A Columbia native travels the world and gets paid to do it. Colin Wright is a 27-year-old entrepreneur who tells his stories online and in print.
What makes Wright unique is that he's a minimalist. Everything he owns fits into three small suitcases. Everything thing he's learned, he writes about on his popular web site exilelifestyle.com.
"I can say honestly every single day for the past 4 years is the best day of my life," Wrightsaid of his new lifestyle. "It just gets better and better."
Wright has traveled 48 states on a Greyhound Bus and been to about 40 countries in the past four years. He's lived in Argentina, New Zealand, Thailand, Iceland, India and Romania. He said living like the locals allows him to travel cheaply and to experience different cultures unlike a tourist could.
But he said you don't have to give away the contents of your closet to achieve happiness as a minimalist. He said others might find happiness with a different lifestyle or with material things.
"You could get rid of everything and still be entirely unhappy," Wright said. "What you want to do is figure out well what is it that makes you happy and if it's unicorn statuettes that make you happy... get rid of the big screen, spend that money on more unicorn statuettes, that's what I say."
Wright got rid of nearly everything to focus on his passion for traveling. He's funding his new lifestyle by writing books about it. And what he says is catching on. On his website, some 20,000 people vote on where in the world to send him next.
After a stop in mid-Missouri for the holidays, Wright is in Montana waiting to find out his next destination.
You can learn more about how Wright packs so lightly, as well as his impressions of places he's been, on our YouTube channel.
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