How we packed our lives into 12 boxes and 1 tiny car so we can travel the world

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After reading numerous blogs on the subject, we started to feel like giving up all our personal belongings was a prerequisite for traveling the world. But, to us, such a task didn’t make much sense. Of course the journey is different for everyone, but getting rid all of those things we worked so hard to be able to have, and we’re not talking about marble statues and Sunday hats, we are referring to marathon medallions, grandma-made scarfs and that awesome painting of a surfer we bought at the Venice Art Show. The idea of giving it all away or just tossing it was rather depressing, so we had to find another way to minimize the junk and maximize the memories.

rose painting, love and be loved, beautiful painting

On top of that, we had accumulated a pretty sweet collection of adventure gear. The rock climbing ropes, the sleeping bags, the rollerblades, tents, kite boarding gear, portable heater, mini grill, surf boards, snow boards and wetsuits…! Pretty sure we had an anxiety attack when we opened our adventure closet and started trying to consolidate:

The reality is that we were going to need that gear at some point in the future, yes need.

tent, mr adventure, adventure gear essentials

We have a rule when it comes to buying things, we don’t buy something unless we feel like we have no other choice. If it gives us the ability to enhance life and have experiences, we’ll take it.

hiking mount whitney, essential gear, mr and mrs adventure

Another rule, for things like souvenirs, art and clothing, if we think that we will regret not purchasing that item a day after trying to decide whether to buy it or not, we go for it. If the peace of mind of owning the item outweighs the cost, we’ll splurge. Because this doesn’t happen often, the things that we do splurge on are things that we really cherish, like my furry headdress and Drew’s fuzzy trucker hat from Korea:

road trip, fuzzy hats, over packed car, road tripping across the country, mr and mrs adventure, zebra hat

Back to the task of consolidating…

Oh dear.

We started by dividing things into 5 categories:

Things to keep (ship back home vs. pack into our car)
Things to donate to the GoodWill
Things to put in the “Free Stuff” box for our neighbors and friends
Things to sell (Craigslist and Ebay)
Trash

Eventually, we were able to fit our lives into 12 boxes and 1 overstuffed Honda Fit! It was not an easy task, but together we were able to get rid of the stuff that would hold us back, while also keeping the things that would allow us to adventure forward.