How to Downsize for Full-Time Travel

Leaving your regular life to travel the world for months on end means having to do something with all your stuff.

Do you sell everything and travel with just a suitcase? Do you store it somewhere for who knows how long? Do you ship it somewhere else– a new home base in a different country?

Everyone does it differently, but usually we all go through a downsizing process no matter what the final decision is. Unless you’re already a minimalist with a minimal amount of personal belongings, you’re likely going to have a whole heap of things that you don’t want to take with you, store for a year, or pay to move across the ocean.

This guide is actionable steps for how to deal with that stuff– how to decide what to keep and what to let go of, and how to deal with the emotional stumbling blocks that may crop up. I based it on my own experiences with downsizing for full-time travel 3 years ago, and the experiences of my travel-friends who have done similar things.

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Step 1: Assess what you have

The first step is to take stock of what you actually own.

You’d be surprised how much stuff just gets forgotten about– things in closets, boxes in the attic, random bags in the garage, seasonal decor you bought 5 years ago and never used again, all that sort of stuff.

I was only staying in a room when I started downsizing for travel, but even then I had stuff in a storage room that I put over there “temporarily” and then forgot about for a few years. Pulling everything out and into the open was mind-blowing, because I didn’t realize I had THAT much stuff.

If you’re in a house, try doing this room-by-room. Take everything out of the closets, open all the boxes you can find, and get things out of storage. And if you have a storage unit already, don’t forget to look in there, too.

You don’t need to make a list of everything, necessarily, but you do need to have an idea of the AMOUNT of things you’ll need to process. That way you can make a schedule for downsizing and clearing out “stuff.” We’ll talk more about that schedule in Step 4.

The goal is to basically see the total amount of things you’ll need to process. Ideally this’ll start at MINIMUM 6 months before your travel start date, and up to a year before if you’re sorting through an entire house.

Step 2: Figure out what you want/need to keep

Okay, now the hard part : deciding what stays, and what goes.

How much you get rid of depends on what kind of person you are.

Usually there’s two types of people: those who want to try traveling, but aren’t sure if they’ll like it, and those who KNOW they want to travel full-time and want to jump right in. (I’m the latter type of person, by the way.)

Testing the waters (up to 1 year of full-time travel)

If you’re just testing the waters, or only want to travel for one year or so, then give yourself a bit of leeway. I actually don’t think it’s necessary to dump EVERYTHING, if you’re not even sure you’re going to like the nomad lifestyle.

Instead, focus on keeping the things that would be really annoying or expensive to replace when you get back, like business clothes and nicer furniture. This will mean you’ll have to pay for storage, but if it’s only for a year then just build the cost into your travel budget.

If and when you decide to keep traveling, then you can come back and get rid of more things.

Going all-in and living full-time as a nomad

If you’re planning on being a full-time nomad for more than a year, I recommend getting rid of as many things as you can. Including furniture! Usually what happens is people find out they LOVE traveling and want to keep doing it, and then they remember they have a huge storage unit of stuff back home that’s going to rack up more fees.

Just get rid of it at the start and when you decide to settle down again a few years from now, you can get new things.

What to get rid of?

Some ideas for what to dump:

• Cheap furniture (i.e. most of Ikea’s catalog)
• Old papers, like those essays you kept from high school for no reason
• Seasonal decor and fake Christmas trees (you can get new stuff later)
• Hobby items you haven’t used in year and can’t take on the road
• Clothes that used to fit but don’t now
• Most of your shoes (they’ll rot in storage anyway)
• Old electronics, TVs and phones
• Mattresses
• Books and magazines
• Collectibles (sell them to fund your trip)
• Art supplies (the paint will solidify)

What to keep?

On the flip side, these are usually worth paying storage for, at least for a bit:

• High quality antique furniture
• Family mementos and heirlooms
• Expensive winter or sports gear IF you plan to do winter or sports some time in the next 3 years
• Your personal papers e.g. birth certificate (you’d be surprised at what people accidentally throw out)
• Nice art pieces or handmade mug type things, 1-of-1 items that can’t be replaced
• Vintage clothes that can’t be easily found again

With the caveat that these things CAN be destroyed by improper storage, and that honestly if you’re going to be gone for years then they might be worth lending to friends and family for them to enjoy instead. At the very least put your personal papers in a safety deposit box.

🌟Tip: Take photos of things you like, but don’t want to keep. You can look back on the photos and connect with them that way, but they won’t be taking up valuable storage space.

