Photo of the Moment: Into the Blue in Chelsea, NYC © Vagabondish.

But don’t fret! What follows here is no invitation to the pity party, nor some ill-disguised plea to drop what you’re doing right this instant and send more stuff. Quite the contrary, in fact, considering the cardboard boxes scattered around my room, dusty remnants of a different me.

That sounds dramatic. But it’s the truth, laid bare, and the kind of realization that couldn’t have clicked until someone broke into my house and decided to fling stuff all over the floor. My stuff. Mountains of it, far more than anyone could ever plausibly need, but it was my property, people, and some of it was missing.

There, wading deep into the mess of my room, it hit me: holy hell, I have a lot of crap.

The knee-jerk reaction was anger. The later, more measured response was a blind rage, an itching to shout and stomp that didn’t fade until I sucked in a big breath and stopped to survey the damage. And there, wading deep into the mess of my room, it hit me: holy hell, I have a lot of crap.

I almost laughed. Not the normal reaction, sure, but there’s the kicker, the wake-up call shining like the (not stolen!) lamp toppled over at my feet. Ready for it?

I got robbed, yeah. And I’ll tell you why it was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me.

Alone © elward-photography

Cue the Introspection!

Think about it. Seasoned travelers, well-accustomed to long stretches on the road, often go about their business with little weight attached: the contents of a backpack, ideally, plus whatever knickknacks pop up along the way. Does this make for comfortable living? Nah. But this no-frills existence invites an entirely different approach to life, one that puts emphasis on places and people over things.

For days on end we live with a smile, building incredible adventures with little beyond what we can shove in our pack. And then we check back into society, stepping off that return flight and right back into the familiar culture of home. We come back to houses and apartments and mortgages and debts, walls and shelves sagging under the weight of the useless crap we accumulate during our regular, normal routine.

Put simply, we come home to stuff. And frankly, we need to cut this out. Don’t believe me? Take a count of the many innocent little items cluttering your desk. Add to that the number of boxes stuffed in your closet, and top that off with how many DVDs in your collection that you haven’t watched in months.

Got your number? Good. There’s no trick to this, really: whatever that magic number is, it’s probably way too high.

You dump most of it when you go traveling, don’t you? So why do you need it now?

$100K Junk Pile in Birmingham, Alabama © Southernpixel

We’re All Guilty

The first sign, I think, was that brand-spankin’ new computer monitor dropped in a hurry by the front door. The second sign? The realization that a tornado had come crashing through my room in the few hours I’d been gone, spilling all my precious stuff to the floor. That’s a hard sight to come home to, for all the obvious reasons, but what followed managed to be even less thrilling: the arrival of the cops, nervous glances at the door, and reluctant calls to my roommates to describe in detail everything they’d lost.

Fun times, that. But what stuck in my mind long after that night was a single line given to the man with the badge: “Me? I just lost a monitor and some games. Got lucky, I guess.”

Lucky. Right. Looking at the colorful chaos in my room, the realization that I’d have to spend the better part of two weeks trying to put the pieces back together seemed like everything but a thumbs-up from the powers that be. How much time had I wasted already trying to keep everything tidy? Why did I have so much stuff in the first place? When had I managed to fill every inch of my closet and shelves with stacks of papers and boxes and clothes and … things?

That’s life, it seems – an endless parade of acquisition, the steady yearning to buy, buy, buy until the walls surrounding you burst at the seams. It’s a difficult cycle to ignore, even for those who’d rather spend every living moment on the road, but that little fact might make the change more important than ever.

Small Steps

Those dusty boxes now stacked in my room? Signs of progress, if you’ll believe it, visible proof of the push to free myself from the culture of stuff. The process hasn’t been easy – selling is way harder than buying – but the clutter is vanishing, slowly, fading like the memories of a room so cluttered I couldn’t see the carpet.

Cathartic? Definitely. Time spent organizing the endless mess is now time spent living, a change so simple and wonderful that the next step fell in line almost immediately: stop buying. That sounds a little extreme, I’ll admit, but putting it in practice warrants just a few tweaks – think renting versus purchasing, borrowing versus owning, and so forth.

You’ll need food, sure. And you’ll need clothing, transportation, and entertainment – and that’s fine. You don’t ask for much more than those basic necessities whenever you travel, so adopting a similarly lean lifestyle at home is half the battle. The other part requires a little digging, a few solid minutes of meditation on one of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself: what do you need to live?

Not much, I promise.

Here’s the obvious hint: you don’t need stuff. You need friends and family, memories and experiences, and a firm kick in the rear to realize that all of those are closer than you think. We might firmly associate each of them with travel. But even that attitude warrants readjustment, a reshaping to include a simple truth: the most amazing times of your life are waiting at home, too, if you’d just put down the stuff for one second and take a look around.

