Turtles-Paradise

There are a lot of minimalist blogs out there that talk about the joy of being location independent. Living – and working – from anywhere. Travelling the world.

I have a confession to make. I’ve already done that. I started in University, by taking advantage of an exchange program, and was immediately bitten by the travel bug. I spent around a year living out of what I could carry, making my own shampoo, and travelling on a shoe-string.

And, truthfully, it’s brilliant. It is easily possible to live on almost nothing, especially when you have a network of awesome friends who are happy to let you crash on their couch for a few days. I spent my days looking at some of the natural wonders of the USA – the Appalachian Trail, Red River Gorge, and the Florida Wetlands. I spent my nights writing the amazing novel that would take the world by storm.

It’s an amazing lifestyle – for a year or so. Then the airports start to all look the same, your carbon footprint starts to stress you out, and you realise all your friendships are fleeting, and mainly long-distance affairs.

Don’t get me wrong. I love travelling, and always will. But I don’t love planes, or the Co2 that they generate. I don’t love taking advantage of the fact everyone else pays rent, and I didn’t. And I didn’t love forging intense friendships and then leaving with little hope of seeing those people again.

On top of that, I fell in love. Travelling freely with no home-base is something that seems to work best if you’re single and have no dependents. Not having a regular income was starting to wear me out as well – I couldn’t budget, and therefore couldn’t save. Jet lag was getting me down. And my amazing novel was not that amazing after all – and never did take the world by storm.

So I set up a home-base. I still travel, but I go less distance and find no less amazing things to see. The UK has its own set of natural wonders, including the Lake District, Snowdon, and the Salcey Forest. I can forge deeper connections with people I see face-to-face more than once or twice a year. I was able to get married. I could start a garden. I was able to offer a couch of my own for people to crash on.

Minimalism, to me, was about finding my own back-yard. It was about realising I didn’t need the entire world in order to be happy – I just needed to immerse myself in the details of my own little corner. It was about realising that watching a thyme plant go from a tiny brown speck of a seed into a leafy little shoot would create a joy that was greater than watching New Year fireworks in Chicago.

I’m a strong believer that we need roots. Roots, to me, are as follows:

• Strong, enduring friendships. Friendships that flourish in the fun, easy-going times but also survive the hard times.
• Changing the environment for the better – going carbon-neutral, or carbon-positive, growing your own food, trying not to rely on the mindless labour of people trapped in wage-slavery.
• Immersion. Into an area and it’s culture. Not feeling like a tourist, but getting to watch a place change and grow and evolve.
• Cooking for yourself. Taking control over your own survival, instead of living on coffee from road-side garages and microwave meals.

I will never regret the travelling I did, the amazing sights I saw, and the people I met. But I wouldn’t give up my apartment and my garden to do it again.