What's the Weirdest Thing We Travel With?
Geraldine West, a German woman living in Cologne, recently started this project called "Instagram vs. Reality" where she takes side-by-side pictures of herself that portray the same situations in real life and how they would look like on Instagram.
We get asked this question quite a bit. What's the one thing you travel with that other people would think is weird?
I have a few answers for that but first, let me tell you a bit about the we travel with. We each have a big hard-case roller bag as our checked bag that weighs in at fifty pounds (23 kg), a carry-on roller bag each, and we each have a backpack/laptop bag.
Travel days. Everything for our six months of nomad travel outside the US.
In some ways, that's a lot of stuff. In other ways, it's not much at all. Lugging all that around with me every six weeks or so when I move is exhausting. But when I consider that this is everything I’ll wear in the next six months, all my medications, and all my personal care items, it seems like very little! We have some nomad friends that travel with only a large backpacker-type backpack. I wish that could be me sometimes. We also know a few nomad couples with a car… and the car is filled to capacity. It's one of those cases of expanding to the space we have. We experienced that last summer while driving along the east coast of the US for almost three months. We picked up some crazy things at thrift stores along the way since we knew we could just throw it in the car when we moved to our next location.
So back to the question: what strange things do we travel with?
Sourdough Starter
First, is probably my sourdough starter. I make fresh bread everywhere we live and I hate waiting and waiting for a new starter to grow. Plus, I love the idea that my sourdough starter has a little bit of everywhere we go living in it. Every sourdough has it's very own special flavor that comes from the bacteria in the air wherever it is. Talk about a unique souvenir! How cool is that?
Sourdough Cinnamon Buns with cream cheese icing. It's impartant to make friends while traveling to share baked goods with so you don't get fat.
Pillows
It seems a little bit crazy that we travel with pillows. They made the cut for a must have after a trip to Budapest. The pillows were so flat and lumpy, we spent a week looking for new pillows that weren’t flat and lumpy (or $50). After that, we decided our pillows were worth their weight (and space) in gold. It also helps that I don’t have to worry too much about my hair color staining my host’s pillows. I also travel with my own microfiber hair towel.
Yoga Mat/Exercise related equipment
I don't know if it’s all that unusual—I know a few nomads that travel with their yoga mat. Mine weighs in at 3.6 pounds. I know there are lighter ones out there, but my knees appreciate the 6mm over the 2mm. Daily yoga practice is that much of a priority to me that it's worth the weight and space. This is one of those cases where sometimes I think I should just buy a new mat everywhere I go. They aren't all that expensive and are fairly available most places we travel.
Jim started packing exercise bands. Although to be fair, once Covid is less of a concern, we are hoping to ditch the bands and go back to getting gym memberships wherever we are. We also travel with jump ropes.
Sharing the mat with an inch worm with impressive ab strength 😂
Kitchen stuff
Other things in our bags that you wouldn't think a nomad couple might travel around the world with are measuring cups and spoons, chef's knife, kitchen scale, Tupperware, vegetable peeler, butter dish, and spices.
I cook dinner six nights a week. No matter how “fully stocked” our Airbnb kitchen is, we always seem to need at least one of the “kitchen items” we travel with. I think of every Airbnb we ever stayed at, the DTC condo in Denver May 2020 was the only kitchen I didn't have to unpack a single kitchen item from our bag! If only every “fully-stocked” Airbnb kitchen had the same definition…
Why do we travel with spices? I love finding new spices wherever we go, but I also hate spending $30-50 on basic spices like onion powder, chili powder, paprika, etc every six weeks. It's the frugal coming out in me; haha!
Technology
Our Google home. Yep. Google lady travels with us wherever we go. She tells me the weather each morning, acts as a Bluetooth speaker, and most importantly, answers the question “what is 375 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius” six nights a week because my brain just can't seem to remember the conversion.
Why not just buy these things wherever we Go?
To be honest, there have been things that we’ve purchased multiple times and left behind or donated to charity, including a mattress pad for the hard-as-a-rock bed in Cape Town. And there will probably be occasional things in the future, as well. We’ve been lucky that our last several places have had a smoothie maker and we’ve gotten pretty used to having green smoothies regularly. It’s very possible that we’ll buy a smoothie maker (and leave it behind or donate it) in future rentals.
Like all people, we live on a budget. (OK, maybe all people don’t live on a budget, but I highly recommend it: financial security is the best gift you can gift yourself!) Since we got married in 1999, we've always lived on a budget and we don't have a money tree in our suitcase. We learned early on that we appreciated experiences far more than things. This makes it a lot easier to keep those bags from getting too heavy and too full as we travel to new places. But after years and years of being frugal, it can be hard to flip the switch and buy the exact same thing over and over again when the one you bought six weeks ago is in perfect condition—back in the last Airbnb where we had to leave it.