We’re conditioned in our society to acquire stuff. Our culture and economy often seems to revolve around this quest. And no matter how large a space we have, we can easily fill that space with stuff.  It seems to be a universal law – the amount of [...]]]>

<— Read Chapter 2: Affording Full Time Travel

We’re conditioned in our society to acquire stuff. Our culture and economy often seems to revolve around this quest. And no matter how large a space we have, we can easily fill that space with stuff.  It seems to be a universal law – the amount of stuff you have expands to fill all available space.

The acquisition of stuff can easily end up consuming our space and our lives, cluttering our homes, our budgets and our minds.

We pay to acquire it, pay to house it, pay to store it when we run out of room, and pay to move it when we seemingly inevitably upgrade to a larger place.

Repeat this cycle a few times, until the day comes when your next of kin get stuck with paying once again to dispose of it all.

For those wanting to travel full time for an extended amount of time, breaking the acquisition cycle is essential. You just simply can’t take it all with you. With valued media collections, cherished family heirlooms and closets full of unending wardrobe choices, letting go can seem like an insurmountable task. We’re just so conditioned to have stuff around us.

One key is realizing that stuff needs us more than we need it.

If you’re determined to embrace a life with the simplicity of less stuff – you can do it. It is never too late to break free from the endless acquisition cycle. The biggest block is typically one of social conditioning and attaching sentimental value to inanimate objects.

Setting your Goal

There are a lot of extreme minimalists out there who blog about the joys of owning extremely few possessions – capping yourself at “100 things” or less, or even traveling with no luggage whatsoever. And often, your “stuff” limit may be constrained by the amount of space that is physically available – such as living in an RV or traveling via a backpack.

Packed for 5 Months in the USVI - 2 Suitcases

Goals are great, and they definitely give one motivation and discipline to keep their amount of stuff in check.  And these sorts of goals can be a fun experiment to see if you can do it for a short term.  When we moved to the US Virgin Islands for a 5 months, we set a goal of only checking  two bags weighing no more than 100 lbs. And we were successful in meeting this goal while still comfortably having everything we’d need to live and set up our household & office.  And in our first year of travel together, we compressed both of our lives to live & travel in a 16′ travel trailer with only 45 sq ft of living space. It was an awesome experiment to see just how little we could do without (including plumbing!) while still feeling comfortable and abundant.

But don’t feel you need to set a goal that seems unrealistic for you. Set a goal to live the life you want by consciously choosing how much power stuff has over you. Choose goals that meet your objectives. Some stuff has a very legitimate role in our lives, serving a useful function and adding value. And other things are just anchors holding you back.

The trick if finding what those things are, and jettisoning them.

An Approach to Purging

There’s many aways to approach purging your stuff. And there’s really no right or wrong way – just want works for you.

My trick to approaching purging is to set up a process that avoids overwhelm. Don’t try to think of your entire house as a singular project to get done.

Instead, focus on one area at a time by dividing up the purge process into sessions. Each of these sessions should be manageable within the span of a couple of hours, something that can be tackled with a feeling of fairly immediate accomplishment.

You can tackle a session once a week, or several a day – the pace is up to you and your objectives.

For each session, I followed a framework that looked something like this 7-step process:

1) Pick an Area! Pick just one area – perhaps a closet, a dresser, a drawer, a cabinet, a hutch, a filing cabinet, etc.  Set an attainable goal to purge a certain percentage this session, such as trimming away 20% of my socks. Keep in mind that you can return to do more in future sessions – it is better to work in phases than to get paralyzed trying to do too much at once!

2) Divide and Conquer! Divide things into three piles (mental or physical):

a) Stuff you see as essential must-keeps.

b) Stuff you regularly use.

c) Stuff you rarely use, touch or appreciate (this pile should be much bigger than the others – if it’s not, you haven’t made the mental shift yet.)

3) Further Divisions! Put your essential pile to the side for now, focusing on your rarely used and regularly used piles. While keeping them separate,  sub-divide things up into logical categories (using clothing as an example: pants, sweaters, ties, t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, etc. or work clothes, lounge clothes, exercise clothes, dress up clothes, etc.)

4) Rotational Purge. Start going through each of your rarely used piles in rotation with a goal to purge a certain number of items from each pile. If you’re unsure if you should purge or keep an item, ask yourself these questions:

• Does this item serve a unique purpose in my life that can’t be met by another item I am keeping?
• Do I find myself not using this item as often as I should because it doesn’t exactly meet my criteria? (continuing the clothing example – I don’t have anything to wear with this color, there’s a stain, the fabric isn’t comfy, the fit isn’t perfect..etc.)
• Does this item bring me joy and delight?

In this process, you may find some things you not only don’t want to purge, but want to move to the must-keep pile.

After you’ve completed going through all your piles once, take a deep breath and congratulate yourself!

5) Switch the focus. Do a few more rounds on the rarely used piles each time increasing the number of items you purge.  Then repeat the above steps with less aggressiveness on your regularly used stuff (ie. instead of purging 4 items each round, may be you only purge 2).  Or if your goal is bring more variety into your life, such as a wardrobe, perhaps you’re feeling ready to intentionally weed out the “old standbys” you regularly grab for.

6) Combine. Switch back and forth from your regular and rarely used piles until it feels you’ve achieved your initial goal. Combine the piles to get a sense of what you’re actually down to.  Purge more as desired.

7) Reassess Essentials. Now turn your attention to the pile of stuff you initially deemed essential.  In all likely hood, some of them no longer will seem as essential now that you’re in full on purge mode. Don’t be afraid to purge from this pile now.

Generally at this point, purging has become a virus and you’re on a roll shedding like crazy. Most folks I coach can hardly help themselves doubling their purge goal for the session!

You’ve successfully avoided initial overwhelm by starting with simple easy to reach goals that aren’t as scary as ‘get rid of 99% of everything!’  With each round, the brain adjusts, and it becomes easier and easier to want to get rid of things.

You get good at making quick judgements of ‘will I ever really use this??’ ‘is it worth the space??’ ‘does it serve its function?’ ‘is it bringing joy and delight to my life?’

Set up an area somewhere in your home to stage all the stuff you’re getting rid of… because next, you have to figure out where it goes.

How to get rid of it

Now that you’ve started purging down to stuff you love, how do you get rid of the rest?  There are several options, each with varying levels of effort involved.  You’ll probably find that a combination of approaches is appropriate.

• Trash It / Burn It – Sometimes, it seems the easier way to make stuff disappear is to simply file it away in a dumpster. And while quickly freeing, it’s also the least responsible way to deal with the hole we dug ourselves into. I strongly urge you to consider other ways, except for the stuff that really is of no value to anyone.
• 

  Taking another load to the post office during my purge.

  Sell It - With resources such as eBay, Craigslist, Amazon Marketplace, classified ads, etc., getting cash for your stuff is viable and may help fund your upcoming adventure. It takes a bit of effort to make listings and complete transactions however. You’ll have to become a proficient shipper & packer if you’re mailing packages, and you’ll be constantly setting up appointments (that often get broken) for people to come and view your stuff.  When dealing with in person transactions, you’ll also quite likely get in the role of becoming a negotiator.  When you’re dealing with a household of stuff, it is going to become overwhelming at some point. I made it a game and had a good deal of fun with it. Don’t stress about making top dollar – the key to purging is speed and efficiency.  And be ready to give in when the overwhelm approaches. You may even want to consider hiring an estate liquidator who will come in and handle the entire process for you.

• Donate It - Some stuff is just too much effort to sell, and the tax write off and/or goodwill generated is worth more than the potential cash you can get. Donating to a favored charity is an awesome way to go.  Just remember to properly document your donations so you can get the proper tax credit if you itemize your returns.
• Freecycle It - Freecycle.org is site dedicated to Freecycling – freely giving things to those who can make better use of it. Each Freecycle group is locally organized, so the results can vary quite a bit. It can also be a bit of a pain, as you’re essentially putting in similar listing efforts as selling the items, and even though no cash is exchanging hands you still having to arrange to complete transactions.  Nothing is more frustrating than going out of your way to meet a Freecycle recipient only to have them change their mind at the last minute or not show up, leaving you with both the item and wasted time. But when you do find an appreciative new home for your stuff, it is mentally rewarding!

Journal from my 'House Cooling Party'. Everyone wrote what they were taking and what it would be used for.

• House Cooling Party – Some stuff, we just don’t want. But it may not be easy to sell, and may have more sentimental value attached than we want for it to go into the hands of strangers. For these items, I offer up the suggestion of a ‘House Cooling Party’.  The object here is social time with your friends before you venture off, but unlike a traditional house warming party, at a house cooling party all the guests are required to choose and take gifts from you household. This is a great way to find an appreciative new home for artwork and other hard-to-sell treasures, and it is especially efficient at clearing away the half-empty bottles from behind the bar! And bonus, when you come back to visit your friends in your travels, you also get to visit your treasured stuff displayed in their homes.
• Digitize Stuff – To reduce the amount of paper you have, consider having documents that are still relevant digitized. You can scan them yourself, or hire a service that does this. Photos, music, movies, etc. can all be converted or purchased as digital media, requiring only a large hard drive to store it. And if you are responsible with backups, digitized data has a much longer life expectancy than treasures stored in a damp and musty garage.
• Indefinite Loans - And for some items that we might eventually want back in our lives at a future date, such as beloved furniture, artwork, etc. – consider loaning it to trusted friends for an indefinite period of time. I was able to help a dear friend furnish her new home with my family’s heirloom teak dining room furniture, and still reserved my rights to take the pieces back should I ever ’settle down’ again or my friend can no longer make use of it. Be willing however to let go of these items if something should happen to them.
• Store It - For everything else that you just can’t part with, such as childhood mementos, family heirlooms and stuff you absolutely want should you settle down again  – compact it down as small as possible and store it.  We have a few boxes tucked away in a family basement, and we also keep a small storage unit in Sacramento that we have set up as walk-in closet – allowing us easy access to periodically “check out” books, movies, flying equipment and Burning Man gear. But we haven’t managed to stop by in over a year now, and we are looking forward to ditching the storage unit entirely this year.

Whichever ways you decide to go, give yourself ample time to complete the process, but do give yourself a hard deadline – circle a date on the calendar, tell your friends, and hold yourself to it!

