“How many bags?”

“Just one” I replied, motioning to the small 30L backpack on my shoulder.

“And how much luggage?”

“None… just this one bag.”

It’s as if people can not comprehend someone traveling with only one bag. Everyone, from the airline ticket attendant, to the taxi driver, to the clerk at the hotel, seemed to insist that I must have more luggage.

I sat down in an empty section of Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport and put my bag down on the seat next to me. As I watched people wrestle with multiple suitcases, I looked over at my lonely bag and remembered how different my life used to be.

Just over a year ago, I announced on this blog that I was closing a chapter in my life, a chapter of excess possessions and unnecessary waste. I wrote about my desire to live with everything on my back and roam the world as a nomad.

I followed my intuition and today, after spending the past six months living in India, Vietnam, and Nepal, I’m writing about the lifestyle that was once only a dream.

25 Things

At some point during my travels, I decided to count how many items I was living with and the number came surprisingly close to twenty-five.

1. Apple MacBook Pro + Charger
2. Apple iPhone + Charger
3. Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 Digital Camera + Charger + Extra battery
4. Apple Magic Mouse
5. Western Digital 500GB External Hard Drive + USB Cable
6. Nokia Mobile Phone + Charger
7. Earbuds + 16GB Thumbdrive + Mobile Data Card
8. Travel Adapter
9. North Face Trousers
10. Prana Trousers
11. North Face T-Shirt
12. Jack Wolfskin Shirt
13. 2 x Eastern Mountain Sports Boxers
14. Wool Socks (1 pair)
15. Vibram FiveFingers Sprint
16. North Face Hiking Shoes
17. Moleskin Notebook + Pencil
18. Medical Kit
19. Hygiene Kit (Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Tongue Cleaner, Floss)
20. Survival Kit (Firestarter, Compass/Whistle/Thermometer, Headlamp, Twine)
21. Water Bottle
22. Travel Towel
23. 3 x Dry Bags + Backpack Dry Cover
24. Misc Travel Documents (Passport, License, Cash, Credit Cards, printed airplane ticket confirmations, etc.)
25. Crumpler Customary Barge 30L Backpack

I’ve decided to start tracking my possessions on the 25 Things page, where you will always find an updated list of items and a description of the rules that I’m following. You can also read more about what motivated me to start this personal challenge.

Traveling with 25 Things (Including Two Pair of Underwear)

The day before I left home, all my stuff was spread out on the living room floor. I was trying to decide exactly what to pack in one bag for the next six months.

There were several things that I considered essential based on their ability to replace multiple objects: a laptop, a good camera, and a smartphone.

The digital camera, for example, became both my video camera and my scanner. The smartphone became a whole slew of other small accessories: Calculator, address book, MP3 player, WiFi finder, and more.

The laptop became my entire library, full of ebooks, podcasts, and maps. It also acted as my filing cabinet, containing digital copies of anything that I didn’t require a hard copy of (I use the digital camera to capture high-res images of papers and receipts).

The Internet is probably one of the most useful tools: I use it to research the places I’m going visit, find and reserve cheap places to stay, purchase airplane tickets, and even take care of all my banking and bill payments. It also acts as my primary means of communication with Skype, Email, Facebook, and Twitter. I even check my physical postal mail online using a service called EarthClassMail.

A minimalist digital nomad eliminates physical objects and reduces the requirement to be in a physical location by finding creative ways to use technology.

Once my bag was packed with the absolute essentials, there was only so much room left to fit non-essentials. Clothing was my wild-card item — whatever space was left in my bag would determine how much clothing came with me. Thankfully, at least two pair of underwear made the cut.

Traveling with two pair of underwear meant that I would inevitably need to wear the same pair at least twice without washing them. However, by wearing my swim trunks at least twice a week (without underwear), I discovered that I could go almost an entire week without washing my clothes.

It should be noted that since most of my clothing is designed for extended use, it’s treated with antimicrobial agents that discourage the growth of bacteria. Even when they’ve been soaked in sweat for two days, the clothes don’t stink.

A Lifetime of Experiences in Six Months

In the past six months, I’ve called more than 26 places home, including a train, a bus, an airport, and a farmhouse.

I’ve dried my clothes in the sun alongside coconuts, shared a bed with dozens of 2″ cockroaches, and spent the night sleeping on a wet stone floor in a mountaintop hut.

I’ve crossed paths with snakes that could kill me; I’ve been offered weed more times than I can count; I’ve forgotten the names of places I used to frequent back home; I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been sick, and I’ve even had my arm grabbed by hookers riding a motorcycle.

But through all that, I’ve also witnessed life-changing events; I’ve given my first public speech to a crowd of school children in Nepal; I’ve made new friends from a dozen different countries; I’ve become more spontaneous and fearless; and I’ve gone through more personal development than I thought possible.

My self-confidence has gone through the roof and I’ve learned so much about myself and the world around me. I’ve become more humble and compassionate and I’ve discovered a calling and a sense of purpose that has given me crystal-clear clarity.

On days of the week where I normally would’ve been holed up in an office or stuck somewhere in traffic, I was walking along beaches and hiking through jungles.

But I Don’t Advocate This Lifestyle

This lifestyle is not practical for everyone. For example, if you’re in college, if you have kids and a family, or if you own a brick-and-mortar business, your circumstances will likely prohibit such an extreme reduction of possessions.

And that’s fine.

If you’re happy with your lifestyle, then by all means don’t change it.

What’s important isn’t that you can live with all your stuff in one bag, but rather that your mindset and approach to life is one that doesn’t create unnecessary waste or complication.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

In a material world, it’s only natural that simplicity would be taken to mean fewer material possessions. But there’s more to life than physical objects.

We have hopes and dreams, thoughts and feelings, passions and desires. We love and we sympathize. We exercise our mind and our body. We create, develop, and maintain relationships.

Life involves so much more than material possessions and yet the wonderful benefits of minimalism are so often directed only to our “stuff” — we think about how we can apply minimalist principals to the material world, but everything else remains as complicated as ever.

