Great article.

Returning home from a four month trip through central and south america, mine and my fiancee’s ‘re-entry’ experience mirrors yours.

Too much stuff – we did the exact same. Thought we’d gotten rid of so many things before we left…then got ride of so much more when we returned. Is it because we got used to travelling with less, or simply that we met people who were happier with less? Or is it because we escaped from the incessant assault of marketing messages? Or simply because there were less places to buy things or less capacity to transport them? I don’t care. Happier without so much stuff!

A great book we read when we came home was Tim Ferris’ ‘For Hour Week’ – have you read it? he strongly advocates down-sizing, as well as trying to incorporate more travel experiences into your work. Reading it helped us when we came back to the ‘real world’ after time in the Amazon rainforest and other places.

I’m with you regarding cars, too. Our ‘new’ car is pretty ancient, unattractive, fuel efficient, practical, cheap wonderful piece of machinery. Makes my friend’s Benz look even more ostentatious. Still, we’re the ‘weird ones’ for choosing such a ‘piece of crap’.

Thing is, travelling gives you that wisdom, strength and sense of sureness in your decisions. So no matter what advertisers or even friends say, you know that down sizing, consuming less and being less wasteful is the right thing to do.

Anyway, good post, thanks for sharing it!

Another way we’ve changed a lot is money and how to spend it. We’ve always been a bit frugal, but now it’s so hard to keep my mouth shut when friends and family talk about spending money on new cars, fancy landscaping, or replacing kitchen cabinets. Now I know how far that money can go while traveling, and it makes me sad to watch people spend it on more “things” instead of experiences.

One more point – when/if you “settle” down somewhere, try hosting couchsurfers. They typically have similar views, and it’s very refreshing to find people you can relate to on these issues. Good luck!

When I was in Australia last year, the government launched a campaign where they mailed hourglass timers out to every household, asking everyone to use them in order to limit their showers to under four minutes in duration. Every single person I knew in Australia used the timers and reduced their showers to under four minutes.

When I explained this interesting idea to people at home, the most common response was, “nobody is going to stop me from taking my 10 minute shower!”

Clearly there is just a vastly different mentality when it comes to certain aspects of conservation and waste.

We are just so much more aware now when it comes to waste. We didn’t think twice about having a big meal, throwing the leftovers in the fridge, not really “wanting” to eat them the next few days, then tossing them out when they got too old.

Now we just simply can’t do something like that. Food is needed so much in so many other parts of the world that we just can’t bring ourselves to throw out a perfectly good meal simply because we’d rather eat something else. We have tried really hard since our return to waste as little as possible, and that’s just when it comes to food.

But all the other stuff you mentioned is also important–plates for holidays, shoes to go with every outfit, stuff, stuff, and more stuff. Sure, stuff is nice, but it really was so much simpler when we only had a few outfits and one bag. It just made life easier. Sometimes we view all this stuff as nothing more than a hindrance.

Great post as this rings so true to us. Now the challenge is keeping this mindset as you are here longer and adjust to this life again.

Loved this post. Thanks!