So the last few months travel and all my grand plans have kind of taken a back seat and the hum-drum day to day actives have taken the front seat. Working a regular job, paying off the rest of my bills, and just forgetting about my dreams. I guess that’s what happens and before you know it you’re middle aged and forgot about what you wanted to do.

That’s why I’ve taken the next step in my minimalist world travel plans and have brewed up my version of a minimalist round the world travel packing list. This is list of items is mainly geared toward warmer to slightly chilly at night type of climate. I don’t plan on hiking over the Alps with what I have listed. I also tried to make sure everything fit into my 40 litre carry on backpack.

I’ll break things down into a few different categories.

ELECTRONICS

1. Netbook & Charger (MSI Wind)
2. 500GB external hard drive for storing media. IE: Pictures and HD Videos
3. Olympus digital camera/Charger & USB cable with an extra memory card
4. Kitchen timer for an alarm clock.
5. Mini Flash light or Head lamp (for reading or night time exploration)
6. Universal Power Converter
7. Cell Phone/Charger (has built in WiFi for quick email/blog updates)

CLOTHING

1. Swim Trunks
2. 1 Pair of long Smart Wool Socks
3. 2 Pair of short Smart Wool Socks
4. 2 Pair of regular shorts (I’ll be wearing on pair)
5. 1 Pair of long pants
6. 2 T-Shirts (I’ll be wearing one)
7. 1 Button up REI quick dry shirt
8. 2-3 Pairs of Exofficio boxers
9. 1 Belt (Wearing at most times)
10. 1 Long sleeve shirt
11. 1 REI packable rain jacket (black)
12. 1 Pair of trail hiking shoes (low top)
13. 1 Pair of Five Finger shoes
14. Sunglasses
15. 1 Pair of Athletic shorts (for exercise)

TOILETRIES\MISC

1. 2 Pairs of Ear Plugs
2. Microfiber Towel
3. Toothbrush
4. Toothpaste (mini container)
5. Floss
6. 1 Disposable razor
7. 2-3 Zip lock bags (for misc items)
8. Ibuprofen
9. Deodorant
10. Journal/Pens (notebook)
11. Paper work (Passport, Drivers License, Debit Card, etc)
12. 2-3 Family pictures (more of a conversational piece)

This will all fit into my 40 litre backpack with a rain cover and compression straps. The rain cover and compression straps make for a nice package when traveling via plane, train, or automobile.

Total weight = Appx 20lbs

I’m not worried about bringing any kind of soap because you should be able to find that anywhere. I also have short hair so washing what little hair I have with bar soap isn’t a problem. I can also do my laundry with the soap in the sink. I may had a small clothes line to the list but am unsure at this point. I also have room for a pair of flip flops to use while in showers or bathrooms but again, not 100% sure since I have my awesome Five Fingers.

I also know that I’m a bit heavy on the electronic gear but I love taking pictures and video and I would love the have the laptop with me to stay in touch with friends and family. I also would like to keep up my blog with new posts and pictures. I could do away with the cell phone if needed but it’s fairly light and makes for a great mini computer for updating twitter or checking email. Sure beats busting out the laptop every time.

Feel free to make any suggestions for adding or subtracting something. I’m always open to ideas!

The backpack I’ll be using is an REI Venturi 40 (men’s large) and so far it seems to be an awesome pack. Plenty of pockets for organization which for me is a life saver.

I’m not sure about you but for me April just few by. Between my current day to day job, injuring my shoulder, and a handful of other stuff I hardly had time to tend to my little website here. I also didn’t have nearly as much time to trade on the forex as I had would have liked.

The first week and a half of the month went well and I was well on my way to attaining my goal of a 25% return. Now, some of you out there in the wonderful world of the internet might say that 25% is totally unrealistic. You are probably right. I don’t expect to reach 25% every month but you have to have some kind of goal right? If I didn’t have a goal then I’d have nothing to aim for. This however is on the point of this post but more of a clarification for my little buddy who left me a nice comment on my post from last month.

Now for the meat of the post and I’ll start off with an apology because I haven’t had time to make any graphs but next month I should be back on track.

The first nine trading days were going well. I was on track and my new trading strategy was working well. I had returned just shy of 10% of my initial investment which meant I was about 1/3 of the way to my goal. After this I made a simple mistake and things took a turn for the worse. I entered into a long position and the market took a turn for the worse and decided to hold its nose dive. Normally not an issue because I was trying out some different stop loss strategies but for whatever reason I didn’t get one put in.  Since this is only a practice account and not real money, I thought I’d let go and see if it ever recovered. I continued to trade and increase my percentage.