What I advocate is the practice of practical minimalism, that is the application of minimalist principals to all areas of life.

The Benefits of Becoming a Practical Minimalist

You don’t need to live out of a backpack or travel the world to realize the benefits of minimalism. Not everyone can, should, or even wants to live with twenty-five items. However, I believe that you can find more happiness and peace by simplifying your approach to life.

You can reduce unnecessary stress, find more happiness, and live with less mental, emotional, and physical pain. You can learn things faster and discover whatever you’re looking for more quickly. You can see life more clearly and make even the most stressful or confusing situations seem trivial.

You can discover how everything in life — including your possessions if that’s your goal — can be maintained in a way that is more sustainable.

Six Steps to Practical Minimalism

To share some of what I’ve learned, I’ve created a free email series called Six Steps to Practical Minimalism.

In this series, I will use stories and lessons from my own past experience to show you how to apply minimalist principals to various areas of life.

To start receiving this series, all you need to do is sign up for the email newsletter. If you’ve already signed up, you should automatically start receiving the series within the next day or two.

***

Tomorrow marks the last week of my six month journey. The thought of returning to the USA conjures up the same feelings that I felt when I left for a foreign country six months ago and I can’t help but wonder what strange thoughts, feelings, and emotions I will encounter when I arrive. But it definitely feels good to be going back home.

I’d like to say that I haven’t felt homesick on the entire trip, but the truth is that I do miss my family and I do miss the familiarity of an environment where my senses aren’t constantly being bombarded with unusual sights, sounds, and smells.

I’m sure it won’t be too long before I’m itching to get moving again. If this six month trip has confirmed one thing, it’s that travel is in my blood.

Frugal Travel Reports
March 2010 (includes Pre-Travel expenses)
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010

***

At the beginning of the month, I took an unplanned three day trip to visit two small towns in the mountains north of Kathmandu where an NGO is helping build schools for children in Nepal. That last minute decision turned out to be the highlight of my entire six month journey.

After returning to Kathmandu, I went with a friend to Pokhara where we spent six days trekking in the Himalayan mountains. When we were finished, my friend returned to Kathmandu but I stayed behind to spend an extra week in Pokhara.

I then took a bus back to Kathmandu where I spent one week in the now familiar backpacker district of Thamel. Of the eight weeks I’ve spent in Nepal, five were spent in Thamel. Although it’s probably one of the most expensive places to spend time, it removed any need for transportation and made getting online easy and (at least somewhat) reliable.

***

Lodging

At the beginning of the month, I spent two nights visiting the schools in Kahule and Bhalche. The two brothers from the non-profit organization provided me with free lodging for the trip (once in a guest house and once in their private home, perched on the side of a mountain above the clouds).

While I was trekking outside Pokhara, my friend and guide paid for all the expenses. I paid him back at the end of our trip in one lump sum, however I estimated the lodging cost at $4.50 per night (350 NRS).

In Pokhara, my friend negotiated a good rate for a guest house right on Lakeside (the main tourist strip of Pokhara) at $3.30/night (250 NRS). The room wasn’t very clean, the toilet required manual flushing (I had to reach my hand into the tank and pull the lever manually), and there was no room service, but it was a place to sleep. After spending several weeks in a room without a bathroom (the cheapest room at Kathmandu Guest House with shared bath/shower), I now consider any room that has its own bathroom to be a plus.

When I returned to Kathmandu, my friend invited me to stay at his place for free. However, it would’ve meant commuting into the city every day to get Internet access and since Kathmandu Guest House offered me a cheap rate ($6/night) and they had in-room WiFi, I decided to stay in Thamel.

The last three nights of the month I won’t be incurring any expense as I will be staying with my relatives at their home in Delhi.

Food

As with last month, food expenses this month were exceptionally high for Nepal. I attribute this to the time I spent in the Himalayan Java cafe in Thamel, the Olive Cafe in Pokhara, and the higher priced food during the trekking. I estimate that it cost me approximately $6.60 a day (500 NRS) for my meals during the six days of trekking.

I was sick for most of my stay in Pokhara, so skimping on food or trying to watch my food expense was the last thing on my mind. In Kathmandu, I returned to my routine of breakfast and lunch at a cheap Nepali restaurant and coffee and dinner somewhere more expensive (an organic cafe).

The first three days of the month when I visited the schools, and the last three days of the month where I stayed with relatives, there was no food expense.

Transportation

The eight hour trip to and from visiting the schools at the beginning of the month was covered by the two brothers who showed me around (I rode on the back of a motorcycle on the way there and took a micro-bus on the way back).

For the eight our journey from Kathmandu to Pokhara, we took a comfortable tourist bus for $6.60 (500 NRS). We then took a local bus to and from Nayapul (the village where we started and ended our trek). There were a few other local buses in between while we were in Pokhara. My bus from Pokhara back to Kathmandu was a cheaper $4.70 ride (350 NRS).

Taxis were used a few times in Pokhara to get from the bus station to the guest house and three times in Kathmandu to get from the bus station to Thamel, from Thamel to Bhaisipati (where I watched traditional Sherpa music being recorded by BBC Radio in a private home), and from Thamel to the airport to catch my flight to Delhi.

When I arrived in Delhi, the taxi from the airport to my relatives home was a tad expensive at $10.66 (480 RS) for the 20km trip (12mi). But we got stuck in traffic for two hours (yes, two hours to go 20km/12mi) so I guess it was worth the price.

The plane ticket from Kathmandu to Delhi was the most expensive transportation cost, but when I learned there was a huge Japanese encephalitis outbreak in the same district that I would’ve passed through had I stuck with my original plan to make the trip over land, I was happy to spend the extra money. Japanese encephalitis was one of the vaccines I decided to skip six months ago because of the cost.

Total Distance Traveled: ~1,528km (~950mi)

Other Expenses

That’s quite a list! As a minimalist traveling with one backpack who advocates frugal travel, you might wonder what’s going on here. Let me explain.

