I’ve decided to share some of the wisdom I’ve picked up throughout my short time in Australia so far:
I tried Minimalist packing so you don’t have to!
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to be less materialistic; i.e. buying less, repurposing the things I do own, and getting rid of the massive amounts of junk that I own but don’t use. I thought that studying abroad would help me with this (my thought at the time was that bringing a small amount of clothing and personal belongings would force me to be less dependent on material items), and in theory this makes a lot of sense. I watched hours of minimalist lifestyle bloggers explain how happy and enlightened they supposedly are from re-washing the same pair of underpants every day and painting everything white.
One of them advised me to create a color palette for my trip wardrobe in order to coordinate outfits easily, so I had the wonderful idea of packing only grey, black, white, and navy blue clothes. I arrived here with around 4 t-shirts, essentially 4 or 5 of the exact same black tank top, and simply just not enough clothes to last me half a week without doing laundry. Hint: minimalism really should not apply to undergarments. Also, it is one million degrees here at all times of the day, so wearing all black is the worst thing I could possibly do to myself. After less than 24 hours here, I cracked under the pressure of not looking like a worldly fashion blogger and reverted back to my materialistic ways. I went and purchased new clothes, which was a complete failure re: minimalism AND budgeting.
So basically, I ruined my resolution less than two days into the new year. Minimalism is a beautiful way of life that I think many people can adapt to fairly easily, but for me, it was a nauseating and poorly executed ordeal. If you’re travelling for an extended period of time, bring the clothes you like and know that you’ll wear, rather than digging through bags of clothes you haven’t worn since middle school to create a “color palette” because some lady on the internet told you to. Also, try your clothes on before you pack them. To add to my packing failures, about 50% of the stuff I brought just does not fit at all and/or looks hideous and is completely useless to me. (I packed a shirt I bought for a MILEY CYRUS CONCERT in TENTH GRADE because it’s navy blue and white, and to my chagrin, I tried it on but was scared to wear it out of the house out of fear of getting nominated to be on Queer Eye).
YOU ARE ALLOWED TO FEEL HAPPINESS FROM MATERIAL ITEMS! They just shouldn’t distract you from other meaningful things, like people and experiences. Consider getting rid of what you don’t need or use, but don’t let fake-woke Youtubers tell you that you have to forsake everything you love and move into a van to find happiness.
Sometimes cheaper isn’t better
I was extremely proud of myself for finding a dirt cheap round trip flight to Australia. Basically, to save money, I flew to Sydney from Los Angeles rather than directly flying from Kansas City, so I booked a very cheap flight to LA from Kansas City from a Cyber Monday promotion so of course, it was a Spirit Airlines flight. I’m a huge twitter fan and was familiar with all the Spirit-related memes (you have to fly the plane yourself, etc.) but didn’t really care because clearly I value saving money over my own personal comfort and wellbeing. I had to pay to check a carry-on bag. I’ve never heard of this in my entire life and probably should have called 911 when they told me. I ended up paying nearly $100 to check a carry-on and a suitcase on top of the price of the ticket, after being on hold with their customer service line for nearly an hour since their check-in website has not been updated since the early nineties. I would have just checked in at the airport, but doing so would have incurred a $10 fee because according to their website it costs them an exorbitant amount of money to get an unpaid airport employee to check you in, in person. Since you have to pay an additional fee to choose a seat with more than .002 cm of leg room, I practically had to do an independent yoga practice and fold my body in half for the duration of the flight which caused me to work up quite an appetite, but snacks and drinks were also an additional charge so food simply wasn’t an option.
Basically, you pay for convenience. And I’ve always been the type of person who goes to the ends of the earth in the name of saving money. But, this is the one time that the stress and annoyance throughout the entire process probably was not worth it. If you love bargains as much as I do, try booking as far in advance as you possibly can and factor in surcharges and fees beforehand if you do decide to go with a “budget friendly” option. I used Vayama to arrange my booking, and it offered the lowest rate by far of anywhere else I looked. Kayak is also a good site to compare rates. Beware of Expedia and Hotwire, as they rarely seem to actually offer discounted prices despite their popularity and advertising.
Purchasing flights was the part of my trip that I was most concerned about financially, and while I’m so glad that I saved multiple thousands of dollars, it would have been nice to have had a more direct flight (12 hour layover in LA, 6 hour layover in Sydney). If you’re someone with travel anxiety, this may not be the best option.