It took me in total about 2 months to shed myself of everything in responsible and sane ways. For instance, I made goals for myself such as  “Today I will go through all documents from 1995-2000, and reduce my hanging wardrobe by 40%.”

Chris knew that he needed a deadline to motivate him, so when he decided to go nomadic he actually “evicted himself” by giving two-month notice on his apartment, before he even had researched a trailer or a tow vehicle to move into!  But having an immovable date on the calendar is exactly what he needed to be forced into action – turning his dreams into reality.

Don’t Pretend it is Easy

It may be physically easy enough to haul a garage full of boxes to Goodwill, or to dump years’ worth of old files into a shredder. But don’t force yourself to pretend that all this letting go is emotionally easy. You’ve held on to your stuff for a reason, and you need to honor your attachments and give yourself the emotional space to let go.

Some of the stuff we kept after purging.

It may seem silly – but you might just literally need to say goodbye. For example, take photos of yourself wearing all your dorky T-shirts one final time. Or make a video of you saying what you liked about each piece of artwork in your home.

For other things, doing some sort of personal ritual might be appropriate. For example, Chris took boxes of files with him to Burning Man his first year on the road, and added them to a burn pile on the final night – releasing years of mental baggage from his past jobs and life.

No matter what it is that is holding you down, there is a way to break free of it. Take the time and find it.

Life with Less Stuff

Even if you’re not embarking on full time travel, shedding yourself of stuff has lots of benefits.   You’ll have less cluttered space, which is usually much calmer and recharging. You may even be able to substantially downscale your living space and reduce costs.

And once you break the cycle of needing to acquire for acquisitions sake, you’ll find a lot more room in your budget – as you carefully consider stuff you bring into your life and space.

Riding the rails for a month - with just a backpack each.

Once you have the stuff you own concentrated down to stuff you love and value, you’ll find you value and use them even more.  On the positive side, this means your favorite sweater becomes one of your only sweaters. On the negative side, your favorite stuff may get more use and degrade faster than before.  You may spend more time maintaining the stuff you own because it’s used more, and difficult to replace with something as perfect.

Another thing that having less stuff has introduced me to is thrift shopping for my wardrobe. With a very limited space for clothing, and a strong appreciation for variety in my wardrobe, planning to replace a portion of my wardrobe regularly at a thrift store is both fun and very affordable.

When living in a small space and keeping hyper mobile, generally to buy something new you simply have to toss something old to make room for it.

The shedding never ends however. Even once you get all your stuff down to what you can carry with you – it’s a good idea to re-evaluate what you’re traveling with after you’ve been on the road a few months. It’s really not until you’ve lived a fully mobile life that you comprehend what your style is.  You’ll probably find that a decent percentage of the stuff you thought you just had to have with you, never gets touched.  It’s time to toss it and lighten the load.

And we’ve also found that we like to change it up frequently, and regularly re-tool our arsenal of stuff to match our current traveling preferences.  When we make such transitions, going through everything and re-purging is such a freeing experience and a bit of ritual to mark changes in our traveling life.  And, because we keep on top of it – it’s generally not an overwhelming experience.

My story of shedding stuff

My path to shedding my stuff started long before I embarked on full time travel. It was the gift from a friend of the book The Sacred Santa: Religious Dimensions of Consumer Culture by Dell deChant that awakened me to the consumerism cycle that is akin to a cosmological religious practice in our culture.  I started to become much more conscious of my spending habits and the stuff I acquired. It had to have a needed purpose, and not just fulfilling what seems like a spiritual and/or emotional need.

Cherie - The Purge Genie (My shipping station).

And then while living on the east coast of Florida in 2004, I experienced three back-to-back mandatory evacuations of my beachside home due to hurricanes.  There’s something about packing up everything you deem essential into your car and leaving your home behind facing impending doom that really forces you to evaluate what stuff really matters. So when Chris proposed that I hit the road full time with him in early 2007, it was an easy transition – as I had already done the mental work.

Inside of a couple months I shed myself of about about 70% of my possessions and left my home behind, putting it on the market to hopefully sell.  I purged through old financial records that long ago needed to be tossed, stripped my wardrobe down to fit inside a small box, sold off books/movies/music that I hadn’t touched in years, shed old technology that was obsolete for my life – and hit the road with just what I needed (and a few grand in cash from selling stuff.)  It was easy, and even fun, to purge as I utilized eBay, Amazon Marketplace, Craigslist, Freecycle and donating to local charities.

With each item gone, my world seemed a shade brighter and freer. My house did sell a year later, and I shed the remaining stuff in quick order – leaving me with just what I carry with me, and a few boxes that I leave at Chris’ parents basement.

I actually found a lot of joy in the purging process, and for a while – experimented with running a professional consulting and purging service that I called ‘Purge Genie’.  I would help people go through their stuff, decide what was worthwhile trying to sell, and then sell it for them.  I got really good at managing eBay, Amazon and Craigslist – and became quite an expert packer. Eventually, I got over the charm of it because dealing with other people’s stuff by moving it into my space became a burden to my own happiness.  But it was fun way to help people escape their clutter.  (Incidentally, I still own the domain name and have all supporting business aspects built – if this sounds like a fun business idea to you, let’s talk! I’m ready to shed my shedding business.)

<— Read Chapter 2: Affording Full Time Travel

Resources:

Sell Your Crap – Adam Baker’s of Man vs. Debt very comprehensive eBook about selling your stuff via eBay, Amazon and Craigslist. He covers everything you need to know about being a successful seller and getting rid of all of your crap. Adam walks you through step-by-step in setting up your accounts, writing listings that sell and pricing your crap.  Highly recommended.

Getting Rid of It: The Step-by-step Guide for Eliminating the Clutter in Your Life (Live the Good Life) - Kindle book by fellow nomads Betsy & Warren Talbot that goes step-by-step in more detail than I covered in this chapter about the purging process.

No Excuses: Go Nomadic

This article is part of an ongoing series answering the common excuses folks give us for why they’re not pursing their dreams of full time travel.  We launched this series a few years ago as Answers to the Common Excuses - and are in the process of massively updating it.  We’ll be releasing newly updated & expanded chapters over the coming months.  We’ll be addressing topics like: Affording It, Family, Pets, Logistics, Healthcare, Community, Keeping Connected and more.

Read the whole series:  No Excuses: Go Nomadic

eBook version - This blog series is also available as convenient eBook. We offer this compilation on a ‘pay as you wish’ basis, and will be keeping it updated with the blog series.  We don’t aim to make a living off our blog, but a little support to keep the blog going is always appreciated (buying the eBook is kinda like taking us out for a beer).

Cost: Pay As You Wish (really… just set the price!)

PDF Format

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<—-  Read Chapter 1: Jobs, Careers and Income Sources for Travelers
Read Chapter 3: Purge your Stuff, Shed the Anchors  —>

When you add up the airfare, hotel costs, parking, car rental, dining out, attraction tickets, tours, pina coladas, pet sitters and more – a typical American 1 week vacation adds up, often astronomically.  Even if you shop for sales and bargains, many folks need to save up for months, or even years, to manage a single memorable week-long trip.

And then they return home both exhausted and broke.

The overall numbers get even more unpleasant when you consider that while on vacation you still keep paying your normal living costs as well – the bills for your rent or mortgage, utilities, lawn maintenance, debt payments, pest control, security system, etc.

When a lot of folks contemplate a life of full time travel, they mentally calculate what their last weeklong vacation cost, multiply that by 52, and immediately conclude that they will never be able to afford it.

They’re wrong.

Traveling full time as a lifestyle isn’t the same as going on vacation full time.

Being nomadic is just as much a lifestyle choice as residing in the suburbs, an urban loft or a rural farm.

When you design your life to travel full time, your travels costs take the place of a lot of your previous housing costs… providing you are willing to leave your former fixed base behind.

Redefine Travel

Travel doesn’t have to cost a fortune, as long as you don’t equate travel with paying for a luxury resort or flying first class all the time. There are many ways to travel that are more affordable, even if you are planning to circumnavigate the world.  Lonely Planet estimates that you can travel the world for as little as $14,000/year if you make efforts to keep your costs under control.

Some more affordable choices to consider for full time traveling include:

• RVing – Putting your house on wheels gives you the benefits of always being at home and always being in a state of travel. You wake up in your own bed every morning, it just happens to frequently be parked somewhere new.  RVs suitable for traveling & living in can be purchased in just about any size range and on any budget – from a couple thousand dollars on up into the millions.  You can choose to stay in campgrounds, RV Parks or optimize your free boondocking skills. Yes, you have fuel costs in a gas-guzzling huge vehicle – but you have complete control over how many miles you drive in a year to balance that.
• Cruising / Boating - Many travelers hear the siren song of the seas, and choose to buy a boat and live life on the water. Sailing is a great way to go, as you can limit your fuel costs as long as you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere. If you learn to do your own maintenance, live-aboard sailing can be surprisingly affordable.
• Minimalist Travel – Backpacking, tent camping, staying at hostels, budget motels and/or Couchsurfing are all ways to see the world at a quicker pace while reducing the cost of lodging.
• Subletting, renting and/or house-sitting - Longer term rentals on places, or exchanging care taking for free lodging, are a lot more obtainable (and more comfortable) than short nightly rentals of hotel rooms or hostels.  You won’t get your nomad membership card taken away if you don’t change locations every week.
• Seasonal/Temp Work – Some seasonal and temporary jobs provide accommodations. Some examples include seasonal work at tourist destinations, hosting at campgrounds, teaching English as a second language, taking part in a harvest, peak season vacation area temp jobs and more. If lodging is provided, you don’t need to earn a lot to afford staying in an exotic locale.
• Volunteering – Some longer term volunteer jobs provide accommodations, and perhaps even food.  WWOOFing (volunteering on organic farms across the world) and other positions are great opportunities!
• Travel Slower - Constantly hopping around places means paying a higher nightly rate for campgrounds & hotels, and lots of transportation costs. Staying longer at your destinations allows you more time at a location to immerse yourself, and spreads out the major costs.  Sometimes monthly rates for a place are barely more than the weekly rate, a huge savings if you aren’t in a rush to move on. Besides, us mobile workers do need to carve out time to work!

The key is to distance yourself from the idea that travel has to be a luxury vacation. Nor does it have to be a minimalist frugal pursuit.

There is a balance to be struck for every conceivable budget.