The first six items on the list are related to my decision to go trekking. My friend and his cousin, both trekking guides in Nepal, paid for all the expenses during the six days we were gone. At the end of the trip, he said the total expenses were between $150 and $200. I estimated that $70 of that amount were my own expenses and the remainder were my friend and his cousins’ expenses. (I had no problem paying for their expenses since they did such an awesome job showing me around.)

The trekking permits were non-negotiable and were required at checkpoints along the trail. It rained on and off during the trek, so the dry cover for my bag was essential. I only had my Vibram FiveFingers for shoes, so hiking shoes and socks were also needed (I originally bought two pair of cheap wool socks, but after the trek both pair were full of holes; I bought one more pair of higher quality socks for the rest of my trip). Hiking in the heat with a long-sleeve shirt is no fun and since I had no t-shirts with me, I picked one up.

The laundry detergent, shampoo, toothbrush, mobile phone refill, and AA batteries should all be self explanatory. Since the hotel had shared showers and no bucket to wash my clothes, I used the laundry service twice in Kathmandu. I also got tired of trimming my nails using the knife on the multitool that I bought last month, so I finally gave in a bought a nail clipper. The multitool and nail clippers couldn’t be taken on the plane, so I gifted the multitool to a friend and left the nail clippers for the maid at the hotel.

The iPod Shuffle was an item that I spent several days contemplating when my iPhone died just after we arrived in Pokhara. I was left without any way to listen to music and I knew that I had an eight hour bus ride back to Kathmandu, a plane ride to Delhi, and then a 20+ hour flight back home ahead of me. I love music and it really helps pass time, so my options were to buy a cheap knock-off MP3 player for $30 or an iPod Shuffle for $67. I realized that I’d be able to resell the Shuffle for at least $40 when I got back home, while the knock-off MP3 player wouldn’t resell for anything.

And finally, the Jack Wolfskin shirt was a replacement for the brown long-sleeve shirt you’ve seen my wearing in a several photos and videos. That brown shirt is two years old and has several tears. When it began smelling of mold even after being washed, I knew it was time to replace it. Good quality shirts that would sell for $80 back home can be found for $20 in Nepal, so I picked one up to replace the brown shirt.

Summary

If you subtract the iPod Shuffle, the expenses from trekking, and the plane ticket to Delhi, it brings this month’s expenses down to $430, much closer to my monthly target of $250. However, I didn’t try very hard to stay within budget this month and several unexpected expenses cropped up.

I also made the slightly more expensive decision to fly back to India instead of going over land. However, it’s a decision that allowed me to avoid an area where an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis has already killed more than 200 people.

Of my initial $3,000 six-month budget for this trip, I’ve now gone about $2,000 over and that puts my average monthly expenses at around $600 a month. Of course those expenses included several plane tickets (from India to Vietnam, Vietnam to Nepal, Nepal to India) and also Visa expenses (Vietnam and Nepal).

This is my last full month abroad and by the middle of September I will be back in the United States. Once I get back to the States, I will do one more report to summarize the entire six month trip. If you haven’t subscribed, be sure to get on the email list or grab the RSS feed to stay updated.

***

I will spend the next two weeks in India relaxing and working from the comfort of my relatives home in Delhi. Their home is located on the top floor of a gated community, next to the brand new metro line which goes squeaking by every ten minutes or so.

The journey from Kathmandu to Delhi was uneventful, with the exception of going through security at the Kathmandu airport: Twelve security checkpoints, three metal detectors, and my entire bag emptied not once, but three times (they weren’t singling me out, they did this to everybody).

For most people, emptying their backpack wouldn’t be a big deal, but when every single one of your possessions is in that bag — everything you’ve carried with you for the past six months — emptying your bag becomes quite an ordeal and a bit more personal.

Arriving in Delhi, there was something about smelling the air that brought back a surge of memories, emotions, and a sense of familiarity. I’m not sure if it had something to do with having spent my first three months abroad in India or if I was feeling a strong sense of connection; a sense of belonging.

I can’t help but wonder what smelling the air back home will be like when I return in two weeks.

It’s one thing to see less fortunate people on the street and have the urge to help them, but it’s something else entirely to have almost one hundred children staring at you hoping that you’ll do something to improve their future.

It was my second day visiting the schools in Nepal and I had been greeted like a king and given my first-ever public speech a few hours earlier. I was feeling extremely moved and inspired by how I might be able to help so many people.

As I hiked from the first village of Kahule to the even more remote village of Bhalche, the strangest thought came to me: How could I fulfill this urge to dedicate my life to helping improve the world and still justify skydiving?

For that matter, how could I justify doing anything recreational or fun that wasn’t directly related to helping others?

How could I spend days hiking or camping in remote forests, snowboarding down beautiful mountains of snow and ice, or allow myself to become immersed in a stimulating computer game?

What about my aspirations to become a triathlete, master scuba diver, and airplane pilot?

What about my endless love for learning and studying various fields of technology like computer programming, network security, robotics, amateur radio, and electronics (just to name a few)?

Did I have to throw all of that out the window if I wanted to dedicate my life to helping others?

Over the past few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that question and contemplating how fun and play fit into the greater scheme of things. I recalled how my dad always posed the question, “Why do children play hide-n-seek?”. His response was always the same: “They just do. It’s fun.”

When we become adults, we don’t stop playing. We just become a little more serious and change the name from “fun and play” to “hobbies and interests”.

But could a hobby that appears to only benefit ourselves be used to help others?

I realized that one of the best ways to increase the value of our hobbies is to share them — the simple act of sharing turns even the most mundane hobby into a source of value.

For example, the Frugal Travel Reports that I publish at the end of every month have become somewhat of a hobby for me. Every day I write down and categorize my expenses. The activity helps me work towards my goal of living frugally and helps keep me accountable. It’s fun, but in the greater scheme of things is it really that important?

Will these reports change the world? Doubtful. But are they providing any value to my life? Definitely. By sharing the reports with everyone on my blog, am I increasing their overall value? Absolutely.

Sharing instantly adds value to any activity.

