the affirmative.
I entered the medina through Bab Tout and wandered the old city, looking for my hotel for upwards of an hour before a Belgian traveller named Jean-Marc informed me that instead of arriving at the town of Chefchaouen in the Rif Mountains, I had landed myself in the city of Tetouan, near the Mediterranean Sea.
Jean-Marc went on to explain that although less popular with foreign tourists than Chefchaouen, Tetouan was fascinating in its own right: it had an extensive old market and medina studded with low, cube-like white houses; it was surrounded by almond, orange and pomegranate orchards; it had a historical reputation as an operating base for pirates preying on Mediterranean shipping; and during the 15th century, it was rejuvenated by Muslims and Jews kicked out of Spain during the Inquisition. Moreover, he said, my timing couldn’t have been better, since farmers and merchants from the surrounding mountains were taking advantage of a once-a-month tax break for ethnic Berber vendors: Tetouan’s narrow market alleyways were jammed with women in colourful costumes selling little piles of spices, onions and goat meat.
Under normal circumstances, I might not have been able to stay and explore the charms of this accidental destination. I was due in Chefchaouen that evening, and dragging luggage through the crowded alleys of the Tetouan medina for four hours would have been tiresome for me and annoying for the vendors.
Fortunately, however, I happened to be travelling without any luggage: no suitcase, no daypack, no bum bag or man-purse, not even a plastic bag full of socks and jocks. On that journey – which had started in New York a week earlier and would eventually take me around the world over the course of the next five weeks – I had reduced my gear to a handful of small items that fit into the pockets of my travel vest.
Thus unencumbered, I was able to able to make the most of my foolish travel mistake and spontaneously explore Tetouan for an entire afternoon, watching woodcarvers and leather craftsmen at work, chatting with Berber vendors in rudimentary Spanish, and (as is inevitable for any Western traveller entering a Moroccan medina) having tea with carpet salesmen.
Although I eventually moved on to the gentrified old hippy haunt of Chefchaouen that evening, my spur-of-the-moment Tetouan adventure proved to be my most memorable experience that week. And it wouldn’t have been possible had I been burdened with baggage.
Childhood fantasies
My initial decision to travel around the world without luggage sprang from a desire that went back to the travel fantasies of my childhood. When I was a kid dreaming of faraway places, I didn’t imagine what I would pack – I imagined what I would do.
When I got older, I eventually learned that world travel was cheaper, easier and more life-changing than I had ever imagined, and I shared these lessons in my first book, Vagabonding. Going light is essential to the notion of vagabonding, and the more I travelled, the more I became intrigued by the idea of giving up luggage altogether. Wandering the world without baggage would be a physical and logistical challenge, I reckoned, but it would also allow me to field-test a more philosophical idea: that what we experience in life is more important than what we bring with us.
Once I had resolved to put my no-baggage travel experiment into action, I was faced with the prospect of choosing which items to bring with me. By that point in life, I had been
vagabonding the world for so many years that I had fallen out of the habit of putting together formal packing lists. Usually, ‘packing’ consisted of tossing a few familiar items into my Eagle Creek Thrive 65-litre backpack and closing the door behind me. If, for some reason, I forgot an item, I could usually pick it up on the road. In that same spirit, I didn’t want to micro-manage my no-baggage packing list.
Still, I wanted to strike the proper balance between travelling ultralight and bringing the items I would need to make my journey function on a daily basis. I did a fair amount of trial-and-error testing at home, using my Scottevest Tropical jacket/vest, which – with its 18 pockets – was my key item of gear.
Beg or borrow
Eventually, I boiled my essentials down to a minimal list of kit: deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste; a small bottle of liquid soap for body hygiene and a small bottle of liquid detergent for my clothes; sunscreen and sunglasses; passport and a credit/cash card; a pen-sized flashlight; earplugs and a bandanna; a small digital camera; and an iPod Touch. Given that I would be wearing a standard set of clothing each day (boots, socks, cargo pants, underwear, T-shirt, pullover, travel vest, baseball cap), I packed a spare pair of socks, underwear, and a T-shirt that I would wash each day in rotation.