Get rid of unneeded expenses 

It’s amazing how much more affordable life is when you’re not paying for a lot of the things that we tend to accept as being default costs of living.

Imagine what your budget would be like if you kept income coming in, and you cut out all of your housing expenses? What are you currently paying for rent or mortgage, insurance, property taxes, upkeep and utilities?  What if that was instead your monthly travel budget – how much could you do with that?

If you own your home, that may mean selling your house or renting it out – perhaps not as easy to do in this economy. But if you want it to happen, it will.  If you have a lease on something, it is even easier to allow your obligation to expire.

Unless you’re ready to purge absolutely everything, you’ll probably find that you’ll need storage space somewhere – either by paying for a commercial unit or utilizing a friend’s basement. I highly recommend considering shedding yourself of as much stuff as possible if you’re considering traveling indefinitely.   Paying for storage space for stuff you’re unlikely to ever need again is kind of silly – but you may not be ready to purge the last of your anchors until you’ve fully embraced full time travel for a while.

Debts

It goes without saying, debts are a huge anchor – whether or not you’re considering travel.

It is important to structure your life to pay off any you have and avoid accumulating them in the first place.  I know it may seem insurmountable, but once you put your mind to do it, it’s achievable and freeing.

When you’re preparing for a nomadic lifestyle, seriously consider every purchase you make from this moment forward. Remember, you’ll soon be deciding how you’ll dispose of the item .. or you will be (perhaps literally) carrying it with you.  Switch now to buying less stuff, and put that money towards your debts or savings.

However, if you have debts – don’t let them necessarily keep you back from pursuing your dreams of travel.  If you’re paying your debts and living costs now, the travel costs are basically going to replace your living costs – and could even be less.  You’ll just have to account for what your total cost of living on the road will be, including your debt repayments.

To ditch or not ditch the house?

Many homeowners who are pondering a nomadic lifestyle are faced with the decision of what to do with their home.  Sell it or rent it out?

Selling

If you’re sure you’re done with a stationary home and ready to be mobile for the foreseeable future, ditching the house is probably a logical solution.  Call up some real estate agents in your area and develop a plan to aggressively sell your house.   Stop thinking of it as ‘home’ and concentrate on your life of mobility ahead.

Unfortunately, in most markets, real estate prices are still quite depressed – and selling a home may be a costly proposition.  You may even have to take a loss on the property to get out of the mortgage obligation, or negotiate with your lender to consider other options.

Consult with several real estate agents in your area as to what they think your home can realistically sell for, and in what time frame.  If you need a higher price, it may take significantly longer to find the right buyer.  Consider what the total cost of continuing to pay all of your housing costs will be while you keep your house on the market.  You may come to determine that in the interest of getting on with your life already, taking that loss upfront may enable you to drop your asking price and get the house sold quicker.  You might even consider taking out a personal loan to cover the loss, so you can get out of your house and on the road.

Renting

If you’re not quite sure if the nomadic life will be for you long term, or you have other reasons to hang on to your property – keeping your house may be in your best interest.  You can rent out the house to cover at least part of the cost in the meantime.

The downside to renting out your house is that now you’re suddenly working a part time job as an absentee landlord while simultaneously trying to explore a mobile lifestyle.  Do you really want to be dealing with late rent payments and broken water heaters while adapting to your new life of adventure?  Hiring a competent local property manager may be an expense that is well worth it.

Another consideration is that rental prices in your area may not currently be enough to cover the cost of upkeeping your home. You may end up shelling out some cash to secure your homestead while you’re gone.  It’s totally up to you if that’s worth the freedom you’ll gain or not.

Typical costs of Travel

Folks always want to know what it costs to travel full-time. And honestly, it will vary so drastically based upon the kind of travel you’re doing and your personal style that there is no simple answer.

A solo traveler comfortable with a back-pack, a train pass and couchsurfing is going to be able to travel much cheaper than a couple who desires swank downtown lofts, first class airfare and gourmet dining.  A family traveling in a high end motorcoach staying at commercial RV resorts is going to have different costs than a family traveling via bicycles and pitching tents.

In general however, here are some considerations that greatly impact the costs:

• Modality of Travel:  Will you be getting around by hitchhiking, car, RV, train, plane, boat, bicycle?  What is the fuel efficiency of your RV, and how many miles do you plan to traverse a month?  Is your travel flexible enough to take advantage of deals, ride-shares, and are you willing to invest the effort to maximize frequent flier programs?
• Pace of Travel:  Do you plan to move around a lot, thus having more transportation costs and lodging logistics?  Or do you want to settle down in one spot for a month or more? Slower travels allows you to take advantage of monthly rentals and spreads out your transportation costs, and leaves you with more time to explore a location instead of figuring out logistics for your next destination.
• Lodging Preferences: Where do you want to sleep at night?  Is staying on stranger’s couches or in dorm room style hostels sustainable for you long term?  Do you require a lot of space and privacy in your home base, or will a super tiny converted van do the trick?  Do you want to park your RV in populated areas with amenities, or do you want to stay out in the boonies far away from other people?
• Live like a tourist or a local?: Do you want to embrace how the locals live, and adapt your experience to what is more affordable..  or are you budgeting for tourist attraction tickets and eating western fare no matter the cost?

Our Costs

Our pre-nomad situations

Before Chris went nomadic, he had a Silicon Valley job that afforded him a penthouse apartment in downtown San Francisco. Chris evicted himself at the end of his lease, bought a small travel trailer and Jeep, and hit the road.

I was living beachside on Florida’s Space Coast in a 3 bedroom / 2 bath house I co-owned with a housemate who was also ready to move on.  The housing market was crashing faster than most other places in the country due to hurricanes and the space shuttle program coming to an end.  I quickly went from having sizable equity in the house, to being upside down in it.  We calculated the costs of keeping the house for 2 more years, and set that as the loss we were willing to take to give us the freedom to move on. Once we made that mental shift, it took less than a month to sell at a price we could stomach. Even though my savings account took quite a hit, it was incredibly liberating.

Travel Costs

To be completely upfront – we’re not on a mission to be as frugal and minimalist as possible – that’s just not our driving force. We’re both skilled high tech entrepreneurs with the capacity to earn as much as we’re willing to work.  By avoiding making financial commitments wherever possible we have the flexibility to be lazy bums when we want to, and take on inspiring projects when we feel so called.

That said, neither of us is independently wealthy.  We have moderate savings and investments, but certainly not enough to never have to work again.

We are however completely debt free.

We have a mix of fixed costs each month that include our connectivity, insurance and a storage unit (ugh).  And then we have costs that can vary quite a bit each month based on what we’re doing – fuel & transportation, lodging, campground fees, eating, airfare, rail fare, entertainment, laundry and technology.

We do mix up our pace and style of travel often – and presently we’re traveling the US in a pimped out converted vintage bus.

We love variety though and have integrated in a 5-month stay on a tropical island, extended travel by rail and minimalist RVing in a tiny 16′ travel trailer.

Our costs have varied from $1000 – $4000/month over the years.

Since 2009 we’ve published our monthly travel cost log.

You CAN afford it!

If you really embrace nomadic living as a lifestyle, you will find it surprisingly easy to afford.

Shed your debts, stop paying for a home base, and stop thinking of travel as an expensive indulgence. Once you’ve managed the transition, you will find that life can be rich with experience and yet extremely affordable as well.

<—-  Read Chapter 1: Jobs, Careers and Income Sources for Travelers
Read Chapter 3: Purge your Stuff, Shed the Anchors  —>

Resources:

Travel full-time for less than $14,000 per year. – An excellent article by professional hobo Nora Dunn, about how to keep full time world traveling inexpensive.

Strategies for Affording Long Term Travel - The folks over at Two Backpakers One World share their tips on saving money and affording long term travel.

Nomadic Matt – Matt Knepes has been budget traveling the world for many years, and shares many of his tips and strategies on his blog and in his various eBooks.

You vs. Debt - Man vs. Debt’s Adam Baker has put together a 6 week course to help those struggling with debt develop and keep to a plan to get out of it.  Keep an eye on when the next class is open.

Travel Hacking Cartel - Run by travel hacker extrodinaire, Chris Guillebeau, this monthly membership club tracks frequent flier & hotel programs for deals to build up your free travel accounts without traveling.  (We tried it for a couple months, and it was more effort than we were willing to put in.. but it might be worthwhile.)

No Excuses: Go Nomadic

This article is part of an ongoing series answering the common excuses folks give us for why they’re not pursing their dreams of full time travel.  We launched this series a few years ago as Answers to the Common Excuses - and are in the process of massively updating it.  We’ll be releasing newly updated & expanded chapters over the coming months.  We’ll be addressing topics like: Affording It, Family, Pets, Logistics, Healthcare, Community, Keeping Connected and more.

Read the whole series:  No Excuses: Go Nomadic

eBook version - This blog series is also available as convenient eBook. We offer this compilation on a ‘pay as you wish’ basis, and will be keeping it updated with the blog series.  We don’t aim to make a living off our blog, but a little support to keep the blog going is always appreciated (buying the eBook is kinda like taking us out for a beer).

Cost: Pay As You Wish (really… just set the price!)

PDF Format

They crave a slower pace to more fully immerse themselves in different cultures and experiences. More opportunity to enjoy quality time with far flung friends and family. [...]]]> Many people have dreams of long term travel, something that is more than the typical 1-2 week vacation a couple times a year (or every couple of years!).

They crave a slower pace to more fully immerse themselves in different cultures and experiences. More opportunity to enjoy quality time with far flung friends and family. A chance for ever broadening horizons, not constrained by a “back to work” deadline.

That sort of long term travel is generally thought of as reserved for:

• Retirement – when life savings, pensions and social security can cover the expenses, and one has completed a career and put that phase of life behind them.
• Before career – fresh out of school before one commits to a career and family, taking a few months or years to explore the world.
• In between careers – when a current careers is no longer rewarding, quit, take off and travel for a while before re-entering the workforce.

Essentially, extended travel is often to the exclusion of work or career. It’s something you do after you’ve ended a career, or in-between phases of life.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with these approaches.  Taking time in-between life chapters, and focusing on travel, can give one very deep insights into themselves and the world. Valuable stuff.

But what if now is when you want to travel, not some distant post-retirement future when your health and physical capabilities may no longer be up for the experience?

What if a year just isn’t enough to experience the world?