Software developer? Make your projects open-source and collaborate with others.

Triathlete? Become a fitness coach or write about the training.

Scuba diver? Use the perspective you gain from being immersed in a new world to inspire others.

Gamer? Uh… well maybe some things really are just for fun.

Play is an exercise for life

Just as it’s important to exercise our bodies, it’s also important to exercise our life. Fun and play is exercise for life. Your hobbies and interests, no matter how unrelated to your work or seemingly useless to the rest of the world, are important; they’re important for your well-being.

Everything needs exercise: Our bodies need it to stay healthy, the economy needs it to grow, our skills need it to stay sharp, even babies need it to develop their voice.

Life is no different. If you don’t exercise life regularly, you will become rusty and burned out. If you’re burned out and unhappy, you won’t be fully capable of helping others no matter how much you want to.

As long as we remember what’s important and we don’t lose focus, our hobbies will enrich our lives and make us more capable human beings. If we’re not just thinking about ourselves and we balance pleasure with responsibility, we will be learning and increasing our overall potential to help others.

But moderation and balance are key. Too much exercise is just as harmful as too little.

If watching TV helps you relax, sitting on the couch all day isn’t going to be beneficial to anyone, including yourself. If you enjoy playing a computer game, wasting hours every day in a virtual world isn’t going to help you make a difference in the lives of others.

Play, but play responsible. Have fun, but balance it with responsibility.

Now go have fun

Do something fun this weekend and think about how you’re exercising life. Think about how the activity is helping make you a better person and how it’s preparing you for the challenges in the week ahead.

While you’re at it, ask yourself how you could make that activity even more valuable by sharing it with someone else.

***

I will be flying back to India on Sunday, so this will most likely be my last blog post from Nepal (at least for this year). The past two months have been full of incredible, spontaneous, and unexpected events that have led to more inner growth than I could have possibly imagined.

I gave my first public speech to a crowd of school children, trekked up into the Himalayan mountains more than 2000m (6,000ft), and wrote and published my first ebook. You might call some of it hard work, but it was fun!

“Fear of failure is a ticket to mediocrity. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not pushing yourself. And if you’re not pushing yourself, you’re coasting.” – Eric Zorn

That quote came across my screen after having spent almost twenty minutes aimlessly passing time on Facebook. I suddenly realized that for the past few weeks I haven’t been pushing myself or risking failure. I’ve been coasting.

Case in point: I wasn’t going to publish anything on this blog today. I had already decided that my next post would be on Friday. It was easier that way. I had no idea what to write and I was relying on inspiration to strike at some point between now and then to write a great post.

The truth is that ever since releasing my first ebook and visiting the schools in Nepal, I’ve felt the pressure from my inner perfectionist to continue outdoing myself.

Every blog post I wrote had to be better than the previous (my first post after releasing the ebook was the most difficult). I was afraid of publishing something that was off-topic, uninteresting, or not up to par with my previous posts.

I talked with my friend Ali Dark about how I was feeling and what did he do? He turned around and wrote a love letter to bloggers who might be feeling the same way. He turned my fear of failure into a success!

What was wrong with me? I knew that I had so much to offer and that my readers weren’t going to disappear if I wrote even the most off-topic post, so why was I experiencing this fear of failure?

As I contemplated that question, I realized that fear of failure is not natural. We’re only afraid of failure because we’re afraid of what others might think. This fear is a direct result of our being taught by society that success is good and failure is bad.

However, despite this social conditioning few people other than ourselves even recognize failure, let alone take it into consideration.

Think about somebody famous. How many of their failures can you think of? Now think about a friend. How many of their failures can you think of? Now quickly think about your own life. Do your failures or your successes stand out first?

When we meet someone and ask them “What do you do?”, we’re not asking them “What are your failures?”. We want to know about their successes and their accomplishments. We want to hear the reasons we should get to know them better.

Everybody can fail, but not everybody succeeds. It only makes sense then that we would be more interested in successes than failures. If nobody is really interested in failures, why should we be so afraid of them?

There are only two reasons we fail: Success wasn’t possible or we didn’t have everything we needed to succeed. Either way, every failure becomes a chance for success because it’s an opportunity not to fail again. This is why failure is so important.

The only time failure is bad is when we don’t use it to adjust our approach or change direction. If we’re not adjusting our approach or changing direction, we’re just coasting. We’re not making progress and we’re not improving.

Without failure, we have no power to adjust course. Without failure, we have no feedback mechanism to tell us when we need to change direction or how we can move towards success.

Remember that nobody wants to remember failures, but everybody wants to remember successes. Because of that fact, success tends to accumulate while failure decays and falls by the wayside.

As long as we’re prepared to learn and take action, we should never be afraid of failing too often.

So ask yourself, what have you failed at recently? If the answer is nothing, then you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough. If you haven’t made any mistakes or learned any big lessons lately, then you’re probably playing it too safe.

Succumbing to fear of failure is dumping your fuel for success down the drain.

If you want to succeed, stop being afraid to fail.

Many people had told me that taking an airplane would be safer and on several occasions I found myself wondering if I should’ve listened to them. The eight hour ride on a tourist bus between Pokhara and Kathmandu wasn’t the most comfortable, but that’s what I get for spending $5 to take me more than 280km (170+ miles) over mountains where the roads were littered with evidence of total failure.

As I gazed out the window and watched the landscape change from city to mountainous countryside and then back to city, I couldn’t help but feel saddened by how enthusiastically the cities seem to grow. So much pollution, waste, and destruction follow in their path leaving the Earth malformed, blackened, and bare.

It’s the monsoon season here in Nepal and the rivers are raging. Small streams of water trickle down everywhere from the green mountains. The locals often cut the bottoms off old plastic bottles and use them as funnels to create small water spouts. More commonly though, they use flat stones or pieces of bamboo sliced in half to create channels that direct the trickling streams into neat little picturesque waterfalls.

These water spouts are used for everything from filling buckets of drinking water, to washing clothes, to brushing teeth, and yes, even for taking a shower (on one occasion, the waterfall pictured above was my shower). All of this activity often takes place on the roadside, fully visible to passing traffic.