All was well until the end of the month came. I’ve decided to close all my positions at the end of the month to make keeping records simple. Normally I’d leave them open if they were doing well. When things were all said and done and I had closed all my positions, I was left with less than I’d like but still in the black which is never bad.

I ended the month at around 13% of my initial investment and I learned a valuable lesson which is to always double check your stop losses. A simple mistake that could have ended in disaster but thankfully didn’t.

On a side note, I think I may have found a strategy that works for me. While there are some losses I, in the end I seem to be coming out ahead and by a fair amount. I’m lagging behind this month and I’m hoping things fall back into a rhythm and I can’t start hitting the forex hard.

Cheers!

This is a great post from the blog of Anderson Cooper. He makes some very great points on his list.

Check it out!

http://bit.ly/asssgx

Last month (March) was the first month where I started to actually track my progress on the forex. At the beginning of each month I will start out with a set amount of cash. This cash goal is obtainable for me in real life. My goal is to make enough on the forex each month to live overseas and travel.

The month of March was a bit off. I started with a bit more cash than I had planned. I was also investing 15% of my available cash with each trade. While this is a bit risky the rewards are obviously greater. That being said…

I was able to reach my goal I’ve set for myself. I’ve calculated out how much I will need to survive while traveling and added a bit extra for a buffer. Each month I need to make about 25% of my initial investment. That of course can decrease with the larger amount of initial investment.

For the month of March I dominated and made just a hair over 38%. That left me with almost double my minimum goal for the month. This however was due to a higher percentage invested per trade and a risky strategy.

The above graph was all I was able to pull up. It ranged from the 27th till the end of the month. The blue triangles pointing up is a buy order and they yellow triangles pointing down is a sell order. The green circles is a take profit. I think the main tool I use is a take profit.  I use a stop loss but they are usually placed far away. I hope to start tracking PIPs also.

This is a quick profit chart. The weekends are represented by red. As you can see I had a few days where I was negative since I was holding on to a short position and was charged interest.

For the month of April I will be reducing the amount invested per trade from 15% to 10% and will be taking on a more sound trading strategy. I’m sure this will produce less return by the end of the month but should make for a much safer investment.

Being just over a week into the month of April I’m tracking pretty close to my goal per day. At the moment I’m just 10% below my average daily goal.

One of my dreams since I can remember is to see the world. Back then it was just a simple dream to go on vacation to exotic places and cool things. As I got older and started to grow up, I got jobs and started a career. That evil career monster clouded my dreams and replaced with it dreams of having a big house and expensive cars. Then the economy took a turn for the worse and my dreams of consumerism vanished!

I was finally liberated! I crawled out of my cubicle and started doing any job I could find. I sold cars, worked on websites, repaired PCs, and worked on bikes. Even though I was broke on my ass, life didn’t seem so bad and my real dreams started coming back to me.

This time I made it my goal to not only just see the world but live in it. Meet the people and really commit myself to obtaining my goals. The only problem was income. I tried blogging and starting websites; none of which really took off. I needed away to make a living on the road. Everything I read said to focus in on what you are good at. Sadly, I’m not that great at anything. I know how to do many different things but I am not great at one thing.

A year or so ago I started playing in the Foreign Exchange. I found a site that allowed you to play with fake money on the real market. I’ve always been interested in finance and the stock market. I think I was the only kid in my high school to read and enjoy a book on Warren Buffet. I played for a few months and tried my hand at some real money. I quickly lost most of it and continued to practice. I’ve since honed some of my forex skills and am currently saving money to invest. In the mean time I will be playing with fake money and tracking my progress. I will be doing my best to try and treat it as though it’s real money. That means less risky investing. Depending on how I do in the following months will determine if I can forge a sustainable income from the forex market.

My goal is to post the results at the end of each month. I won’t be reveling and dollar figures but I will be revealing percentages and things of that sort. Hopefully this will motivate me to write posts more often and stay true on my path to income independence.

Do you remember when you were a child and everyone would always ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up?

For me the answer was always different. It seemed to change from week to week based on what I was learning about in school or saw on TV. I was always getting these ideas on how cool it would be do be a fireman or a fishing guide. The list could go on for days!

I’ve been changing my life over the past year or so and decided to become a minimalist and work toward my ultimate goal of traveling the world as a vagabond for the foreseeable future. Thinking back to when I was kid, I was being asked the wrong question. What we should be asking kids is…

What do you want to do? What do you want to do after when you get old? What are you hobbies?