There is another option.

Combining Career and Travel

Not many of us are in a position to entirely quit the workforce, retire early and sustain our desired lifestyle. Some of us actually enjoy working, embrace our careers, and aren’t itching to escape them. And others, despite vigilant financial planning, haven’t been able to acquire enough savings to travel without some sort of supplemental income.

Our generation, Gen-X, in particular was brought up believing that social security likely wouldn’t be around by the time we reach a traditional retirement age. The old concept of retirement just doesn’t play into many of our generation’s long term plans.  Some of us are pursuing a sustainable work/life balance that can last our entire life.  We’d rather fully enjoy our lives now, instead of putting off our dreams for some future that may not exist for us.

There are certainly many careers that are not apt to a full time traveling lifestyle.  For those passionate about such a career path, that is reason enough to put off full-time travel. In the meantime, find ways to integrate in purposeful travel into your vacation time, sabbaticals, and/or by creatively extending business related trips.

You might be surprised at how much flexibility you actually have – many part-time nomads manage to negotiate time-off (without pay) to turn the typical two week American vacation into two or more months off each year. You never know until you ask, or sometimes issue an ultimatum.

But if you’re not on a stationary career track that inspires you, and travel is calling you louder, perhaps it’s time to explore creative ways to re-think how you might make it work.

There are generally two different ways to go about earning an income while traveling.

First, find work that naturally integrates in travel.

Or, design a “location independent” career that involves work that can be done primarily remotely, letting you work from wherever you are.

Here are some examples to get you thinking…

Careers with Travel Built In

A nomadic life based on following the work is nothing new at all – it’s been part of human culture since the earliest adventurers got the itch to explore the world around them.

There are many career paths that can require, or be adapted to, travel as a core component of them.

• Artists & Jewelers
• Musicians
• Seasonal Workers
• Festival Workers
• Truck Drivers
• Migrant Workers (harvests, oil fields, etc.)
• Construction and Craftsmanship
• Contract Medical Staff (nurses, doctors, technicians, etc.)
• Journalism
• Photographers
• Cruise Ship Staff
• Fishing or Boat Crewing
• Military Service
• Traveling Sales
• Therapists & Body Workers
• Hair Stylists & Cosmeticians
• Tattoo Artist
• House & Pet Sitters
• Tour Guides
• Amusement Park Staff
• Providing Services (cleaning, organizing, computer setup, handyman, etc.)
• Repair & Technician Work
• Temp Workers
• Performance Artists (balloon twisters, dancers, comedians, gymnasts, fire swallowers, etc.)
• Conference Speakers
• Trainers & Teachers
• Teaching English as a Second Language
• Volunteer Jobs (that cover some living expenses)
• Consultants & Designers
• Workamping  (exchanging services for RV parking and/or pay)

Many of these career paths could utilize travel as part of the means of getting to a work site, but often may require adjusting your travel plans to meet the schedules of work obligations (military service!). You may have to strike a balance that works for you between giving up control of your schedule and destinations, and having work that actually pays you to see the world.

Other nomadic career paths allow for travel totally in your control, but you need to have faith that you can show up to a location and market yourself to find gigs.

There are some jobs (particularly in remote areas – such as oil fields, fishing or mining) that offer a rotating schedule of intense periods of work (weeks to months at a time) then lots of time off. Taking a job that involves such hard intense work for a month straight may be grueling, but it is balanced out with time off to travel extensively before you need to return.

One nomad we know has spent the past few years working the seasons in Antarctica as support staff at McMurdough Station. His long stretches spent living on the ice is balanced with seasons spent full-time on the road exploring other parts of the world.

Working Remotely

With the advent of wireless broadband, there’s a whole new class of mobile careers available. They’re digital nomads and location independent professionals - or as we prefer to call ourselves, technomads.

Some examples of careers that can be done remotely from anywhere with decent connectivity might include:

• Programmers
• Developers
• IT managers
• Database managers
• Bookkeepers / Accountants / CPAs
• Lawyers
• Personal Assistants
• Web Designers
• Writers
• Editors
• Bloggers
• Podcasters
• Photo & Videography Work
• Affiliate Sales
• Social Media Specialists
• Product Evangelists
• Bargain Hunting & Re-Selling Online
• Online Products & Stores
• Graphic Designers
• Online Professors
• Personal and Professional Coaches
• Consultants & Advisors
• Freelance Writers
• Customer Support
• Agents (travel, insurance, etc.)
• Investors / Traders
• Transcriptionists
• Translators
• Researchers / Information Providers

These are folks who can utilize technology to take the office with them untethered by ethernet cables and phone lines. Sometimes people pursuing digital nomadism have existing gigs lined up before they hit the road, and sometimes they search for remote working compatible gigs as needed by searching outsourcing job boards such as:

http://www.craigslist.org
http://www.elance.com
http://www.odesk.com
http://www.vworker.com

We’ve had friends who are IT consultants who took their lives completely mobile and actually didn’t tell their clients for months of the change. After all, who really knows (or cares) where the phone physically rings or where code is written?

The above lists certainly aren’t comprehensive of the options. It’s limited only to your creativity and passions.

What skills and interests do you have?  How can you adapt your skills into a job that allows you the level of travel you desire?

Brainstorm, and don’t let anyone tell you your idea isn’t worthwhile exploring.

Entrepreneur vs Employee?

Working on the beach (it's overrated, by the way)

There seems to be a common misconception that to be location independent, you have to be a self-employed, freelancing, entrepreneur.  This is not necessarily true.  While a self-disciplined motivated individual can do quite well being self-employed in a location independent career, it’s certainly not the only way.

As the world has become more and more virtual, and the economy has forced more companies to scale back on the costs of maintaining real estate, more traditional workplaces are becoming keen on allowing their employees to transition to becoming remote teleworkers. So why not take it a step further, and work from anywhere?

Some companies have even gone entirely virtual – with no fixed office at all.

One company run by a friend of ours has employees all over the world who only ever see each other at their quarterly week-long working retreats, always held in an exotic new city so that when the team comes together they can bond by mixing work and play.

Of course, not all positions are going to be able to be done remotely, particularly factoring the uncertainties that come with working while traveling. However if you have a job that you think you could do from anywhere, you might want to consider coming up with a proposal for your boss.

Don’t expect your employer to jump right on the opportunity, and expect that you may have to prove you can do it by perhaps starting with working from home a couple days a week.  It is possible however, and really all depends on how open minded your workplace is and how critical your role is to your organization. It likely won’t be an overnight transition, but if you like your current career and job but just want to do it from anywhere – think creatively on how you can make it happen.

If you are willing to negotiate a lower salary in return for fewer mandated office hours and more travel flexibility, you might be surprised as to what your bosses might agree to.

On the other hand, not working for someone as an employee is very freeing.  It also means being quite disciplined and resourceful to both find work and keep your clients happy, as well as figuring out all of the logistics of running  a company – paperwork, taxes, healthcare, insurance, etc.

If you’ve never run your own business before, it may be daunting to approach learning the ropes while also adapting to a fully mobile lifestyle. How much of a change you’re up for is going to vary quite a bit by person, skills and tolerance.

Working less or working smarter?

After Timothy Ferris’ book The Four Hour Work Week came out, a bunch of folks got the notion that they could set up online businesses, outsource the bulk of the work, and only work 4 hours a week while earning a bunch of cash and playing the rest of the time.

Sure, it may be possible for some, and there’s good stuff in Tim’s book that can really help folks think differently about the role work plays in their life.  Just don’t get the idea that life as a nomad is always a full time vacation.  It takes a lot of work to set up and maintain a passive income stream – so much so that for most it’s really hard to call what they end up doing all that passive.

Most of the mobile working nomads we’ve encountered don’t have a life of complete leisure or a passive income stream.  True, we may not be always working a typical 40+-hour work week plus commute, but we are putting in productive hours with deliverables.  We just tend to do it smartly without all the wasted time that tends to come with an office life.

Many of us are working in careers that inspire us in some way, better the world and that we actually enjoy. And we’re doing it from amazing places with ever-changing amazing office views.  Instead of ending our workday (or night) and coming home to the same ole routine, we have a new location waiting for us to explore!

We’ve encountered such a variety of ways people make it work – from working a fairly normal work day, to those that work in waves of intense 12-15 hour days for a few weeks then coast for months after that.

There’s no right or wrong way to do it.  Just make sure it’s YOUR way.

Our Mobile Careers

Working for ourselves, and working remotely, is the primary route that Chris and I have taken.

I’ve been location independent since 1994 when I started taking over my family’s software development company, running it from my beachside home in Florida. I used to tease my clients when they called that I could be working from anywhere – by the pool or the beach.  Then I started taking it further.

When I needed to travel for work, I’d tack on personal days to explore, taking advantage of the majority of the travel costs having already been covered. Then I started taking longer personal trips where I integrated in a remote work day, and used my off-time to explore.  It worked well, and remarkably, I found I rarely felt the desire to take a conventional dedicated vacation.

I liked the balance of travel just being a regular part of my life and having the flexibility to just go with little need for pre-planning.

And I’ve never felt like I needed to escape my career – I already built something I loved.

When I met my lifemate Chris in 2006 (who was already living as a full time nomad), it all came together for me to totally remove myself from a fixed homebase and office, and I started the process of shifting my life to become fully mobile.

Before going nomadic, Chris had a career in the mobile technology industry – most recently having worked for Palm and PalmSource as their Director of Competitive Analysis (aka ‘Chief Spy’), traveling the world to keep tabs on the entire mobile tech industry. It was truly a job too good to give up until Palm  & Palm Source imploded. He had already long ago decided that this would be his last job for a big company, and his lay off propelled him to finally jump into something he always wanted to do – become a technomad.

Today, Chris and I together do various technology and strategy consulting as we travel via our partnership Two Steps Beyond LLC, mainly only taking on projects that inspire us and which are fun! I continue to work for many of my long term clients, and we’ve begun developing our own line of travel related mobile apps. We’ve also taken on several intense short term gigs that have included: advising tech start-ups, orchestrating new product launches, doing intensive market research, providing market insight to investors, selling our photography and travel videography, and writing for tech journals.

And when we have lulls in our workload, we’ve been known to take on temporary gigs outside our norm just to explore new things, such as workamping for a month at Amazon.com packing boxes during their peak holiday season.