As the bus approached Kathmandu and the human creations mixed with mother nature at an increasingly depressing rate, I looked at one of those simple bamboo waterspouts and thought about what I would find in its place in the developed world: a complex network of manufactured plastic and copper pipes.

It got me thinking about how when we choose to take matters into our own hands and create things that we feel nature isn’t already providing for us, we become fully responsible for those creations. When we create, we become responsible for what nature has found a way incorporate by default: sustainability.

Reusing plastic bottles for anything at all is a lot better than just buying and tossing them, but I realized that this need for responsibility extends much further than just plastic bottles. It extends much deeper than our desire to change and control our environment.

We’re constantly creating things whether we realize it or not. Wealth. Relationships. Responsibilities. Problems. Circumstances. Risks. Thoughts. Feelings. Ideas.

When we create wealth for example, we have a responsibility to use that wealth to support the growth of things that will be conducive to harmony. That means choosing how we spend our money wisely. It means using our knowledge and our potential in ways that contribute to positive growth.

When we create a relationship, we have a responsibility to nurture trust, honesty, and respect. That means having integrity and being reliable. It means sharing, communicating, and offering help without asking for something in return.

When we feed our body we’re providing it with fuel to create new cells and as such, we have a responsibility to ensure that our creation is harmonious with nature. That means eating healthy and exercising to maintain a full range of functionality and maximize long-term well-being.

Life is creation. Life is responsibility. Failing to accept responsibility is failing to accept life.

Are you taking full responsibility for all the things you create or do you create and then hope that somehow nature will lend you a helping hand? That somehow everything will turn out OK if you ignore the problems with your creation?

For days after returning to Pokhara, my stomach was upset and my body refused everything I fed it. My head was on cloud nine and my body was endlessly tired. My inner energies were dissipated and my life felt out of whack.

Any attempt to reply to emails, work on writing, catch up with social media, or even explore the city, was met with solid mental and physical resistance. All I could focus on was eating healthy and resting until my health improved.

I could have struggled. I could have sucked it up and battled through it. I could have ignored the fact that my temple was in need of repair and instead focused on work. I could have ignored my own needs and told myself that I needed to sacrifice.

But what good would that have done? How would being selfish towards myself help me in my quest to help others?

The words “be the change you wish to see in the world” are easy to say, but the danger behind the simplicity of those words is that changing ourselves is not an easy task. It’s a complex and oftentimes difficult endeavor. In fact, it can be so difficult that neglecting ourselves and choosing to help others is often the easier option!

But there’s a good reason why change starts with us. Our body is our temple. If we neglect it, we won’t have anywhere to go for shelter. We won’t have a vehicle to deliver our good actions. We won’t have an instrument to spread our positive energies.

If we let our homes deteriorate, we’ll be too concerned with what’s wrong at home to spend time working on anything else. We’ll become our own distraction.

Are you interested in helping others? Then begin by helping those close to you, starting with yourself. When you’ve become a professional at helping yourself — when you’ve become a pro at being you and fully understanding how you work inside out — only then will you have the skills and resources to help others.

If there’s something close to home that doesn’t feel quite right, take care of that first. If your health isn’t in order, focus on fixing it. If your family life isn’t in order, make the changes necessary to start improving it.

Every day do one thing that improves your situation close to home. Leave your ego behind. Leave your pride and your grudges by the wayside and start making progress forward today. One step today. One action that moves you forward.

When you do this, those around you will feel the energy of the progress you’re making and be inspired to improve their own lives. You’ll become a tractor of positivity that helps uplift them.

***

It took a bit longer than I expected to get my health back, but I’m feeling much better now. It probably had something to do with how my body was still recovering from the strenuous five-day trek.

While I was recovering, I decided to cancel my one week train adventure at the beginning of September around north India. I had already booked seven trains that would take me from Darjeerling, to Varanassi, to Agra (Taj Mahal), and then to Delhi, but my heart is no longer in it.

I have absolutely zero interest in doing anything even mildly touristy. Going against that feeling is only going to make me less capable of helping others, not more capable. Since all the train tickets were refundable, and since canceling them would pay for a plane ticket from Kathmandu to Delhi, changing plans seemed like this most sensible thing to do.

Now my plan is to go to Kathmandu this weekend to watch a traditional Sherpa dance and, after spending a week in Kathmandu, I’ll hop on a plane to Delhi where I’ll stay for two weeks before returning to the United States.

I still hope to catch a few classical Indian music concerts in Delhi and I have plans to have lunch with a school teacher to talk about education, but otherwise I’ll be relaxing, exercising, and planning what comes next when I return to the States.

I had only been in the small village of Hile for two nights and yet I felt myself getting emotional about leaving. Was it because we had stayed an extra day to help the owner repaint the exterior of her guesthouse? Or was it because the owner was so nice that she made it feel a lot like home? Was this what being homesick was supposed to feel like?

We had trekked from one village to another for five days, climbing more than 2000m (6000ft) to a height of over 3200m (9600ft). My 22kg (50lb) backpack became heavier with each step and on day two I questioned my ability to make the rest of the trip. On the fourth day, we descended down seemingly endless stone stairs for almost eight hours.

I was traveling with my new friend and trekking guide, Tashi Sherpa, along with his 21 year old cousin who had climbed Mt. Everest four times and reached the summit twice. Tashi, who is an incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful guide, recently started his own trekking agency. If you’re looking for a trekking guide in Nepal, I highly recommend you contact him.

This six day excursion ended up being more important than I had imagined. It reminded me how easy it is to lose focus of what matters and it allowed me to see a side of Nepal much different from what I observed while visiting the schools in Kahule and Bhalche a few weeks ago.

It was a side of Nepal where tourism had created a path of commonality and spread the poison of advertisement and mass media. Mobile phones, televisions, and electricity were common at even the highest elevations. Some of the kids wore ripped jeans and hung posters of their favorite movie actors on the walls.

