For months, I’ve been sleeping mostly in dormitories.
The reason for this is simply financial.
Having a private room doesn’t offer many advantages on my journey. Yet, during my final week in Cambodia, I chose to get a private room. On the very first day, I took advantage of one of those benefits.
I took stock of my belongings and once again threw out a lot of unnecessary items.
A bit of statistics
I was wondering how long I’ve been staying in dormitories—how many nights I’ve spent sharing a room with others.
I recalled trying out a shared room for the first time in Laos. Then I realized I was mistaken. The first time I slept in a dorm was actually in Thailand; I spent nine nights in a dormitory at the Wat Pa Tam Wua temple.
I keep a spreadsheet with details of my travels, tracking where I’ve lived over the past 417 days and the dates of my stays in each location. It includes a column I started tracking for a previous post, showing how many different beds I’ve slept in so far (that number is currently 58). I quickly added two more columns to the sheet, and that’s when I got a bit of a surprise.
The number of nights spent sharing a room with others turned out to be much higher than I thought. Out of 416 nights, I shared the air with others while sleeping on 193 of them (46%), while I slept alone for 223 nights (54%). So, I can say I spent half my trip “this way” and the other half “that way.”
My backpack is heavy
It was an illusion to think I wasn’t carrying anything I didn’t need. I confronted this realization when I decided to have a room of my own again.
So, once I’d taken over the room, I immediately started unpacking.
I laid everything out on the large double bed and the floor beside it. I neatly arranged the contents of both my backpacks and both my small organizer bags side by side.
I went through everything I had been hauling around, item by item.
I had seven books with me. I packed the first one just so I’d have something to pick up if the moment arose—say, in a café. Then came the second, and the rest followed. I’m going to leave two of them right here at the hotel. Goodbye, Douglas Adams and Philip K. Dick. As for the two I bought at the Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, I’ll take photos of them and leave them here, too. I’m taking three along with me. I’ve already read two of them and started the third. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with them; I’ll probably leave them behind later on.
I had a small bottle of water tucked deep inside my large backpack—an “emergency reserve” for any eventuality. It’s clearly a hiking habit of mine to always carry water. That’s why I’ve been lugging this particular bottle around since March; I bought it in Laos. After six months, I finally drank it quickly so it wouldn’t tempt me anymore.
I’d picked up a few odds and ends on the street here and there. It was time to get rid of those, too. I’d been hauling around a Garmin watch for three months, thinking the strap might serve as a spare. I finally checked it—and it turned out to be no good. Into the trash it went.
There was one interesting find, though: I came across an old passport on the street in Saigon. It dates back to 1974. I kept it. I’d already taken a photo of it earlier. I didn’t know what to do with it. At first, I decided to throw it away. But before doing so, I used AI to check exactly what I had. It turned out to be a potential collector’s item that could fetch some money. I quickly wrote to a London auction house asking for a valuation. According to the AI, it might be worth around $100–150. I’m waiting for an official response. Then I’ll decide what to do with it.
I’d also been carrying around plenty of odds and ends—things I thought I might need someday. Of course, I never actually needed them. You know how it is: you tuck away a plastic fork just in case. Then you forget you already have one, so you stash another fork away—just in case. Eventually, you’re carrying three or four of them. I threw out all those “might come in handy” items.
A single sock. Eighteen antibiotic pills that expired in January. I kept a few but tossed most of them; I’d never used them anyway. Two phone cases. Small notebooks. Cables. I know, you always need a USB-C cable. I threw out three, yet I still had two spares left.
And, of course, bags stored inside other bags. I had so many bags with me—”just in case”—that I could have packed up all my belongings twice over.
The items I took out of my bag didn’t seem like much individually, but altogether, they weighed about 1 to 1.5 kilograms. And then there are the books…
I’ve culled my belongings three times this year. Each time, something ended up in the trash.
I shudder to think how many trash bags I’d need if I started decluttering in my forever home.
On October 10th, I took a big step toward a minimalist lifestyle. I didn’t regret a single thing that ended up in the trash.
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