How much stuff do we now need to not only function, but work and live life fully?

Last weekend I moved house, or more accurately I’ve carted 20 boxes, two bikes, an ironing board and a desk from Stockwell to Forest Hill.  The ordeal of packing, moving and unloading took the best part of a day plus previous efforts to cajole 3 friends into lugging a van’s worth of guff up four flight of steps.  But this isn’t the first time I’ve relocated - In my 2 years in London I’ve done 5 moves due to a mixture of rubbish landlords, enacted break clauses, and intermittent spells of staying at friends’ (I am however, obviously a perfect tenant :-)

At which point does the effort of moving everything become greater than the pleasure the things allow? And what opportunities am I missing by being rooted to the ground by a mountain of possessions?

Location independent living is modern day form of nomadism made possible by technology.  The theory is that if you spend 90% of your time working from a computer, that computer (and therefore the worker), could be anywhere in the world.

And then the possibilities really start, travel and communications have never been easier, so why not split your time between Thailand and LA? The price difference averages out to a permanent residence in London…

OK that sounds fun, but aren’t you just replacing the stress of moving lots of stuff once in a while with the stress of moving a small amount of stuff often?  Not to mention the continual planning and budgeting to make it all work out.

A few folk have decided that this is the lifestyle for them - here are tales of their experience

Site dedicated to location independent living by two of the early pioneers

Tim Ferriss picked up on the possibility in the 4 hour work week

BBC News Article on the Cult of Less

So am I going to sell my boxes of kitchen equipment, clothes, tools and sports kit and join the jetset? Simply no. I think a permanent life of travel would get tiresome fairly quickly as travel is only fun if it has a purpose or is with people you want to spend time with.  Travel should be about adventure, not having nowhere to stop.

Also I don’t think having minimum possessions is particularly satisfactory, in-fact it is a lecherous, as when at home possessions are useful, to cook food, fix items, build new stuff, brew beer, play sports and whatever other activities make up your lifestyle. When you don’t have your own stuff you have to borrow other peoples or do without.

So what about a third way, allowing location independence without the tradeoff of becoming a lecherous nomad?  Thankfully the internet yet again has the solution.  With One Fine Stay and Air B’n’B you can keep your home base to enjoy when you are in residence, but rent it out for the days you are travelling.  Similarly you can choose someone else’s home to stay in anywhere in the world full of their wonderful, useful stuff, so you can take up their lifestyle where they left off whether that is cooking a local delicacy or swimming in the ocean.