I’ll be leaving my home and job here in Sweden in just over five months – or 165 days to be exact. This is the close future, but not close enough that I have started to panic yet. As I am still reasonably calm, I am going to use this time to really plan and get going on my pre-travel-to-do lists.
Goals for the coming month:
- Save more money. Think critically about every single purchase!
- Get going on social media. Make my blog pretty. Figure out Twitter (@biorambler)! Set up Instagram. Make a Facebook page. Link them all together.
- Register my small business in Sweden. Can’t hurt to have a back-up side source of income while traveling, right?
- Make a packing list, and see what I need to invest in (number one: a new backpack).
- Read other travel blogs. Get (more) inspired!
- Trial run travels. To say I begin traveling in five months is misleading. I have been traveling for the last ten years, just not full-time. I’ll practise travel-blogging during my upcoming trips, and maybe even from home!
- Narrow down the list for destination #1. I’ll try to buy my flight to somewhere by September or October.
- Seriously, stop spending so much money on stuff I will have to give away in a few months.
- Downsize. Goal: give away/sell/donate at least one item per week for the next two months. This number will seriously increase after this initial period.
It is the downsizing that I find the most daunting. I have an entire apartment full of stuff, and in five short months I will be changing from a 63 square meter apartment worth of belongings to 60 liters of belongings. Since Sweden is home, but not home-home (i.e. where I grew up), I don’t have family here that will willingly store my stuff indefinitely in their garage. Most of my friends here in Sweden are academics as well, so due to the transient nature of the braniac dumping my stuff with any of them is also off the table. What to do.. what to do?
For now everything I own is going in to four categories:
- Take with me while traveling. This, it goes without saying, is nearly nothing.
- Put in storage. This will be as little as possible, let’s see what I can do.
- Give away for long-term loan. So far this list includes my cat, Wally, and my guitar. Neither of these items would do well in storage.
- Sell, give away, donate or toss. Almost everything else!
Let the sorting begin… (and gold star to me for getting my first blog post up!)
biorambler 