I figured I could find most of what I didn’t pack en route. If a given city proved rainy, cheap umbrellas would no doubt be in plentiful supply. If I got sick, I knew the world had no shortage of pharmacies, many of which were better suited to curing local ailments than whatever medicine I might have packed in advance. I also figured I could beg or borrow things – a few aspirin, a spot of toothpaste – from other travellers along the way.
Since a circumnavigation of the globe seemed like a good physical goal through which to put my plan into action, I created an itinerary that mixed flights and overland transit from New York to Western Europe, northern Africa, South Africa, Southeast Asia and New Zealand, before returning to North America and circling back to my point of origin. Covering all of this in six weeks meant that I would be constantly on the move, but I reckoned that the pace and variety would help keep my challenge focused and force me to improvise on the go.
Once I had packed my vest pockets and set off on my journey, the earliest challenges were psychological more than physical. After years of travelling with a backpack and a wallet, I still had gut-level instincts to keep track of those items. This started at JFK airport in New York, when I had a moment of alarm upon realising that my wallet was missing (it was in storage in Manhattan). And I continued to get hit with occasional, irrational micro-flashes of ‘where’s my bag?’ panic as the first week wore on.
Those initial seven days (which took me from London to Paris to Madrid) also proved to be my crash course in daily hygiene, as I had no choice but to wash a rotation of clothes – socks, T-shirt, underwear – each night. On my first few nights, I made a big production of this, preparing the hotel sink with soapy water and going through several washes and rinses.
After a few days of this, however, I began to take my dirty clothes into the shower with me and wash them as I washed myself. Before long, this became an easy habit, as instinctive and enjoyable as brushing my teeth before bed. In this way, I stayed largely clean and odour-free for the duration of my trip.
Since personal hygiene and travel fashion were the most consistent topics of scepticism among friends and strangers alike, I tested both 25 days into the trip by making it past the velvet rope at one of Bangkok’s most exclusive nightclubs. In this way, I was able to illustrate that hygiene and fashion on the road are less a matter of how much you pack than how diligent you are about keeping yourself, and your gear, presentable.
Less is less
Will I spend the rest of my life travelling without luggage? Probably not. Bags do serve a purpose: they make some aspects of a journey easier, and one can still travel ultralight while carrying a small bag.
In the end, then, my no-baggage experiment was less a test of extremes than a simple illustration of what you do and don’t need on the road. The less you bring, the less there is to forget or lose, and you don’t have to stow anything, guard anything, or wait for anything (aside from the occasional train or bus). You can just throw yourself into the adventure and make the most of your travels.
Life without luggage
After I had adapted to the minimalism and simple routines, luggage-free travel proved to be rather easy, and I began to focus my journey on the simple joys of international travel. In Paris, I explored the city in a vintage Citroën 2CV; in Madrid, I threw myself into learning the art of tapas. I turned travel mistakes into unexpected adventures in North Africa and used a barbershop straight-razor shave as a pretext to get to know a local neighbourhood in Cairo. I went on safari in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, ate dried frogs in Bangkok’s Chinatown district, and dove into Kiwi canyons near Queenstown.
I didn’t find myself missing any essential items of gear. In fact, I had given away or disposed of half a dozen items (including the digital camera, the flashlight and the bottle of detergent) by the time the trip ended. The only item I added to my kit along the way was a belt (purchased for less than £6 in an Egyptian souk), and the only major item I borrowed in six weeks of travel was the sweater a friend lent me to keep warm in the late-winter chill of New Zealand.
By the time I got back to New York, my ‘no-baggage challenge’ felt less like a challenge than a downright sensible and enjoyable way to travel.
Ten of the best
If you’re travelling without baggage, then the clothes you wear are of paramount importance. Rolf needed comfortable clothing that would keep him cool in hot weather and warm in colder climes, had plenty of pockets to stow additional items, yet would not smell after being worn for days on end – and would look smart enough to get him through the door of a Bangkok nightclub. Here are some of the garments he wore – not to mention some of the products that kept him clean and smelling nice – during his around-the-world trip
Start the slideshow (10 pictures)
Don’t forget…
…a tiny, foldable keyboard for road-blogging from your iPhone or iPod Touch
Rolf Potts is the author of Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, and Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer. www.rolfpotts.com. To see how Rolf gained entry to a Bangkok nightclub, and to watch other videos from his no-baggage challenge, visit www.rtwblog.com
June 2011
 |
