Marie Kondo’s magic art of tidying up seems to be all the rage over the past few weeks, thanks to her new Netflix show, ‘Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.’ A few years ago, I put her book, ‘The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing’ on my reading list, but never got around to reading it (it’s still on the list though!). When I found out the other week that she had a Netflix show, I had to watch. I’ve only seen a few episodes, but already I’ve been inspired to reorganize and donate my extra belongings.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she also has a method for tidying up your travel life, but yet here I was, surprised. There truly is a way to declutter and organize every part of your life (I’m now slowly learning).
After reading the Afar article How to Apply Marie Kondo’s Life-Changing Magic To Packing, my travel life feels inspired, refreshed and rejuvenated. Well, as much as can be after reading an article and not applying it (yet – will do soon!). 
I’m a huge fan of packing cubes and rolling clothes to prevent wrinkles, but now I’m eager to try Marie’s KonMari folding method on my next trip, to see the difference. Apparently it saves even more space in your luggage.
The part from this article that I most need to work on? Deleting my digital clutter. I take hundreds (sometimes thousands) of pictures on some of my trips. Thankfully I end up using many of the photos in some form – whether that’s blog posts, Instagram pictures or personal memories. But do I really need to store 50 photos from both times I’ve seen La Sagrada Familia? Probably not. My goal is to go through the nearly 30,000 (already crying at this number) photos on my computer throughout the next few months, and only keep the images that like Marie popularly says, ‘spark joy’ and that I know will be useful for blogging or business purposes.
It’s easy to spend 99 cents and receive unlimited storage for digital photos and documents, but the purpose of photos is not to hide them away. Time to be more intentional with my travel photography and with what I allow to take up space on my phone and computer!
The act of decluttering takes a different form for everyone, but in terms of travel, such as with packing clothes, it’s a great way to make your trip more organized and less stressed.
The Bohemian Mermaid 