On minimalism

I watch a lot of YouTube channel about travel, travel vloggers, and other kind of travel related content.
Minimalism is clearly trending, and match quite well with travel, especially long term, as you have to reduce what you actually carry to feel comfortable.
However, many instagramers or youtubers seems to buy a all bunch of new and branded minimalist clothes, backpack or whatever outdoor related.
Indeed, to replace all your «travel set up» by a full new one marketed as minimalist sounds a bit contradictory to me…
I feel this minimalist aspect of travel vloggers tend to be very commercial and capitalist, probably because of the affiliations with brands.
But I noticed this idea of starting a backpack out of full new items in smaller youtubers as well, who didn’t have any affiliations with brands.
So in this post I would like to explain what minimalism is to me, to bring a different perspective.

When I started traveling, I didn’t have a lot of money, so I just started out with a basic Decathlon backpack, my everyday clothes and other stuff you carry when you travel, which I used everyday as well.
Even after I started to travel for longer times, I used the old backpack I could find at home instead of buying one. I wanted to keep as much money as possible for the actual trip rather than spending everything before even beeing abroad…
It was not always convenient and I sometimes regretted I didn’t buy a fancy 200€ backpack that seemed so much more comfortable.
Now, I think I did well not buying one of those, as my travel habits changed and my backpack start to became lighter and lighter. So if I had bought a backpack at the beginning of my trips, I would not even use it today anymore, as it don’t feet my habits anymore!
So I would encourage anyone to try different kind of backpacks with different sizes to see which fits out better. For that, you don’t need to leave on a 5 months trip now to try it out! Only two days camping or visiting a city nearby are enough for you to have an idea of what your travel pack looks like, and then knowing what you’re searching for when you’ll eventually buy one.
Then I would highly encourage second hand shops, online especially. Good and efficient backpacking products are not always easy to find in actual thrift or second hand shops. I bought the backpack I use now online, via Vinted, a famous second hand website in France which is now growing abroad as well. There’s many exchanges between hikers on facebook groups as well… Just search a little bit and you’ll find expensive and quality brands for next to nothing.

This for backpacks, but what about clothes? Well, the clothes you’re conformtable in, in your everyday life, are more than enough for a trip, even for several months. I honestly don’t understand why some travelers need a whole new set of clothes dedicated to travel. If you don’t hike everyday and travel as a regular tourist, you just need your regular clothes!

So this is what minimalism looks like to me: Packing what you already have in your closet, instead of buying new products you’re not even sure you’ll need.
Minimalism became a way for companies to make you buy their products, but if you just understand the word as it’s root, you don’t actually need to buy anything.

This is my «not much money to spend» and second hand vision of it, give me your! 😀