The villages all looked similar: buildings were painted with the same blue, white, and brown colors. Almost every village had a map of the Annapurna trails, complete with estimated trekking times to the next stop, the current elevation, and a big “you are here” mark showing your current location.

I could feel how tourism had changed every single village along the trail; how it had commercialized every single one just a little bit.

But that’s coming from the perspective of someone who grew up in a commercialized first world country. Tourism has also brought incredible opportunity for the people of Nepal. It provides an enormous number of jobs, loads of money, and a connection to the outside world that most of these remote villages wouldn’t have otherwise.

It enables many kids to attend school and helps to provide supplies and medicine. The flow of English-speaking tourists who pass through give the village residents the opportunity to learn English — most speak at least some English. The trekking guides themselves pick up multiple languages through tourists who visit from different parts the world (my guide, Tashi, could speak seven languages).

As I made these observations, I was also taking in the incredible beauty that surrounded me: green mountains covered in rice patties with majestic snow-capped peaks rising high in the background. Tiny villages dotted the hillsides, perched on seemingly impossible slopes. Rivers and waterfalls flowed everywhere — I counted a dozen waterfalls on one mountainside.

We walked through mist filled forests of rhododendrons a hundred feet tall and fields filled with flowers of yellow, white, blue, and purple as far as the eye could see. It was more beautiful than I could’ve imagined — more incredible than even a fantasy movie could portray.

It was so beautiful in fact, that I found myself forgetting about all those children I visited a few weeks ago; I found myself forgetting about all the poverty I had witnessed over the past few months that had so profoundly changed my sense of purpose and direction in life.

There was nothing out there except me, the beautiful scenery, and an abundance of comfortable tea houses where I was guaranteed a warm lunch and a nice place to sleep. I was losing touch with reality. By trekking in the Himalayan mountains with a goal of only enjoying myself and relaxing, I was forgetting about what mattered most.

But we all need to take time off and relax, right? Why then was this short vacation feeling like an illegal drug, giving me a temporary high but coming with a long-term low? Shouldn’t taking time off to relax and recharge be more like a vitamin, providing us with vital nutrients to increase our strength and improve our potential?

Towards the end of my last post, I wrote about how my new sense of purpose seemed to be making me less interested in doing things just for the sake of doing them. This short trekking adventure has not only magnified that feeling, but now I feel almost repulsed by the thought of doing something purely for the sake of personal indulgence.

Maybe seven days was just too much or maybe it had something to do with being disconnected from the world for so long. When I’m able to get online, your comments and emails help to constantly remind me of what matters — they are my daily “food for purpose” that seems to keep me fueled and on track.

Whatever the case, I feel relieved that I was able to look at this experience objectively. My inner journey over the past few months has been difficult to put into words, but having people like you to share it with has enhanced the voyage immensely.

Today marks exactly five months since I began my nomadic lifestyle, and with my plane back to the United States leaving India exactly one month from now, I’m sure the challenges have only just begun. But as this initial six-month journey nears its end, I find myself feeling worried that it may be difficult to stay focused and keep up the momentum.

Spending several days isolated from the world and surrounded by nature has always been the one thing that helped me recharge and clear my head; the one thing that always helped me see things more clearly after enough time in the modern world had dirtied my vision. After this six-day trek, I’m beginning to wonder if that’s still the case.

Do you ever have trouble remembering what matters to you when you take time off? Do you find yourself losing focus or feeling more drained than you did before you took the break? What helps you recharge without losing focus?

If I could take the past four months of traveling through third world countries and compact them into two days, it wouldn’t even begin to explain how life-changing, eye-opening, and humbling the past few days have been for me.

I’m still digesting everything so I hope you’ll forgive me for not going into too much detail, but it should be enough to say that I gave my first, second, and third public speech, entirely unprepared, in front of almost one hundred children and adults, after climbing up through the clouds to the highest elevation I’ve ever ascended on foot.

I was welcomed and treated like a king.

And what had I done to deserve all this? Nothing.

I had to keep reminding myself that although I hadn’t done anything to deserve such a grand welcoming, my ability to reach the world through my writing gave me a potential that none of them had; I had to constantly remind myself that my life contains such an abundance of opportunity that I needed to find some way to give it back to them.

Most of the first day was spent riding on the backs of motorcycles across roads chiseled into the sides of mountains with nothing preventing us from riding off the edge and tumbling to our deaths.

Streams poured across sections of the road that had been repaired after landslides returned the Earth to the mountain. A recent landslide left one road with nothing more than a small dirt footpath to cross to the other side.

The following two days were then spent traveling by foot to the schools, through fairytale-like green forests, on footpaths sometimes only wide enough for one person. Buffalo, cows, goats, and dogs roamed the lush hillsides. Women and children worked in the fields harvesting corn while men repaired stone roads and worked in the shops.

The places where I slept at night were literally in the clouds — white mist frequently encased us reducing visibility to only a few hundred feet and occasionally the clouds would break just enough to give us a glimpse of the valley thousands of feet below and miles across.

The fertile mountains were covered in fields of rice, corn, pumpkins, and potatoes. Tiny homes dotted the landscape. Rivers, fed by the monsoon rains, gushed down the hills creating an abundance of waterfalls and streams.

This was the real Nepal. A country where the people had learned to embrace the land and respect it, where they had accepted hardship as a way of life and where the Earth had given them health and abundance in return; a place where sustainability was a way of life.

The the land had made the Nepali people tough and rugged on the outside, but on inside they are as soft and warm as the nature that surrounds them. They have a hardworking spirit but an easygoing and laid back approach to life that makes them blend into their environment.

They seem to possess a motivation and willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed, a determination seemingly matched only by the majesty of the Himalayan mountains they call home.

I went on this trip wanting to learn firsthand if Nepal FREED was an organization that I should support. I went with a long list of questions, but I was only able to get some of them answered; the language barrier was a limiting factor.

I learned that Nepal FREED doesn’t run the schools, but rather deals with the construction of the buildings and oversees the assembly of a committee to run each school. After a school has been set up, they continue helping with funds (when they’re available) for employing the teachers and for buying teaching materials.