Things like that should be common questions in place of: What do you want to be?

That question implies you need to choose one job and work there for the rest of your best years. I don’t like this, not one bit. That is why I made a real bucket list. I’ve always had ideas floating around in my head but never wrote them down. Which turns out is the MOST important part!

You need to start thinking about your dreams and goals. I heard somewhere that…

A dream is only a dream unless you’re losing sleep over it.

Your bucket list doesn’t need include world travel or something crazy. It can include smalled goals. Things like paying off your debt, see your family more often, start saving money for your child’s college. The point is to make you start thinking about your happiness. Life is short and you should take advantage of every second.

I’ve posted my bucket list which can be found here:

Adam’s Bucket List

Every time I see something looks fun and I might enjoy I add it to the list. I’ve the list public and once I complete a task, I can cross it off. This will hopefully give me a little more motivation.

A while back I injured my shoulder pretty bad and life has kind of gotten in the way of writing but hopefully I’m back.

I just recently finished reading a fictional book about mass consumerism set in a different time. A time where corporations ruled and war is waged between them.

The writing style is fairly simple and it’s an easy read. The book jumps around bit and the author could have been a bit more descriptive. Nevertheless it was a good read.

The world is run by American corporations; there are no taxes; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; the Police and the NRA are publicly-traded security firms; the government can only investigate crimes it can bill for.

Hack Nike is a Merchandising Officer who discovers an all-new way to sell sneakers. Buy Mitsui is a stockbroker with a death-wish. Billy NRA is finding out that life in a private army isn’t all snappy uniforms and code names. And Jennifer Government, a legendary agent with a barcode tattoo, is a consumer watchdog with a gun.

The book doesn’t deal with minimalism but it does deal with consumerism and how people feel almost powerless to advertising and sales. Rewards programs rule  and people are forced to choose sides. Nike is selling sneakers for $2500 retail with a cost of $0.89.

After reading through this book, I’m happy to say that I’m not a mass consumer. Advertising has very little effect on me and I’m able to make my own choices. I also feel fortunate that I’m able to deal with not having the best of the best. Not more than a few years ago I was a gadget freak who needed to have the newest toy and the best of everything. I’ve since learned to be happy with what I have and make sure everything I have, I use.

Even with a bum arm I’m still able to see the bright side of things. I’m not up my eyes in debt or weighed down by a house full of useless stuff. The doctor says I can be back on my bicycle in 2-3 weeks and by that time the weather should be nice.

Here it is! My free to all short and sweet ebook about minimalism.

Read it, know it, share it, love it!

If you read this and are able to get something out of it, please comment below! I love hearing from people and I’m always more than happy to answer any questions.

Also, please feel free to share this as much as you like. Email, Twitter, Buzz, etc to anyone that might benefit from this.

It’s free for all!

You can download the book from my downloads page here:

http://www.vagabondguide.com/downloads.html

Cheers!

As the days and weeks go on, the storage unit continues to shrink little by little.

This time I was able to get rid of some larger items.

DONATED:

• 2 boxes of spare computer parts
• 1 box of misc items
• 1 Old school 26″ tv

GAVE AWAY:

• 2 Desks (1 set)
• 1 Box of glassware
• 2 Fishing Poles
• 1 Small box of misc items
• 1 Plastic chair mat

I was able to make a decent sized dent in the storage unit this weekend. I still have little ways to go but it’s shaping up nicely.

I’m still trying to sell my single speed mountain bike, those huge speakers you see in the pictures, and a few other items. I am however, guilty of breaking one of my rules…kinda. I’m planning on buying a new bike once mine sells. The bike will serve multiple purposes and I will use it more than I use my mountain bike now. In that aspect, I’m not really breaking my rules.

[View with PicLens]

That’s right! The past few days I’ve been putting together an ebook. I thought I might as well hop on the band wagon and join the ranks of the ebook club.

My free ebook is simple little guide on how I became a minimalist.

The ebook will include 5 to 6 short chapters and 4 to 5 simple rules to follow. I’ve also included a short about me section and a few personal pointers.

Over the next few days I should hopefully be finishing it up and then beings the fun task of editing and proof reading.

I’d say that in the next week or so I’ll release the ebook. It will be released under the Creative Commons license and will be free to share. I only ask that you don’t modify my work and give credit where credit is due.

I will also be including some links to a few other bloggers out there whom I read on a regular basis. Be sure to keep an eye out!

Cheers!