It’s easier than you think. Sure, it took a robbery for yours truly to realize it, but there’s no sense waiting for a stroke of bad luck to take your life into your own hands. Dump the stuff. Kick the crap to the curb, take a deep breath, and start focusing on what counts: three-hundred and sixty-five chances each year to live life to its fullest. The friendships and memories that naturally follow will endure far longer than anything you could find on a store shelf.

How Getting Robbed Saved Me from the ‘Culture of Stuff’ © Vagabondish.

Photo of the Moment: Morning Bromo, Indonesia © Vagabondish.

Photo of the Moment: La Tossa de Montbui, Catalonia © Vagabondish.

Love the vibe of this one.

Photo of the Moment: Rolling Over at Plaza de la Constitución, Chile © Vagabondish.

Photo of the Moment: Sunset at Ulladulla Harbour, Australia © Vagabondish.

That’s when I realized: oh yeah … don’t I really need to sit down and type up a new article for Vagabondish?

Triste (II) – Sad (II) © BloOwITt

Every word I type is a lost opportunity somewhere in the world. When I arrived via high-speed train in Kagoshima, Japan, my days in the city were spent in an internet cafe, updating my blog entries. Of course, I got out every so often to walk around town and visit the nearest hot springs. But what should have been a grand opportunity to explore and meet new people was overshadowed by the need to share other past experiences with strangers around the world.

So it has been and so shall it be with travel writers, bloggers, and other aspiring novelists. It’s the ultimate travel writer’s Catch-22: feeling the urge to be out on the road at every moment of every day, yet feeling so restricted by your profession that one feels the need to take time from traveling to huddle in a corner and let the words flow.

Did I ever cut a traveling experience short by the subconscious need to get the most recent one on paper before I began anew? Even now, as I pound the keyboard while listening to the rain gently pound the roof of my meditation hut in New Zealand, I know I’ve been devoting entirely too much time to my writing (no offense to present company). There are forest trails to be run in my new barefoot style, waterfalls to be explored, meditation techniques to practice, and visiting monks whom I would love to engage in Dhamma discussions.

How can we, as writers, find the means to keep the poetry in our words without sacrificing too much time in the traveling world?

Brainstorming © MikeOliveri

Master the Art of Taking Notes

Your high school teachers taught you the basics. However, they probably anticipated you struggling to write the essentials while listening to the droning voice of a history professor rather than painting a rough picture of the mustache of your last chain-smoking driver as you stick out your thumb and hope another car will save you from the incoming rainstorm.

For the equipment, I find a small moleskin journal and a space pen work best for travel writing on the go. Some would say digital recorders, but I never listen to everything again.

For the time to do so – and this is key – there’s almost never a good time to sit down and take notes. Sure, you think you have seven hours in the international terminal to do some writing. But that could just as easily be spent people watching, meeting someone interesting at the airport bar, cracking open a new Lonely Planet, which will most likely draw the attention of backpackers headed in the same direction … and so on down the rabbit hole. The point being: minimize the time you spend putting pen to paper:

• Actual story: my ride for a 30 km stretch of road was an ice cream connoisseur who warned me of the dangers of white-tailed spiders in New Zealand (author’s note: you may not notice the bite, but they can result in loss of limbs).
• Notes taken: Bombay to Maramarua. Loves ice cream. Crazy spiders.

Resist the Urge to Write: Travel Comes First

I’m living on a Buddhist monastery just south of Auckland. Every morning I awake to a lovely sunrise, rolling green hills, and a different species of bird chirping at my door.

So why, oh why, do I feel compelled to steal a few minutes of internet time everyday to research my stories and submit new articles? I have to wait until the monks go down to the dining hut just so I can dash to their office and get in range of the otherwise inaccessible wireless network; something tells me that’s not especially good kamma.

Think about how you spent your traveling days before the Internet. Before Twitter. Before Facebook. One can spend months without Twittering and still lead a healthy, normal life. Seriously? Seriously.

You don’t have to update your blog as often as you ingest food. Your experiences will still matter even if you forget the finer points and never share the story with another living soul. It may feel perfectly natural to want to write down your feelings immediately following your first bungy jump or experience walking on hot coals, but look around: are you alone? Aren’t there others nearby, on a traveler’s high encouraging conversation and possibly a lasting friendship?

Stepping away to get your thoughts on paper might help you meet that deadline and earn enough to stay another week in a hostel. But overall, it’s contrary to the entire vagabonding mindset: you’re traveling for you, not for a publisher, and not for blog readers.

Freedom © abnelphoto.com

Another Catch-22 (to Further Complicate Things)

The irony, of course, is that without these travel stories you may have never been bitten by the bug in the first place.