Is Nepal FREED an organization I plan on supporting? Absolutely. Do I have more to say on the topic? Definitely. But I’m still processing everything.

In the event that I was unable to get all the questions answered, I planned to use my intuition and just get a feel for what was going on there — to store everything in my head and go from there. That’s exactly what I ended up doing.

Over the next few weeks, I will continue writing about my experiences from the past two days and share my thoughts with you as they solidify. That said, my gut tells me this is an organization doing real good and the people running it have honest and honorable intentions.

***

My head is filled with ideas. My emotions are overflowing. My muscles are sore, my face is sunburnt, and my arms and legs are in pain from carrying a 45lb backpack over mountains higher than the highest peak in the Northeast United States. And all this after spending almost four weeks sitting at my laptop drinking coffee from the comfort of a cafe.

I’m a firm believer that life presents us with exactly the right opportunities we need to continue growing. When life presented me with this opportunity to visit Nepal FREED, I was given a choice: succumb to my fears of the unknown or put them aside and see where it took me.

Yet another step on the journey, now behind me.

Fear is the only inhibitor to inner growth — it clouds our judgment and crushes opportunity. When we overcome our fears, we open the floodgates for personal development and become capable of changing not just ourselves, but the entire world.

Is a shifting perspective changing the reason I travel?

Tomorrow morning I leave for Pokhara with a friend to spend a few weeks trekking in the Himalayas. We will likely trek to the Annapurna Base Camp, explore other areas in the Annapurna region, and visit my friends’ hometown.

My rough plan is to spend the month of August trekking and then take a bus back to India for two weeks. I’ll spend the first week of September exploring north India by train and visiting touristy places like Darjeeling, the holy city of Varanasi, and the Taj Mahal in Agra.

After traveling for a week on seven different trains, I’ll relax at my adopted relatives house in Delhi for one week and possibly catch a classical Indian music concert in the city. On September 10th, my plane leaves to return to the United States.

It’s a good plan, and it probably sounds exciting and adventurous, but the more I experience the world and the more I see how much help is needed, the less interest I have in doing things just for the sake of doing them.

It feels like things need to have a purpose now; like hiking up a mountain to visit a school where the adults of the future are being educated to see if I can help.

But don’t get me wrong, I still love traveling and exploring. It’s just that now it feels like I have a mission and anything that isn’t directly helping me work towards accomplishing that mission is just wasting time — time that is running out really fast for a lot of people.

Frugal Travel Reports
March 2010 (includes Pre-Travel expenses)
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010

***

By the time you read this, I will likely be on my way into the Himalayan mountains visiting a small village where an NGO is helping build and fund schools to improve education.

In my previous post, I asked for help coming up with questions for the tour and your timely feedback was much appreciated. The generosity, wisdom, and helpfulness of this community never ceases to amaze me; thank you.

***

Now it’s time for yet another embarrassing report of my expenses for the past four weeks. This is where I literally put my money where my mouth is and expose to the world just how “frugal” I have really been.

I say embarrassing because while you’re reading this, I will be visiting a village where my expenses for this month could have paid a school teacher full-time for six months.

That’s right, it costs $1700 to fund a school teacher in a small village in Nepal for an entire year.

But let’s look forward instead of backward. My expenses for this month in Kathmandu were higher than usual for several reasons, namely because I was spending 12 – 14 hours a day for three weeks working from cafes and restaurants putting together the Small Ways to Make a Big Difference ebook. I needed fuel.

While I could have eaten at much cheaper places (and I did, on several occasions), the only places with reliable and free WiFi were not exactly the cheapest places in Kathmandu. Plus, I was staying in probably the most expensive area of Kathmandu: the backpacker district of Thamel.

Lodging

As I wrote in last months’ report, I anticipated having free lodging for my entire stay in Kathmandu, but plans changed. My friends’ parents, who were letting me stay in their house while they were away visiting the United States, decided to stay in the States longer than expected.

They asked my friend to get the house rented before he left, so after only a week of free lodging I had to find my own place. The house was beautiful and I feel lucky for the opportunity I was given to stay there. It was a welcome break from the tiny room I left in Vietnam.

After some research on HostelBookers.com and WikiTravel.org, I settled on the famous Kathmandu Guest House in the heart of the backpacker district of Thamel.

I managed to negotiate a decent room from $13/night down to $7/night. The room came with shared bathrooms and showers but it did have an in-room sink, so I was at least able to brush my teeth in privacy.

This was my first experience with common showers/bathrooms and it wasn’t nearly as inconvenient as I thought it would be. However, this is the low-season for tourism so I can only imagine what the lines for the showers must look like during high-season.

Food

And here’s the embarrassing part. My food expenses for this month are excessively high, especially for Nepal!

As I mentioned in the introduction, I spent 12 – 14 hours a day working on my laptop from cafes and restaurants and the only places with reliable WiFi were a bit on the expensive side.

The cafe where I spent most of my time (Himalayan Java) had lattes that ran $1 – $2 a piece. Down the street, the Roadhouse Cafe served an excellent hummus dip plate for $4 and across the street from Roadhouse was an organic cafe that served delicious salads and fruit juices for $3 – $4 each.

During my second week in Thamel, a new friend introduced me to a cheap Nepali restaurant where I was able to get an entire traditional vegetarian lunch (Dhal Bhat) for $1.25. I started making it a habit to eat breakfast and lunch there.

I tried my best to buy granola and nuts from the convenience store to fill up in between meals, but it didn’t appear to help much with the food expenses.

Every day the newspapers talked about how toxic the water was, so I’ve also been buying bottled drinking water (a horrible choice since plastic is such a problem here).

Transportation

All my transportation expenses are from my first week in Nepal when I was commuting between my friends’ house and Thamel. The house was about 4 miles from Thamel and while I could have taken cheap micro-buses, I ended up taking taxis instead.

