I Went Minimalist for Travel, but I Didn’t Know Why

Yes, I will still tell you what I pack.

This started out being one of those bog-standard posts in which someone tells you how they packed for a weeks-long trip with just one bag, and how they did it. I’ve tried so many times to write a post like this, but I never could drum up the emotional enthusiasm for it. Whenever I show up a place, my friends and family always marvel over my tiny bag and what I manage to get into it (and out of what I’ve packed!) but we never talk about why the would want to be minimalist travelers to begine with.

Like most writers, I’m interested in the why of a thing, and I’ve never really sat down to understand how I got to this place begin with. (What I packed and what I’d do differently is in the second section of this post, but photos are up here.)

It’s gonna be a short post, because it turns out the answers are pretty obvious — but getting at why I decided to go this route is going to help me to refine what I do in the future.

• I know what I look good in and feel good in, and the Venn diagram of that is pretty limited. For a recent trip to Taiwan, I packed all neutrals and pretty much all the same pattern (stripes). Am I boring? Yes. Would I like some blue, white, or taupe polka dots? Sure, why not?
  I also hate decision…