Travel hacks: Bring very little with you, return with a lot

When I first started backpacking over 2 decades ago I remember reading a physical book about this because we didn't use the internet for just everything damn thing ever! at that point in my life. In these books it was recommended over and over again that you travel light because the things that you think you need you either wont need them, they sell at the place you are going to, or the stuff you bring with you might seem appropriate but actually aren't for the climate of where you are traveling to.

I remember reading that what you bring with you for a month should fit inside of one medium-sized backpack or carry-on suitcase easily.

Of course try as I may, my nervousness and lack of experience in this realm resulted in me taking about 5 times as much stuff with me as I actually needed and just like the books at the time said i would, I ended up throwing out or giving away at least half of what I traveled with. My $150 Timberland boots that I brought with me were one of the first things to go when I realized that jungle hiking wasn't really going to be anything that I was going to do and even if I did go hiking, it wasn't going to be so hardcore that professional grade boots were going to be necessary.

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I will cover at a later time what it is exactly that you really truly need to bring with you, but if I do that now I run the risk of having this be too long. Basically now, when I do travel for a month or so, I ONLY bring a suitcase like the one you see above but when I go back to my home country I return with that same suitcase as well as a rather gigantic one that is FULL by the time I return.

This is because along my travels I will find various things that are either very unique, such as some sort of collectible or some sort of gift for a friend, or it might simply be a case of discovering something that I think all North Americans need to be aware of as far as overseas markets are concerned: They have the same exact stuff for sale there at a fraction of the price.

The economies of various places are deftly called "economies of scale" and what that means is that the people who sell something like, shirts for example, have figured out long ago what the population of a certain country is willing to pay for something and that's exactly what they charge. A $20 basic shirt in USA is $3 in most of central American and to a lessor degree Mexico, and if you travel to South East Asia there is a really good chance it will be considerably cheaper than that.

These shirts are, more often than not, made of the same sort of materials and often even contain the logos. Are they a genuine article? I have no idea but I presume they are not. When I think about how much money we in the states pay for labels I am a bit alarmed by how much a person is willing to pay for just a word or logo on a T-shirt.

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Sports jerseys or "kits" are absurdly overpriced in my home country but are just a few dollars in most places overseas. On one particular haul I returned to my home town with various sports shirts from various clubs or teams that I knew my friends loved and they were just delighted to receive these. This is because a shirt like that is something ridiculous like $100 "back home" but overseas they don't cost any more than just a regular shirt does.

Is this legal? I have no idea and it isn't my business to figure that out. This isn't some sort of back-alley operation that only people involved with the dark underbelly of foreign countries know about, it is all over the place and very noticeable anywhere that you go.

This is where the big suitcase that you are going to procure while traveling comes into play. You are going to need a bunch of space for gifts and things to take back home with you.

Well here is where that really great value comes in again and is a showcase about how we are ripped off in our home countries for suitcases as well. Knock off brands of suitcases can be difficult to find in USA as the marketplace seems to favor the "real brands" that charge what I consider to be absurd prices for something that no doubt is really easy to manufacture.

one of those crazy suitcases with wheels on it that you could fit yourself in if you needed to, can be picked up almost anywhere in the world for around $20-$30. Will this be as robust as a Samsonite? Well I hope not but I know that mine have all stood the test of time and the case itself becomes a gift as well when I return to my home country because when I move to travel again, I repeat the process with another new suitcase.

There is an ongoing joke among my friends about "who is going to get the large suitcase this time?" every time I return and just like I posted about a couple of entries ago, it is always some sort of strange color too.

Most of what you are going to be bringing back is low-quality stuff but it will be appreciated by your friends that aren't as intrepid a traveler as you are.

Trust me on this one, you can save a bundle and make a lot of people happy by packing light on your way to wherever you are going, and by just buying the suitcase and the stuff to put in it, while you are there.