Travel is about freedom, and how can you fly like a bird with a 50 pound suitcase chained to your leg?

I am here to tell you that "Less is More".  

The secret to this philosophy lies in the fact that everything is related, everything is connected.  If you have a cluttered home, you will have a cluttered mind.  If you have an overfull suitcase or backpack, you will have an overfull mind.  This is where stress comes from.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:  "I need these shoes to go with this outfit, and this outfit to go clubbing, and that outfit for the beach"- stop, just stop!   You probably won't end up wearing half of your hardline preparations, and you will pay dearly for lugging them around.  The more you have, the more you have to lose.  

The cost will be the freedom to go where you want to, and more importantly, the stress of:

• having to be at the airport an extra hour early,
• pay extra for checkin,
• freakout when they lose your bag,
• double freakout when someone steals from your bag,
• protect and load your too-big-for-coach foreigner suitcase under a bus to cross the country.  

Anddd The list goes on.  The old mantra of traveling was "be prepared for anything", the new mantra is "improvise for anything".  You will be so much happier if you only have a few outfits to lug around, clean, and manage.  

We did Asia for 4 months with five shirts, two pairs of pants, five pairs of socks, five pairs of underwear, and some swimming gear.  That was it!  There was also room to buy a few cool new outfits in Thailand in Vietnam  Most of it was quick dry, which made it small and light, and very easy to clean in a sink.  This is a great way to travel.  

No stress, if I lost my possessions I would just get new ones (except the laptop - I protected the macbook like a child).

Thats all there really is to it.

Now when I travel, I only take what fits in the Rolo, anything more is too much.  This doesn't always work of course.  Sometimes we need formal attire, or winter gear.  These things won't fit in a Rolo, but lets use the trusty 80/20 rule as a basis for improvement.

Do you have any tips for minimal travel?  Post them below!