I often travel either as solo traveler or in group, either with the bicycle, motorcycle, bus, train and even a flight. As a traveler, I love to carry the essentials gear and equipment together. There is no 'biawak' in my backpack or haversack or my army sack.
Of all the travel skills you might acquire, travelling light is the one most likely to result in enjoyable, productive, stress-free travel experiences. For two thousand years, seasoned travelers have written of its many important benefits, including
Security
With a much reduced need to hand your belongings over to the care of others, you are less likely to lose them to theft, damage, or misrouting. Similarly, you foil those who would enlist your unsuspecting aid as a conveyor of contraband goods. Attaining peace of mind is rarely this easy!
Economy
You can laugh at checked baggage fees. You don't have to pay porters and others to carry and store stuff for you. You are more able to take public transportation (even from airports, like flight crews and airport personnel do), rather than limos, shuttles, and (often scam-prone) taxis. You can even walk. All of which also bring you into more intimate (hence rewarding) contact with the people and places that you have come to visit.
Navigability
Less stuff means greater mobility, thus more navigational choices. With no checked or awkward-to-manage luggage to limit your travel options, you can better cope with delayed transportation, missed connections, and unexpected opportunities. You can switch to earlier flights when space is available. You needn't arrive at airports as early, and will be among the first to leave (despite the head start given those in first class), while the mobs wait at baggage carousels and long inspection queues. You can board trains, trams, and coaches with alacrity. You won't feel compelled to take the first hotel room offered: you can comfortably walk down the street should the ambience be unsuitable or the price unreasonable. You can sell your airplane seat (by volunteering to be "bumped") on full flights. You can travel as an air courier. You can be more spontaneous. Ultimately, you can enjoy an unfettered freedom that is forever denied to those who remain chained to their luggage.
Serenity
If there is a bottom line, it's that travelling light is simply a more stress-and-hassle-free way to go. You have more time, because packing takes little. You waste less energy hauling stuff. You know what you have, where everything is, and that it's sufficient. We've all seen those hapless folks at the airport, with too much baggage and anxious expressions, concerned that they have lost track of something, or left it behind. Foreign travel in particular can be challenging because it is unfamiliar and unpredictable, but the one-bag traveller copes by operating from a solid, familiar, well-considered foundation, with fewer unnecessary things to worry about.
Ecology
All of the above are concerned with short-term benefits to you. But travelling light also yields long-term benefits to the planet. Less stuff to manufacture. Less use of vehicles and other equipment to move you and your things about. Less fuel for the vehicles that do move you. Less greenhouse gas production. Less damage to our celestial home. Greater likelihood of upcoming generations being around and able to do some travelling of their own. (It's not often that the most convenient option is also the most environmentally responsible.)
As a bottom line, learning to travel light simply makes a good SENSE (Security, Economy, Navigability, Serenity, Ecology).
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