My reasons (read: excuses) for this vary, but it was a combination of leaving Thamel late at night when it would be difficult (for me) to find the micro-busses, and leaving when it was pouring rain; jumping in a taxi was a lot more convenient than walking and waiting in the rain.

A four-mile ride in a taxi, after heavy negotiation, would run about $2.70 (the same trip in a crowded and slow micro-bus would’ve been 30 cents).

While I was staying at my friends’ house, I only went into Thamel when I was able to hitch a ride with him on his motorbike. My friend also showed me around Kathmandu and Patan (the town south of Kathmandu), both on his motorbike and in a bicycle rickshaw.

Other than that, I haven’t moved from the one block radius around my hotel for the past three weeks. I walked around Thamel quite a bit during the first week, but once I started working on the ebook there was no time to explore.

Total Distance Traveled: ~50 miles

Other

This is a big list, but the total expenses aren’t that bad. My visits to Durbar Square and other touristy places in Patan were free (having my Nepali friend with me probably helped somewhat) and the visit to the Swayambhu stupa set me back $2.70.

The mobile phone refill, soap, toothpaste, and AA batteries for my wireless mouse should be self-explanatory. The hotel provided a laundry service, which I used a few times (you probably don’t want to know how few times).

The WiFi Internet at the hotel was unexpectedly expensive. Charging $1/hr for a service that’s not costing them anything extra to maintain just seems wrong. So, after paying one time for a 5-hour pass, I used my computer skills to get around the system for the rest of my stay. It wasn’t a great hack and the connection was unreliable and slow, but it got me free access.

The multitool definitely wasn’t a necessary expense, but the idea of going trekking without some type of knife didn’t sit well with me. Five bucks for something that could save my life seemed like a justifiable expense.

Summary

So there you have it: more than seven hundred dollars in expenses for the month of July — almost three times my monthly $250 budget. I’m now more than $1200 over the six-month budget of $3000 that I set for myself back in March.

The lesson here is that food can be very expensive, but that if you need a nice place to sit in Thamel, a delicious caffeinated beverage, and fast, free, and reliable WiFi, then you can plan on spending a little money.

If I had eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the cheap Nepali place, I could’ve easily kept my food expenses under $130 (but again, no WiFi there) and dropped this months’ expenses to under $400. There are also lots of cheaper places than the Kathmandu Guest House to stay in Thamel, but the convenience and my priorities for this month meant I was prepared to spend a little extra.

***

For next month, I will be doing a lot of traveling around the Pokhara area of Nepal. A local friend who works as a trekking guide during the tourist season is taking me on several hikes in the Himalayas.

The Annapurna Circuit and Everest Base Camp treks were the two at the top of my list, but he recommended against both of them this early in the season; the monsoon rains make those treks dangerous. He’s the expert, so I’m going with his recommendation.

All my expenses for next month should be much lower, as I’ll be staying in cheap places and eating local food. However, I’ll also likely be offline a lot more than I was this month. I promise to get to all your comments and emails, it might just take me a little while.

Early Sunday morning, two brothers will pick me up from my hotel in Kathmandu. We will drive several hours to a place called Sole Bazaar and from there I hear it’s an eight-hour hike by foot, through areas infested with leeches, to the remote village where the project is located.

This isn’t a photo expedition or a mini-vacation. If the weather holds out, I will be taking plenty of photos but that’s not the purpose of this trip. I’m doing this for the kids like those in the photo above.

So where am I going? I’ll be visiting the project site for a small non-profit organization called Nepal FREED, whose primary goal “is to make education more accessible for the children of Nepal”. The group helps build, fund, and run schools using local materials and local labor.

As I’ve mentioned before, I wholeheartedly believe that the best way to change the future is through our children. Their education will determine their ability to continue working towards a better world.

Nepal FREED is a very small organization founded by a man who grew up in Nepal and who now lives and works in California. His entire family is involved in the project — it’s his two brothers who are picking me up. Neither of them speak English, so hopefully they bring an interpreter (maybe I should’ve taken that crash course in Nepali after all).

How I heard of project is a story of its own. A close friend of the founder read the Small Ways to Make a Big Difference ebook and he was intrigued by my vision for using technology to help make the world a better place. He has similar ideas and sent me an email asking if I would be interested in getting involved with his friends’ project.

It would’ve been easy to say yes and write a long blog post about the organization asking everyone to go support them (that’s not what this is). I could’ve helped them redo their website and set up a Twitter account. I could’ve used my own Twitter account to spread word about their cause. But I didn’t do any of those (at least not yet).

In a world where people are doing and saying anything to clamber for attention, all we have is who we are; all we have is our integrity. If who we are is tarnished — if our integrity is weakened — we stand little chance of really being trusted.

One way to weaken our integrity is to jump on any and all available opportunities without hesitation and without putting much thought or research into who or what is involved. Taking the easy and cheap way out rarely builds integrity.

I’ve always been extremely skeptical and cautious when it comes to money. I know how powerful a drug greed can be and how quickly even the best intentions can turn evil (I wrote about this earlier).

So I replied to the email and explained that before I used my voice to spread the word about this project or support them, I wanted to see for myself the work they’re doing. I wanted to see the schools with my eyes and shake hands with the people in charge.

You can really tell a lot about a person just by meeting them and if the past four months have taught me anything, its that firsthand experience in any situation has enormous power.

I also realized that I needed to put my feet where my mouth was — I needed to start turning all those feel-good words and big dreams for a better world into tangible actions on the ground. If the ebook project was my first digital step in this new direction, this was to be my first step in the real world.

There are lots of ways to start making a difference. Is this the best thing for me to be doing with my time? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely better than sitting in a cafe.

Any action is better than no action. My instinct told me to go with this, so that’s where I’m going. This decision is way outside my comfort zone, so at the very least there will be plenty of inner development.

But I really need your help on this one. This is my first time touring an NGO project or doing anything like this and I have no idea what questions I should be asking.

If you were in my place and you were considering helping support Nepal FREED, what would you want to know? What questions would you ask the people in charge? Please share this post with others so they can provide feedback as well!