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A review by fictionalkate
No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering by Clara Bensen
3.0
I came across No Baggage when I was planning for a trip I'm going to take later this year. Knowing nothing at all about the book except it was on a list of best female travel memoirs, I bought a copy and I have to say this book surprised me for so many reasons.
It's a book about one woman's spontaneous minimalist travels with a man she had only known for a few weeks. It's also a book about her journey with her own mental health issues and overcoming her inner struggles. I enjoyed both sides of the story.
One of the reasons why I love reading travel memoirs so much is because the truth is often stranger than fiction. And there is a certain level of uncertainty to it. In most of the fiction I read it ends happily. When it comes to a real person's actual story? There's real world barriers in the way and things rarely go as smoothly. This book is the epitome of that. Five weeks in Europe with no real plan, no accommodation and no toothpaste?
But I have to admit this whole thing is baffling to me. There's so much reliance on the universe that things will take care of themselves. Jetting abroad for over a month with only the clothes on your back, two tampons and a barely defined relationship is insane to me. The whole idea is something I can barely wrap my head about. And I think that's possibly why I didn't love the book as much as I wanted to. Because the whole trip felt kind of selfish to me. And impractical.
What I did like was how there was a contrast between the physical act of travelling without baggage and the emotional kind that you can never quite shed. It's an interesting read. And Clara Bensen's instagram feed is gorgeous - you can tell she has the eye of an artist.
But I don't think I learned anything from this book. I definitely won't be travelling that light and I can't imagine ever taking such a bold leap into the unknown.
It's a book about one woman's spontaneous minimalist travels with a man she had only known for a few weeks. It's also a book about her journey with her own mental health issues and overcoming her inner struggles. I enjoyed both sides of the story.
One of the reasons why I love reading travel memoirs so much is because the truth is often stranger than fiction. And there is a certain level of uncertainty to it. In most of the fiction I read it ends happily. When it comes to a real person's actual story? There's real world barriers in the way and things rarely go as smoothly. This book is the epitome of that. Five weeks in Europe with no real plan, no accommodation and no toothpaste?
But I have to admit this whole thing is baffling to me. There's so much reliance on the universe that things will take care of themselves. Jetting abroad for over a month with only the clothes on your back, two tampons and a barely defined relationship is insane to me. The whole idea is something I can barely wrap my head about. And I think that's possibly why I didn't love the book as much as I wanted to. Because the whole trip felt kind of selfish to me. And impractical.
What I did like was how there was a contrast between the physical act of travelling without baggage and the emotional kind that you can never quite shed. It's an interesting read. And Clara Bensen's instagram feed is gorgeous - you can tell she has the eye of an artist.
But I don't think I learned anything from this book. I definitely won't be travelling that light and I can't imagine ever taking such a bold leap into the unknown.