The irony, of course, is that without these travel stories – without that obscure book you found in the back of a Barnes and Noble written by someone so moved by their experience on the road that he or she felt compelled to put pen to paper – you may have never been bitten by the bug in the first place. Travelers beget travelers, my friends, whether by story, living the example, or petty jealousy.

Finding balance isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight, nor will you necessarily be able to stick with it even once you’ve found it.

During my time in Japan, blogging and writing became a necessity. I had all this information, these experiences I felt would explode out of my chest (apologies to Alien fans) if I didn’t tell someone about them immediately. Without a steady supply of English speakers, my Japan blog was born.

In New Zealand, however, most of the places I visited, even though I had my unique perspective, had been written and obsessed about ten times over by backpackers. Who wants to hear yet another traveler’s recount of walking around Auckland? In the end, this feeling killed my desire to blog or even write journals.

I’m not saying you have to be in virgin territory to achieve decent writing, but it helps to know you’re one of the few. Lets the creative juices flow a lot easier.

What are your thought on Travel Writer’s Catch-22? Let us know in the comments below!

Are You a Victim of Travel Writer’s Catch-22? © Vagabondish.

You’ve got to see this one large. Stunning.

Photo of the Moment: Behold the Frozen Monolith, Greenland © Vagabondish.

A perennial problem for flashpackers and location independent professionals is running out of juice on the road. A bevy of backup battery solutions exist to help remedy this problem, including Technocel’s PowerPak. We tested their most recent model – the PowerPak U8USBTC to see how it stacks up.

The Skinny

The lowdown of features directly from Technocel:

• 1,000 mAh built-in rechargeable battery
• Works with or without an AC outlet – anytime, anywhere
• Easy to read, LED indicator lights reveal the remaining capacity of the PowerPak battery reserve with the press of a button
• Included interchangeable tips provide compatibility for 95% of all handheld USB devices
• Compatible with any other USB cable that might have been provided with your wireless device

In Detail

Design

Considering this is intended to be an all-in-one solution, the size is perfect for travelers. It’s roughly the same volume as, and just a touch heavier than, a deck of cards. It easily fits into a pants pocket or the side pocket of a laptop bag.

The matte finish and minimal exterior of the main unit won’t attract attention. It’s all business with only a fold-out AC plug and four indicator lights to reveal the remaining capacity.

Our all-in-one combo pack also included a variety of USB power tips. Simply choose the few tips that you actually need to power your particular array of gadgets, and go.

Backup Power

The backup battery functionality is a nice feature that will get you from point A to point B confidently with a little extra juice. Our tests revealed at least a few extra hours out of an iPhone 3G. But, as with any such solution, your mileage may vary.

All-in-One Charging Solution

The real win here is the ability for travelers to take just one charger with them, instead of the unwieldy bundle of seventeen different cables required for one’s digital camera, cell phone, GPS, portable espresso maker, et. al. As a minimalist traveler, I relish any solution that cleverly lets me take less while providing more.

Pricing and Availability

The PowerPak is available now starting at $49.99 directly from Technocel’s online store.

Our inside source reveals that new models should be available next month, featuring increased battery life and a dual USB port version. Both versions should retain their battery charge for at least 6 months without being plugged in.

Bottom Line

The all-in-one charging functionality alone is worth the price tag. Couple that with a decent internal battery with enough juice to supplement your electronic/media needs on any medium-length flight or train trek and we solidly recommend the PowerPak as an essential part of any traveler’s gear bag. Highly recommended.

Technocel PowerPak: Universal Backup and Power Solution for Travelers © Vagabondish.

Every item on this list is simple and inexpensive, yet brings the comforts of home to a life spent drifting between far-flung ports and distant cities.

#1: The Airplane Headphone Adapter

For most longer airline flights you’ll have the option of paying to watch a movie, usually followed by an assortment of TV shows. As part of a cost-cutting measure, the airlines that still offer this service now charge for headphones. There’s no 3.5 mm jack on your seat so your options are to pay a fee or go without entertainment.

Unless you’ve got your Airplane Adapter. This $3.95 adapter lets you use your normal headphones while in flight. Don’t step into the terminal without it. And a pair of headphones, of course.

#2: The Targus Universal Power Adapter

It’s 6:30 A.M. in Philadelphia, and I’m waiting outside the gate of my connecting flight to Tokyo. Ahead of me is a 15 hour plane flight. Normally I’d pop a hearty spoonful of Kanna into my airport tea and drift to sleep listening to Styx for the bulk of my journey. Alas, I’ve got a full work-day ahead of me.

There’s a problem. My laptop battery lasts only six hours and this flight doesn’t have any sockets I can use. SkyMall offers a $120 power adapter, but even if I buy it now I won’t be able to use it on this flight. Am I doomed to sink into a raving, media-deprived madness?

