Downsizing: From 2-Bed House to Backpack in Three Months

photo from Flickr by: Vinni123

Summer 2010 I decided That’s it, I’ve had it. I’m getting out of here.

My boss had just announced another round of pay-cuts and asked would I mind losing two grand a year? After two years of watching food and utility prices rise while my savings dwindled, actually, yes.

Politics aside, there comes a time in everyone’s like when they realise it’s now or never. The travel section of Waterstones had been having a magnetic effect on me all spring and this was just the push I needed.

But what are going to do with all your stuff? And the house demanded my Mother. Here’s what I did.

I made two piles: one of all the books I had read, the DVD’s I had watched, the CD’s I had listened to and the clothes I had worn and never intended to read, watch, hear, or wear again. I photographed everything that I thought would sell and I put it on Amazon. The rest either went to the charity shop, or into the recycling bin.

I got a lodger. Modern life in Britain in that means owning your own home, if you want to be taken seriously as an adult is expensive and financial commitments like a mortgage are the perfect excuse for never making that world-trip you’ve been promising yourself. In fact, I ended up with two lodgers; a couple. The rent covers my mortgage payments and they look after my furniture while I’m away for the next two years. There are lots of stories about how renting your property out can be a nightmare, especially while you’re away. I signed up with a letting agency who manages the property while I’m abroad. That way, I don’t have to think about anything.

I took voluntary redundancy at work and despite my Bosses suggestions about what travelling might do to my career; I took the money and ran. After ten years in a corporate environment, it’s easy to forget that there is anything else outside that world.

I signed up as a Healthy Volunteer for medical trials and lay in a hospital bed for two weeks while my blood pressure was taken every hour. It was the perfect opportunity to properly plan my trip. At this point my poor Mother thought I’d completely lost my mind, until I showed her the £2000 cheque I was given on the last day. I did a second clinical trial a month before I left.

My penultimate task was to pack everything I thought I’d need into one rucksack. Not an easy task for a single woman whose shopping habits can fill a two bedroom house easily; but I did it, after repacking seven times.

I sold my car, booked my tickets, handed over the house keys to my tenants and moved in with my Mother for the final ten days before I departed. At the time, it felt strange to have gone from modern life in a two bedroom house to a single rucksack in just three months. But, I did it, just in time for the Australian summer.

Sally South was once the quintessential modern woman who would usually require two large bags for a weekend break. Having left her job as a Senior Account Manager in Bristol, she can now be found somewhere on the East Coast of Australia living out of an 80 litre backpack.

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Aaron Bradford has written 62 articles. Aaron is the leader, mentor and chief geek of the Happytime team. He put together this crack team of travel writers known by codename “The Firm“. Twitter: @b4ubackpack | Google profile | More articles by Aaron