Step 3: Decide where that stuff will go

Okay, so now that we’ve assessed what we have and what we want to keep, we need to decide where everything will go.

I put this step before the actual downsizing part because it’s easiest to match the SIZE of your storage to what you’re going to put in rather than the other way. If you downsize and THEN look for storage, you’re just going to keep more stuff because you can always go bigger. However, if you have a storage unit of a specific size picked out, then you HAVE to be able to fit everything in there– or else get rid of more things. See what I mean?

Now, for where to keep your things:

The best (and cheapest) way is to stash a few boxes with a friend or family member, if they have room for your stuff. Obviously, the less boxes of stuff you have, the easier this is to accomplish. This is what I’m doing and all my stuff more or less fits into my room’s old closet.

Then there’s a storage unit. Depending on where you live, this can get VERY costly, especially if you want a temperature-controlled unit. In Southern California, where I’m from, a basic storage unit costs something like $70/month for the smallest size.

I recommend picking the smallest storage unit you can find, honestly, especially if you’re not planning on coming back for more than a year. If you start with a bigger unit, you’ll save stuff just to fill it. It’s like a suitcase that way: they smaller you start with, the less room you have for “just in case” items.

Another option is to send your stuff to an international location, and then store it there. This could work if you plan to spend most of your time in Southeast Asia, say, or Mexico, and want to have your stuff closer to your new “base.” This works best for people who’ve already spent a significant amount of time in an area and know they’d want to settle there after traveling is over.

Step 4: Get rid of everything else

The most painful step, and one that MUST be done.

Once you have your assessment, your “keep” list and your storage space, you need to go through everything and get rid of it all. Ideally you’ll have enough time before your trip starts where you can break up this process into a weekly thing. Like, if you’re in a house, you’ll do one room a week.

I found that keeping to a schedule and doing a bit at a time is a lot less stressful than putting it off and trying to cram everything into the last week before the trip starts. Plus it means you can schedule events like yard sales, flea markets, and so on to sell some of the nicer “stuff” and make a little extra for your trip budget.

For the majority of my stuff I found it very easy to get rid of, but I ran into a problem with sentimental items and things I collected as part of a, well, collection. That meant I kept dragging my feet and putting off until later, and then eventually later was NOW and it was very stressful trying to wrap everything up at the end. I recommend doing the sentimental stuff interspersed with the regular stuff, so you have time to recover.

Where to get rid of stuff

Processing

There’s ways to “keep” sentimental or important things without having to actually keep the physical item. For instance, if you have a book collection but they aren’t expensive editions, you can either replace them with ebooks OR get them scanned using a service like 1DollarScan. It does destroy the books, but you’ll get a nice PDF version you can “take with you.”

Same thing for family photos, old family videos still on VHS tapes, and so on. Check your local area to see if there’s services that’ll digitize that stuff for you. It usually costs a bit, but once it’s done you can either toss the originals or send them to family members who want them.

Selling

For things worth $25-50+, or that will sell quickly and thus be worth the time and effort to sell them.

• eBay, Etsy, Mercari
• Facebook Marketplace
• Consignment shops — for things that are $$$ in particular
• Yard sales, flea markets, etc.

🤔 It can be hard to let go of things that you paid a lot of money for, especially when it turns out that the resale value isn’t what you hope it’d be. But just remember this: when you’re halfway around the world staring at an elephant and eating a bowl of noodles, you won’t care that you sold a $200 thing for a mere $50, you’ll just be happy you have that $50 to use for more noodles in a foreign country.

Donating

For things worth less than $25, or that won’t sell quickly and isn’t worth your time listing (but is still in good condition):

• Do a friends and family “grab what you want” day — Invite them over to rummage through your stuff and have a pizza with you before you go
• Thrift stores and charity shops
• Homeless shelters, animal shelters, etc. — double-check they’ll accept whatever you’re donating first, of course
• Little Free Libraries
• Schools, after-school programs, and daycares

Throwing Out

Broken, old, useless things that can’t be sold or donated.

• Electronic recycling programs (Best Buy does this for computers, for instance)
• Bulk pick-up for large items
• Literal trash

Final Thoughts

It’s a big task to downsize your life into a few boxes, and then further into a backpack or suitcase for a new life on the road! But once you have it done, you’ll be so happy you took the time to do it right. Not only will you NOT have to worry about a house full of stuff you don’t need, but you’ll be able to focus on your upcoming adventures and how you’re going to fit everything into your suitcase!