Not with the Targus Universal Power Adapter. This kit comes with different heads for a variety of notebooks and works in most cars, planes, boats, and RVs. If you don’t mind shelling out close to a hundred bucks, this should handle all of your airplane power needs.

If not, there’s a wide selection of other airline power converters built specifically for certain brands of notebook, or made for different plane connections. Before buying anything, check to make sure it’ll work with your gear AND work on the flight you’re taking.

This site explains everything you need to know about finding out what power adapter will work on your flight. This link has recommendations for a bunch of other adapters. Buy what works, and enjoy your mile-high unlimited access to pornography and torrented episodes of Family Guy.

YoGen Mobile Travel Charger

#3: The Yogen Mobile Charger

Unfortunately, reliable power outlets aren’t everywhere you want to be. Whether you’re hiking through desolate wilderness or touring the third world, every world traveller eventually ends up somewhere without power. Life ‘off the grid’ is one of those experiences that’s genuinely good for your soul. A few days without blaring electronic media or the Internet helps to put things into perspective …

But sometimes you aren’t up for an amazing new experience. Sometimes you need power, otherwise you’ll be unable to call and change your travel arrangements or use your GPS or contact medical help in the event of an emergency. For times like these, we have the YoGen mobile charger.

It costs $39.99, and it allows you to give all your handheld devices a working charge no matter where on earth you are. It’s small enough to slip inside a side pocket on your laptop bag, and useful enough to earn a place in your travel kit regardless of the destination.

#4: The Devotec Solar Charger+Battery

Solar power is another elegant solution to the ‘no reliable electricity’ issue. Unfortunately, most solar arrays are clunky or require a fair amount of set-up in order to get working. Only a few are manufactured to be easily portable, simple to set up, and durable enough for travel. One of these few is the Devotec solar charger.

Their solar panels are tough and efficient and the company provides fantastic customer support. For less than $80, you can own a high-capacity 4000 mAH battery and an extended solar charger set.

Need something a little bigger? This $136 foldable solar panel can keep your laptop trickle-charged during more intensive trips.

#5: Personal Filtered Water Bottle

These bottles cost just $26. They’re portable, well-made, and conform to EPA protocols for Microbiological Purifiers. Wherever you are, this will make the water safe (or at least much safer) to drink.

Grab a bottle of Iodine pills if you’re worried about exceptionally nasty water. The iodine will kill EVERYTHING and the filter will remove that nasty ass-and-death taste from your now clean drink.

If you intend to travel in the third world or extensively in the wilderness, you need this product. No matter where you go, a travel-cup with a water filter is indispensable if you value your intestinal tract.

Pacsafe TravelSafe 100: Anti-Theft Travel Bag

#6: PacSafe Anti-Theft Bag

The wise traveller never carries all of his valuables on his person when he can avoid it. Leaving an extra credit card and/or some cash hidden behind at the hostel is a great way to ensure you’re not SOL in the event of a mugging or severe pants-catastrophe (pantstastrophe). But where to leave your filthy lucre and valuable documents?

The PacSafe TravelSafe 100 is damn near bulletproof and easy to secure. It costs $44.99 and takes up next-to-no space in your backpack.

Real Men Wear Sarongs

#7: A Sarong

It doesn’t matter if you’re a dainty little princes who sweats perfume or a 400 pound construction worker with a glandular disorder; your travel towel is going to get disgusting, fast. This is especially true during the winter and throughout all of Central and Eastern Europe. You can wash your towel thoroughly every couple of days, or you can nab a few sarongs.

Aside from being useful as make-shift scarves and clothing, they also make great towels. The material dries out super fast, which is something terry-cloth can’t claim. Take a bottle of anti-bacterial spray or sanitizer with you. Every other day, wash it out, wring it out, and leave it in the window or in front of the fan to dry. Within an hour or two, it’ll be dry and ready to go.

Online, you can find just about any color of sarong you want for $20-$25. If you want to save a ton of money you can pick a few up on your next trip to India. Get ‘em now, while the exchange rate is still favorable.

#8: Space Bags

I hate to endorse anything advertised in an infomercial, but in this case the product is actually pretty damn cool. Space Bags are little plastic sacks with an airlock. You stick your clothing in, hook a vacuum up to the lock, and suck all the air out. Nothing does a better job at cutting down on clothing bulk. I’ve seen these in action, and they’re a life-saver for the space-conscious traveller.

Don’t worry about bringing a vacuum with you. Any hostel or hotel worth staying at will let you borrow theirs. It only takes a minute or two and it makes packing way less of a headache. $19.95, plus S&H.

What essential travel gadgets do you never leave home without? Let us know in the comments below!

8 Incredibly Useful Things You’ll Forget to Pack for Your Next Trip © Vagabondish.