We like to shake it up, explore new avenues of income, and most of all – have fun!

Read Chapter 2: Affording Full Time Travel —->

Resources:

A Practical Guide To Going Digital - Christine Gilbert over at AlmostFearless.com provides some amazing resources and inspiration. This eBook gives a lot of information working remotely and digitally.

25 Career Ideas to Design Your Location Independent Lifestyle - Carmen Bolanos, co-founder of NuNomad.com, put together an awesome round up of 25 mobile careers using examples of real nomads he has interviewed.

Work for RVers and Campers - Website maintained by a couple who has been full-timing for nearly 20 years and earning an income while they travel.

Digital Nomad Academy - An online program run by Cody McKibben to help those wanting to be a digital nomads set up and explore business ideas to create a mobile friendly career. Targeted to the entrepreneur minded who has yet to figure out how to make it work.

Reaching Escape Velocity - The original Technomad, Steve Roberts, shares how he used sponsors, the media, volunteers, and “other potent forces” to enable and afford his own massively ambitious technomadic undertakings.  If your planned adventures are audacious enough to draw this sort of attention, you need this book.

No Excuses: Go Nomadic

This article is part of an ongoing series answering the common excuses folks give us for why they’re not pursing their dreams of full time travel.  We launched this series a few years ago as Answers to the Common Excuses - and are in the process of massively updating it.  We’ll be releasing newly updated & expanded chapters over the coming months.  We’ll be addressing topics like: Affording It, Family, Pets, Logistics, Healthcare, Community, Keeping Connected and more.

Read the whole series:  No Excuses: Go Nomadic

eBook version - This blog series is also available as convenient eBook. We offer this compilation on a ‘pay as you wish’ basis, and will be keeping it updated with the blog series.  We don’t aim to make a living off our blog, but a little support to keep the blog going is always appreciated (buying the eBook is kinda like taking us out for a beer).

Cost: Pay As You Wish (really… just set the price!)

PDF Format

To which we of course reply ‘Then why aren’t you doing it too?’.

Over the years, we’ve compiled our responses to the common excuses that folks give us to that question, some [...]]]> Oftentimes when folks hear that we’ve been traveling full-time for so many years – we get the response of ‘You’re living my dream!’.

To which we of course reply ‘Then why aren’t you doing it too?’.

Over the years, we’ve compiled our responses to the common excuses that folks give us to that question, some very valid. We aim to share examples of others overcoming the challenges, our own stories and share resources to assist.   This will be a growing series, so please do check back to see what we’ve added.

We have greatly expanded and updated this series, and now offer it as a ‘Pay as you Wish’ eBook. By downloading and chipping in for the eBook, you are helping us fund our efforts to continue presenting this sort of information to those seeking it.  Thank you!

Currently in this series:

Excuse #1: Jobs/Career – Choose careers that are nomad friendly!
Excuse #2: Affording it - It can be far more affordable than you think!
Excuse #3: Stuff – Stuff is anchor, learn to live with what you really need
Excuse #4: Family - Travel can be an education for kids and keep you more connected to family
Excuse #5: Environmental Impact - You can travel and lower your ecological footprint on the world
Excuse #6: Pets - Some forms of travel are more pet friendly than others
Excuse #7: Community – Being nomadic opens up new opportunity for community
Excuse #8: Romance/Companionship – From solo travel to dealing with a partner who doesn’t share your wanderlust
Excuse #9: Logistics – How to handle mail, voting, taxes and banking – the mundane logistics.

Excuse #10: Healthcare – Considerations for health insurance when you travel full time.

Excuse #11: Overwhelm - Tips for handling the daunting tasks ahead of you for preparing your life to be mobile.
Excuse #12: Lack of Continuity - How to find services on the road when you need them

Excuse #13: Safety – Being mobile really doesn’t have more risky than being stationary – just different.

Excuse #14: Connectivity - How to stay connected online while in motion full time.

Excuse #15: Feeling Held Back (available only in the eBook!)
Excuse #16: Being a Homebody – Yes, you can be a homebody and travel full time!

This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

What other excuses do you have, or have you encountered?  Reply in the comments, and we’ll address those too.

To which we of course reply ‘Then why aren’t you doing it too?’

We have been collecting the excuses we’ve heard over the years, and have been chronicling in this blog [...]]]> Oftentimes when folks hear about how we live our lives on the road – we get the response ‘You’re living my dream!’.

To which we of course reply ‘Then why aren’t you doing it too?’

We have been collecting the excuses we’ve heard over the years, and have been chronicling in this blog our Answers to the Common Excuses folks give us for why they’re not living their dreams of a traveling lifestyle.

To better share all this great information, we’ve now consolidated, updated and expanded all of these posts into our first ever eBook release!

In this eBook, we’ve addressed these topics:

• Jobs/Career – We offer up insight on how to transition your existing career, and on choosing a career that is nomad friendly!
• Affording It – We dispel the myths about the high cost of travel. Addressing issues such as selling your home or renting it out, and reducing living expenses overall.
• Stuff – Stuff is an anchor, what are the things that you truly need? We offer tips on letting go of attachments to things, and advice on how to tackle the overwhelming purging process.
• Family – Travel can be a great education for kids, and can actually keep you more connected to extended family.
• Environmental Impact – You can travel and still lower your ecological footprint on the world.
• Pets – Some forms of travel are more pet friendly than others. You don’t need to leave your best friend behind!
• Community – Being nomadic opens up new opportunity for community. We offer tips on how to stay connected with communities back home, and meet like-minded people as you travel.
• Romance & Relationships – We explore everything from solo travel to dealing with a partner who doesn’t share your wanderlust.
• Logistics – We share practical advice on how to handle mail, voting, taxes and banking – the mundane (but important!) logistics.
• Healthcare & Health – We discuss considerations for health insurance and keeping healthy when you travel full time.
• Overwhelm – We share tips for handling the daunting tasks ahead of you while preparing your life to be mobile.
• Lack of Continuity – How to find services you are used to at home when you are on the road and need them.
• Safety – Being mobile really doesn’t have more risks than being stationary – just different.
• Connectivity – We offer proven advice on how to stay connected and online while living a life in motion.
• Feeling Held Back (new – eBook exclusive!) – Society doesn’t teach us to carve our own paths, or how to responsibly exit the traditional interstate to the American Dream. We help you find your own unique way to live the life of your dreams, no matter what is holding you back.

This series has been some of our most popular and linked to content on our site, and in it we give a mix of practical tips, thoughts to ponder, further resources and examples of real people overcoming all of these hurdles.

We’ve always had the vision of combining all of the articles into a single, easy to access resource.  But, we always seemed to be lacking the time to get all the extensive editing and updating done – until now.

We are proud to announce that our Answers to the Common Excuses Not to Travel Full-Time is now available as a 78 page, 25,000+ word eBook!

Not only did we combine 15 topics into one place, we also did a massive update and added bunches of new content.  There is even an entirely new never before published chapter.

Price: Contribute as you wish!

PDF Format	ePub Format

Just change the suggested price in the shopping cart to whatever it’s worth to you.

Not ready to invest in an eBook? You’re welcome to preview it as our gift by setting the price to $0.00.  If you find it of value, please do consider coming back and making a contribution so we can continue to spread inspiration, or simply PayPal us at us@technomadia.com – Thanks!

The completion of this eBook also comes at an exciting time for us – our presentation at SXSW Interactive 2011 on Technomadism: Living and Working On the Road was recently accepted!  So we’re heading to Austin mid-March, and are very excited to share our experience on this topic with a large audience at such a major event.

We’ve never set out to generate our primary income from this blog, and the same is true with this eBook.   We write, produce content and present about nomadic living because we are passionate about it, and sharing our lives is a great way to meet amazing people. We love sharing this lifestyle with others, and inspiring and being inspired by the people we meet.

However sharing our gift of inspiration at SXSW in Austin will have real travel costs involved.

So we’re launching our new eBook as fundraising for our SXSW travel fund. You can help us inspire others – just Click Here!

All proceeds of this book are currently going into our SXSW Interactive 2011 Travel Fund. By making a contribution for this eBook, you’re helping us continue to inspire others to live their dreams.

Thank you!

There’s so many things that have to come together, such as:

Despite this being one of the most substantial excuses that hold people back from a nomadic life, I’ve been holding off on posting about this topic for a couple of reasons.

For one, it took me nearly two years to [...]]]> No matter how you look at it, healthcare, and specifically health insurance, is a headache.

Despite this being one of the most substantial excuses that hold people back from a nomadic life, I’ve been holding off on posting about this topic for a couple of reasons.

For one, it took me nearly two years to figure out a workable solution for myself. And I’ve worked in healthcare software development for over 15 years – so I know more than most about how the system works! This stuff isn’t easy.

This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

And secondly, I was waiting to see what the ultimate impact of the healthcare reform debate would be. And while I am thrilled with the upcoming shift around pre-existing conditions, most of the actual changes are years away from going into effect.

Things may be getting better, but securing affordable quality health care remains a challenge. This challenge is magnified for the self-employed, and for people without a fixed home. No wonder that healthcare is a particular problem for nomads!

The healthcare problem for nomads

Cherie having her twisted ankle wrapped at Solfest.

The US healthcare system built up upon locally negotiated contracts between insurers and providers, and there is nothing close to any sort of unified system accessible nationwide. Many healthcare plans don’t even cross regional state lines due to different accreditation processes and regulations that vary from state to state.

I don’t care what your leaning is on the whole healthcare debate is – this localization presents a unique problem for full time travelers. Under most plans, this means that you will spend a lot of time ‘out of network’ simply because your travels take you away from where your plan was underwritten.

Many travelers are also self-employed, and thus ineligible for the sorts of large group plans that are often provided with more traditional jobs. If you’ve been insured most of your life via a group plan through your or a family member’s employment – you may not have ever needed to deal with the hassle of seeking out private insurance on your own.  Large group plans provide some substantial advantages over individual plans, such as coverage for pre-existing conditions from day one – as long as you’ve been insured without lapse. Also, larger plans have a lot more clout that significantly reduces costs, and a member of a large group is less likely than an individual to have the insurer fighting against them to deny benefits.

Thankfully, the healthcare reform bill will do some to make things easier for the self employed and others on individual plans.

Access to affordable healthcare is a top reason why so many people legitimately feel they can’t leave their corporate jobs.

If you’re considering going nomadic and are able to take your existing “big company” career with you – look closely at your group plan options. Unless you work for a company that supports workers in many locations, most of the plan options are likely to be regionally based. This is especially true with the more affordable group plans, such as HMOs. If you have a PPO or indemnity option, you may be better off choosing it to at least have some access to out-of-network providers.  Even still, you may find that your company simply doesn’t offer insurance options suitable for a traveling lifestyle – and you too will be out shopping for insurance.

My headache

I’m sharing my healthcare insurance story to demonstrate just one possible set of challenges. It’s nowhere near representative of all situations you might encounter, but I think my personal story illustrates several of the real-life snafus one can run into.

My parents and I have run a small software business for many decades. We have a group HMO health plan in Florida that provides fairly excellent care, although as my parents have aged the premiums have become ridiculous. Small business group plans generally are much more expensive than large group plans for equivalent benefits.

When I decided to go nomadic, I did so knowing that our group plan only provided me with emergency and urgent care coverage while away from Florida.  Anything ‘routine’, or even aftercare for an emergency, would only be covered in our one “home” county in Florida.

This was an awful plan for a full-time traveler, but as a really small family business, if I left the plan it would have jeopardized our group status.

Cherie's dad prepping her for surgery.

Changing to another group plan entirely wasn’t feasible either. My mother is a breast cancer survivor, and a pre-existing condition of that caliber could only be covered by her taking on a corporate job with a large group plan, by her entering a high risk (high cost) pool, or by all of us sticking with our existing group plan.

I was literally trapped into paying for health insurance I couldn’t actually use, and I stayed on this plan for my first 2 years on the road. I factored in that I would simply have to return to Florida for routine healthcare – being younger, mobile and healthy, that seemed like a reasonable risk.

As luck would have it, I ended up needing major surgery during our first year of travel.  Thankfully it wasn’t time critical, so we were able to relocate to Florida at a leisurely pace to take care of things. It’s not a huge sob story, because being in Florida also meant I had the benefit of support from friends and family during my recovery. But if it had been anything more urgent, the outcome could have been much worse.

Our current healthcare solution

We eventually found a way to maintain my mother’s group coverage while getting me off the policy. This allowed me to find a plan better suited to my traveling lifestyle.

Chris and I looked at establishing a group plan in South Dakota, our state of domicile and where our little business is registered at.  But we hit brick walls trying to find a provider network that would have given us nationwide coverage without paying out of network deductibles all the time.  Given the high premium costs for a small business group plan and the paperwork involved with establishing a plan for a company without consistent income (we work in bursts) – we dropped that idea.

Chris being treated for dehydration at Burning Man.

For now, we both have individual high deductible HSA plans with one of the rare fairly nationwide PPO networks. It’s amazing how far you have to research to find out how widespread a network is or isn’t, and we had to work with our insurer to write our plan as the network that provided us the best coverage where we travel the most often wasn’t generally available for South Dakota residents.  Our plan is through Assurant Health (a Time-Life company), and we went with the PHCS network of providers.

The feature of Assurant’s plans that make it especially nomad compatible is their ‘TeleDoc’ system – which gives you affordable access to doctors over the phone for more routine illnesses. For things like UTIs, sinus infections and other things that don’t require extensive diagnostics, they can call in a prescription no matter where you are.   This is a key feature, as we’d otherwise be left to using urgent care facilities for these sorts of doctor’s visits if we didn’t happen to be close by to a doctor we were already established with (and many docs only reluctantly take new patients).  Otherwise, we schedule our routine care when we’re in locations where we’ve established ourselves as patients with doctors that we trust.

Please note, we do not necessarily endorse Assurant, PHCS or TeleDoc. We’re both fairly new to them, and have yet to have need to put them to the test for anything major.

Other healthcare options for US nomads

Other domestic nomads we’ve spoke with have also chosen similar individual plans through Humana and Blue Cross Blue Shield for their health insurance needs.  A high deductible HSA seems to be a common choice for those of us self-employed, funemployed, or semi-retired. An HSA also has the perk of allowing you to effectively write-off all of your health care costs without itemizing your tax refund.

Others have selected low cost major medical catastrophic plans, to cover only the very worst case stuff, and are self-paying for everything else.

Some domestic nomads we know work remotely for a larger corporation and have been able to keep their group plans as they travel.

Some nomadic travelers choose to gamble and plan to self pay for all their healthcare – perhaps even crossing into Mexico or Canada for lower cost care.  In the US, this is a big gamble as healthcare costs can quickly bankrupt you in the event of a major illness or accident. But there are may clinics and low cost options even in the US. Two of our medical urgent needs actually happened at festivals we were attending that offered fabulous and free expanded first aid (I once twisted an ankle, and Chris once got dehydrated and needed IV fluids).

My personal physician in Florida, Dr. Steven Blythe, has a great website Uninsured America featuring a guide to surviving our healthcare system as an uninsured individual. Dr. Blythe actually ran for Congress in 2008 – unfortunately for the country, he lost – fortunate for me, he’s still my doc.

He has also written and published a great book on the subject: Uninsured in America: A survival guide. In it, he gives a lot of great advice on how to navigate the system without health insurance.

Healthcare for international nomads

As we’ve been primarily US domestic nomads, we don’t have as much first hand experience to share around international healthcare concerns. But we will point you to some excellent resources.

A lot of US citizen international nomads purchase travel insurance, and BootsnAll offers a great breakdown of the options.

However, if you plan to re-enter living in the US at some point and want to remain eligible for insurance without pre-existing exclusions – it may be in your best interest to keep a US policy in force.  AlmostFearless did an excellent article outlining these unique considerations.

One advantage nomads who aren’t traveling around the US have is access to healthcare in other countries – which is by and large, much more affordable and accessible. I hear of a lot more international nomads choosing to self-pay for their healthcare as they travel, even if they do have insurance.

What solutions to travel-compatible healthcare have you found?

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It’s amazing how many mundane details in life are dependent upon having an address. When contemplating becoming intentionally homeless and embarking on a life of travel, trying to muddle through all of [...]]]> Mail. Bills. Taxes. Banking. Voting. How does one handle all of these logistical things when you don’t have a physical fixed home address?

It’s amazing how many mundane details in life are dependent upon having an address. When contemplating becoming intentionally homeless and embarking on a life of travel, trying to muddle through all of these simple little details can begin to seem insurmountable. But never fear – you don’t have to let a little red tape keep you tied down. There’s always a way around.

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Setting up a good base structure can give you a strong foundation to travel from.

Picking a Domicile State

Most of the obstacles center around one critical choice – where will your legal mailing address be if you’re no longer maintaining a fixed home?  For US citizens, you need a legal address to handle things like a driver’s license, vehicle registration, passport, banking accounts, credit cards, insurance, filing taxes and so on.

You’ll need to establish yourself as a resident of a state for legal purposes, and you can do that without owning or renting property. Since your legal address is no longer dependent upon your physical location – you get to choose which state to be legally from!

Depending upon your unique situation, different states will make better sense for different people. If you’re earning an income, a state without a state income tax may be most appealing (Texas, South Dakota, Florida, Nevada, Washington, Wyoming and Alaska). Insurance rates, taxation on dividends, property taxes, corporate taxation, homeschooling laws, inheritance laws and insurance accessibility (medical, vehicle, life, etc.) may be other key factors for you that could trump even a state with no income tax.

There’s other logistical considerations – such as vehicle inspection rules, jury duty obligations, smog checks, requirements for residency, driver’s license & tag renewal logistics and more.

Here’s one site that lists key domicile considerations for each of the 50 states. You may also want to consult with a mobility-aware tax professional before making any big decisions if you have other factors in your life.

Aside from choosing the right state to establish yourself as a resident of, you need to also be aware of what the local laws are for the places you actually find yourself staying at.  Some states are more aggressive than others at going after “transitory” residents. For example, if you work in California for a bit, you run a risk of being liable for paying state income taxes for all of your income, not just what you specifically earned in the state. If you aren’t careful you can easily find yourself being classified as a resident of a state you don’t intend to live in.

Chris and I chose South Dakota as our state of domicile. We have everything based out of there – our driver’s licenses, vehicle registration, business registration, banking, insurance, etc.  South Dakota is a popular choice with their low vehicle registration fees (3%), low insurance rates, easy exemption from jury duty if called, no state vehicle inspections and the state overall is extremely supportive of full time travelers. To establish our South Dakota residency we had to just show up in the state once to get our driver’s license, and we use a mail forwarding and residency service that handles everything else for us.

However, one detail of South Dakota that I didn’t realize until too late was that they don’t support spaces in last names on driver’s licesnes (mine is ‘Ve Ard’) – so I had to change my name on the spot to ‘Ve-Ard’ to get a license.  I launched a protest on the courthouse steps – ‘Great Places! Great Faces! No Spaces!’.

Lesson learned – thoroughly research for your unique situation to find the best state to be from.

Mail & Deliveries

The logical step is to minimize the amount of mail you receive before you start traveling. Convert bills and statements over to electronic, and make sure you’re setup to pay online. Get off mailing lists and cut out subscriptions. Encourage friends and family to engage in online communication, as opposed to snail mail.

But in all likelyhood, you’re still going to have mail that needs to make its way to you. The world simply is not completely digital.

Options include:

A mail forwarding & residency service. In many states that are popular domiciles, there are services setup to support us full time travelers. They act as both our legal address for use on driver’s license, taxes, insurance and more – and our mailing address.  Our service – MyDakotaAddress.com – charges as little as $5.95/month for their service, and they even handle our vehicle registrations for us. We were able to set up our residency remotely via mail, and then just show up once in the state to obtain a driver’s license. Easy.  In Texas, another popular domicile state, Escapees.com is a popular service and community for full-time RVers.  When considering your state of domicile, research what services like these are available.

Friends or Family. One option is to use the address of a friend or family member as your legal and mailing address, and have them forward your mail as needed.  Make sure you choose someone who is reliable and you can trust, and who really won’t mind. Before ‘moving’ to South Dakota, Chris kept his California residency and had a friend handling his mail for him. This was awesome for him, but after a while we felt like it was too much of an ongoing chore to ask of a friend. And besides, California is one of the worst states tax-wise to be from if you’re not actually living there.

A mail forwarding only service. If you’re able to secure a legal address for domicile purposes elsewhere (such as with a family member), then you may only need a professional mail service.  It’s totally ok to have a different mailing address from your legal address. Services such as EarthClassMail, while much pricier, give you access to your mail electronically – but they typically don’t have ideal addresses for residency purposes (most are in income tax states).

Renting PO Boxes. If you’re planning to stay stationary for extended periods of time (perhaps more than a month or two), you may find it easiest to rent a PO Box at the local post office. It’s fairly cheap, and then you just need to use that address for anything you plan to receive.  This can get tricky tho when you move on, as you’ll need to remember to change your address, and decide how you’ll handle forwarding anything on that arrives after you leave.

Personal Assistant – It may make sense to hire a personal assistant who takes care of a lot of your logistics and paperwork for you. They can physically manage your mail, your home office and more.

We have all of our regular mail sent to our South Dakota address, and once or twice a month we contact the service with an address to forward our mail to. They ship via US Priority, which takes 2-3 days (generally two, as South Dakota is fairly center in the US) – so we do have to think a little bit in advance about where we’ll be to receive it.

However, we don’t have everything shipped there. If we’re ordering stuff online, we use whatever address we’re at – a friend’s place, a RV Park, campground, etc.  And apparently if you have a FedEx account, you can have packages shipped (via FedEx) to any FedEx Office location for pickup.

We recently joined Amazon.com’s Prime service, which gives us unlimited free 2-day shipping on anything they ship. This has been working out quite well as a reliable way to get stuff quickly wherever we are at.  They even stock dry goods, so it’s been awesome to have staple grocery items shipped to us when we’re away from speciality stores.

Folks are also often surprised to hear how well Netflix works for us via their mail service for DVDs – which is how we get most of our TV series. By default we have our discs sent to South Dakota, but when we know we’ll have a temporary “local” address, Netflix is awesome about handling address changes. And when we do have access to wifi, we enjoy their included streaming service.

There are annoyances and challenges from time to time. Deliveries are not guaranteed to always arrive someplace when we are still around, or shipping mistakes get made such that items may show up a day or two later than expected. This can be a problem if you’re planning to move on, and we have had to adjust our departures before to wait for a package. Not living on a strict schedule has given us a lot of flexibility to roll with the punches however.

Voting

Giving up your physical home in no way takes away your government representation – you still get to vote!  Your legal domicile address now serves as your voting address. Of course, you likely won’t be showing up in person, so you’ll need to make arrangements in advance to get an absentee ballot in plenty of time for any elections you want to participate in.  In South Dakota, we just downloaded the absentee ballot request form from the state’s website and sent it into our county representative.

One thing to get used to is that now you’re voting on a lot of  ballot items that are related to a location you likely have barely even visited, nevermind live in. We don’t tend to vote on local issues unless they are general causes we care about.  We always vote on national level ballot items.  In fact, we’ve even volunteered full time on campaigns we’re passionate about.

If you’re traveling overseas, you can visit the Federal Voting Assistance website to arrange to vote absentee.

Banking

When you start investigating banks that are nomad-veristile, you’ll quickly find – there’s not an easy answer. There’s not a single bricks-and-mortar bank that is ubiquitous across the US, let alone the world.  While we rarely find we actually need a physical bank, it never fails that we have a check to deposit where we don’t have access to one of our banks.  And while mailing in a deposit is always an option, there is increased risk with the check getting lost in transit.

Presently we keep accounts with Chase and Bank of America – which between the two gives us decent odds of being able to find an ATM we can access for fee-free cash or deposits.  We don’t consider either bank our ‘primary’ bank however – but rather just access points, handling everything else electronically. We also keep a PayPal account for electronic inbound and outbound payments.

We use ING Direct, an online only bank, as our primary personal bank. They have some cool digital features, such as free electronic person to person payments.  However, they do not support paper check writing (only online).  I’ve actually found that we write more checks now that we travel than before – as a lot of public campgrounds have self registration stations that take cash or check only.  So we have to keep at least one bank with a checkbook.

An ideal solution that is coming about is what USAA is currently offering and Chase Bank are now offering – mobile banking. Their coolest new feature is being able to electronically deposit checks via a camera and an iPhone app.  This is really leading the way to allowing you to bank from virtually anywhere you can get cell phone service.

All in all, we use a network of banks and have them linked electronically to move funds around – leaving us a lot of options for getting money in and out when we need it.

All and all.. don’t let the logistics keep you down. There’s almost always a creative way to work around anything and make it work.

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To many, those things are just as essential to life as water or oxygen.

What sort of impact will living a nomadic life have on your current relationships? Or on your prospects for finding one?

Today I am returning to fleshing out my ‘Answers to Common Excuses Not [...]]]> Relationships. Romance. Partnership. Marriage. Sex. Companionship.

This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

Today I am returning to fleshing out my ‘Answers to Common Excuses Not to Travel‘ series of articles that I started last summer. I apologize upfront for not keeping on top of this project – we’ll blame it on the time spent living a fabulous life getting in the way of producing these loftier posts. I suppose there is also some hesitation – I’ve covered the basic topics that are easier to address and which have firm resources to point you towards. Now we are getting into the topics that don’t have easy answers, and the “right answer” will vary widely for folks.

And ‘the relationship issue’ is indeed one of the most substantial excuses we have heard from people explaining why they’re not embracing a traveling life. The issues range from a fears around traveling solo, to the complications that come from having an existing partner who is not interested in or able to set out for a life on the road.

For the Single Traveler

When you travel alone – you’re on your own time schedule, you’re seeing the things you want to see, you’re free to give in to your whims, you’re able to eat whatever you want whenever you want, and you have the flexibility to be moving on to your next destination whenever the desire strikes.  There is a lot of freedom that comes from not having to keep another person’s wants and needs constantly in mind.

The sort of freedom that comes from solo travel thrills some people, and terrifies others.

Some want to experience traveling the world as a single person before meeting their ideal mate in life, for others solo travel might be the perfect thing to fill a gap in between major relationships, and some folks just prefer being intentionally single for the long term.

On the other hand – some people just don’t want to travel alone. We run across many people who put off their travel dreams because they want to share it with a companion and they are waiting to find the right person to partner up with. Some people wait a lifetime, which is tragic. In our experience however, even if you start off alone, you are much more likely to find a like mind once you are already on the road than if you wait. Someone drawn to a life of travel is going to be much more attracted to an active traveler, after all.

When Chris originally set off to be nomadic, he needed to actively let go of his attachment to finding a nomad-compatible relationship in advance. Just as he was becoming fully comfortable with the idea of being without a primary relationship and a partner in life and travel, that’s when I came along and messed up that plan for him. The universe tends to work that way. *grin*

We are living proof – you can find compatible life and travel partners out on the road. After all, it’s easier to meet people who share your interests by getting out there and exploring them!

If you are considering traveling alone, it’s a good idea to make sure you know what you’re getting into. Some long term single travelers begin to express a certain level of loneliness with the transient nature of the romances and friendships they explore as they travel.  Pursuing new relationships on the road requires a good bit of intention setting (both for yourself and your mates) to avoid getting emotionally hurt in the process. It also involves learning to make an art out of saying good bye.  Check out the links above for some insights, particularly the comment threads.

Here are some other resources for the single traveler that might be useful:

Solo Traveler Blog – A collection of resources about a variety of topics that come up for the solo traveler.

Matador Travel Partners & Lonely Planet’s Travel Companions forums – Both of these highly visited independent traveler sites offer forums for meeting up with other solo travelers. Sometimes, finding a short term travel companion helps a lot with easing any loneliness.

Wandering Individuals Network - A network of solo & single RVers who meet for events across the US. (Caution, their website auto plays cheesy music.)

Even if you do have a life partner, if one or both of you is craving some solo-style travel, try it out. A week or a month spent venturing off in different directions can leave you energized with a wealth of new experiences and stories to share with each other when you rendezvous again. For traveling couples that are together 24/7, an occasional extended break can actually be a great way to recharge and reset with some much needed alone time.

Mismatched Travel Lust

It happens every so often that one partner gets bit by the travel bug, and to their surprise discovers that their partner shares this previously undisclosed lust.  Congrats.. you’ve won the lottery!

But more often than not, one of the biggest barriers we’ve discovered in talking with folks is that they’re in a relationship they love – but their partner does not share their wanderlust.  We’ve heard everything from “my wife couldn’t do without the curling iron if we lived in an RV!” to “staying at luxury resorts is my husband’s idea of ‘roughing it.’”

Another common issue is mismatched physical ability, particularly amongst couples who wait until retirement to begin traveling. We have run across several couples that have had one partner’s medical issues derail plans to spend their golden years exploring the great outdoors or exotic foreign cities. All too often we are told by older couples that they wished they hadn’t waited so long to follow their dreams.

No matter the reason, a significant mismatch in ability, desired styles of travel, or even a desire to travel at all leaves folks having to make some tough choices and compromises if they want to explore a travel-centric lifestyle.

For some, the compromises are too much – and perhaps changes to the relationship just have to be made so that everyone can get their needs met.  Perhaps you’re able to eventually convince your partner to enjoy travel, particularly if you ease them into a traveling lifestyle slowly. Perhaps you’ll decide that occasionally living/traveling apart is an appropriate choice for where you are in life.  Relationships can work even when two people choose not to live together full time.  For some, it’s ok to agree to go your separate ways for a while – it doesn’t have to diminish the love or the commitment.

One afternoon in Utah while filling up our gas tank, we encountered a solo woman RVer. We stopped and chatted for a bit, as us travelers tend to do. She shared with us that her husband of several decades didn’t like to travel – but she was drawn to it. She now spends 6-months of the year living with him at home, and the other half of the year out on the road visiting with family and friends. It seemed to be working quite well for them.

There are ways to to find workable solutions, if you’re willing to look outside the box of what we’re told relationships need to look like.

Whether solo or partnered, life is best lived when you are following your dreams. Don’t wait!

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This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

Whether it be via hobbies, spirituality, family, friends, special interests, sports, school, work, volunteerism, or what not – when you live in a stationary place, you tend to form connections with people around you that become important to you, [...]]]> Us humans are social creatures, and we tend form and value communities of like minded people.

Whether it be via hobbies, spirituality, family, friends, special interests, sports, school, work, volunteerism, or what not – when you live in a stationary place, you tend to form connections with people around you that become important to you, and very hard to leave behind.

And indeed, leaving a stationary life behind and embarking on a nomadic life of full time traveling does inevitably mean some disruption in your local community connections.  Oftentimes, at first this can feel like a huge disruption that may seem like a full on severing.

This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

Leaving behind peer groups and not being involved with them as regularly can be painful, and it is easy to see why community often wins in the face of full time wanderlust.

When folks ask me what the toughest part of our lifestyle is, I’ll often reference the community aspects. When I lived in Florida, I had a very active network of friends, and it was very difficult to leave.

It took me a long time reconcile these conflicts of mine – a desire for community versus a desire of a life with lots of travel.  And honestly, I feel that desiring of a regular local community may be one of those things that tempts me back into a more stationary life in the distant future.

However, living a nomadic life  does not mean forgoing community. It just means readjusting how you interact with community.

Use Technology to Stay in Touch

You may be physically leaving your peeps behind when you take off galavanting, and their lives will go on without you too – but technology has made it vastly easier to stay in touch than ever before.

Video Chat with Lindsay

Now that I am nomadic, I have become even more involved in online community and communications via things like blogging, Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, Skype, video chat and old fashioned e-mail. This has allowed me to stay in touch with my friends back in Florida, as well as to continue to grow closer with new friends that I’ve met along the journey.

This sort of electronic presence provides a way to consistently keep up on things going on in the lives of the people I care about.  But it is not a perfect substitute. There are times that I yearn to be closer, and technology is not always a satisfying replacement for in person quality time.  And yes, there are some folks who aren’t as digitally connected, and unfortunately those connections have suffered.

But I trust next time I roll into Florida, even the lapsed connections can be picked right back up.

Redefine Community

When we first started traveling, I had an idea in my mind that community had to have a more regular in person feel to it. I spent more time missing my old communities and saying good-byes, than I did looking forward to what was next. There were indeed rough patches and mourning for what I felt was a loss in my life.

However, over time, I’ve come to appreciate the new type of communities that nomadism has brought to my life.

• 

  Technomad Rendezvous w/ Ben Willmore

  We have begun to establish communities of like minded people across the country. While they may not be people that we get to see often, it is nice to arrive to a city where we have new friends who are excited for our arrival and make the time and effort to include us in whatever is going on.  It’s taken some effort on our part, by being active online in local forums (such as Yahoo Groups, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and seeking out  regional local based events to meet people. But it definitely has been worth it, and we intend to continue this trend. We have exchanged depth of one local community for breadth of lots of regional communities.

• Online communities have started to fill part of the void of a regular in person community.  The friends we’ve made via commenting on blogs, twitter and more have gone a long way to allowing us to feel part of something.
• 

  Rendezvous with Cath & Andrew Duncan

  We love having nomadic rendezvouses with a new set of peers who are also living similar lifestyles. Being in touch with so many other nomadic folks, and planning meetups as our paths cross allows us a unique opportunity to spend time with people who really get what our lives are about.  For example, we recently where able to rendezvous with Cath & Andy Duncan in Colorado while they were visiting from the UK; and we have had several on-the-road rendevouses with our nomadic photographer friend Ben Willmore.

• There have also been communities springing up online where we can meet and interact with like minds, such as the Location Independent Clubhouse, Travel Blog Exchange and NuRVers. .
• Building nomadic community is also a big part of why we host Camp Nomadia – a theme camp at Burning Man for other nomadic spirits.
• Like me, many of the friends I knew in Florida have also moved on to other locations.
  

  Visiting Florida Friends in Missouri

  My nomadic lifestyle actually gives me a greater ability to stay connected via visits than I might otherwise had I stayed stationary.  I’ve visited old friends who have moved on to California, Philadelphia, Indiana, Chicago, New Mexico and more. And I especially appreciate friends who let us know when they’re traveling somewhere and we’re able to rendezvous with them for some fun on the road.

Of course, none of this substitutes having a regular local community, but it sure does help to look at the bright side of things and appreciate the different kind of communities I have in my life now.

We have traded local depth for national (and international!) breadth, and once you adjust, it can be just as fulfilling – only in a very different way.

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When Chris and I set out for our first seven month trial run of traveling together in 2007, we decided that my cat Alma was not meant to be a traveling cat. Alma never enjoyed car trips (or Hurricane evacuations!), and it just didn’t seem right to [...]]]>

Kiki explores the US

I’m a cat person, and always have been.

When Chris and I set out for our first seven month trial run of traveling together in 2007, we decided that my cat Alma was not meant to be a traveling cat. Alma never enjoyed car trips (or Hurricane evacuations!), and it just didn’t seem right to try and force an outdoor free-roaming cat to try and adjust to living in a confined space.

So we left Alma behind with my former housemate who loves her dearly.

This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

The trial runs for both of us went well, and both Alma and I thrived in our new homes. But there was a furry void in my life, and Chris and I agreed that we would stay open for a travel compatible cat to join us on our journey. We knew when the time was right, the right cat (or kitten) would purr into our lives.

And indeed she did!

While visiting some friends on a ranch in Oregon last December, a seven-week-old bundle of cuteness named Kiki stole our hearts. A quick test trip proved that she was travel and allergy compatible, and she had been traveling with us ever since. Having literally grown up on the road, she has grown to be a natural traveler. We could hardly imagine a day without her now!

Pets are part of the family to many, and it’s quite understandable why many folks make lifestyle compromises to keep them part of their lives. When I was first contemplating joining Chris to live on the road full time, the idea of giving up my cat Alma was actually harder to imagine than giving up my house!

As we have discovered – if wanderlust is your calling, you don’t necessarily have to give up having pets in your life. Here are some ways that we have seen people making it work…

Take Your House With You

The easiest way to integrate a mobile lifestyle with pets is by selecting a style of travel that keeps your house with you so your pet is always at home. This might include an RV, like we’ve chosen, or a boat.

It’s not uncommon at all for folks traveling about in mobile homes to have pets onboard.  Here are some examples:

In RVs:

• Mara & Stewart - This duo is traveling the US full time in a T@b teardrop trailer (similar to what Chris and I traveled in before we got our Oliver). And they do so with 2 dogs!
• Cat & Bryan – This young duo is traveling the US full time in a fifth wheel with a cat, two cockatiels, a bearded dragon and hermit crabs. Wild!
• Rene & Jim – This duo took off in a fifth wheel after their dog Jerry was diagnosed with cancer. They enjoyed two years on the road with him before he passed on (warning, if you read the full story, bring a box of kleenex).
• Emmy & Lex – Two self describes weirdos in an RV also travel with their cat Mushroom in their motorhome.

In boats:

• Steve & Sky – The original technomad Steve Roberts and his partner Sky are finishing up preparations on their geeked out sailing vessel, Nomadness. Onboard will be Steve’s cat Java and Sky’s dog.
• Jessica – Jessica has been sailing with her pooch, Kip McSnip – and together they wrote the book, Doggy on Deck, on sailing with dogs.

As with having pets in any sort of home, there are things to keep in mind when traveling with animals.

1. Always be aware of temperature and make sure that your home is comfortable for your pet, particularly when you are away from it.
2. Make sure your pets get enough exercise – most mobile home have far less room to play and run around in. We trained Kiki to walk on
   

   Taking Kiki for a walk.. on a leash

   a leash and harness from the time she came to us at age 7 weeks – she doesn’t think anything strange of this, although we often get chuckles from nearby campmates.

3. Lining up vets, grooming and pet sitters across the country can be a challenge. We tap into friends, fellow travelers, and Yelp for recommendations.
4. Realize that everywhere you take your home may not be a welcome environment for your pets.  Many festivals we attend have strict ‘No Pets’ rules. Kiki protests this.
5. Pick brands of food & litter that are available nationwide, and keep close tabs on supplies. If you run out, you may not be nearby a pet store to run in and get more.

Other Forms of Travel

Living in a RV or a boat however is not the only form of full time travel that folks explore with their pets. It is more difficult but still possible to travel with animals via planes, trains, buses, backpacking, bicycling, and more.

Our friends Curtis & DeeAnn actually took a six month road trip with their two cats, Jasper and Bayla – in a Prius! To balance the needs of their cats with their desire to see as much of the country as they could, they had to carefully worked out the logistics of their trip so that they would always be staying at pet friendly hotels. The four of them (yes, the cats blogged too!) chronicled their adventure here.

International travel is also possible with your pets, but quarantine laws are often prohibitive. The added levels of cost and complexity make finding an extended pet sitter a very reasonable alternative. Almost Fearless addresses a lot of tips and issues for traveling abroad with your pets.

Other Options For Pet Love

If you are craving the love of a furry companion, there are alternatives even if it isn’t practical for you to bring your own pet on the road.

During our first 7 months of travel without a pet, we sought out opportunities to pet sit for folks as we traveled. This gave us both a home base to explore cool cities from and quality time with great animals. It worked really well!

Whatever path you choose, you should be able to find some way to integrate pet love into your travel. It may be difficult, but the snuggles and purrs are so worth it!

Many thanks to Matt Bell for traveling along with us a couple of days and taking the above pictures of the three of us!

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This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

An ever increasing number of people [...]]]> This part of our growing series of our answers to the common excuses that folks give us for not getting out there and living the full time traveling lifestyle they want.  You can catch the full series, which currently includes Jobs & Careers, Affording It, Stuff and Family.

An ever increasing number of people are growing concerned about the impact of their daily lives upon the environment, and many are taking proactive steps to minimize their impact and to be more conscious about consumption.

This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!

One excuse we’ll often hear from more eco-aware folks is that traveling full time would inevitably have too high of an environmental impact for them to consider leaving home without a heavy burden of eco-guilt.

This guilt is understandable – a life in motion consumes resources, and we certainly do not dispute the environmental impact of travel.

But we have discovered that “being green” while traveling is actually very achievable.  And indeed, it is often possible to have less of an environmental impact living nomadically than by living a more typical lifestyle.

Each of us needs to find our own balance that combines exploring the world with preserving it. And if you stay conscious to your consumption, you don’t have to compromise your wanderlust for your desire to live a sustainable life.

Choose Greener Forms of Travel / Travel Slower

Every mode of transportation has a different footprint on the environment.  Air travel is generally considered the dirtiest mode of transportation and walking/sailing the cleanest.  The energy consumed in getting from place-to-place is one of the most substantial impacts a full-time traveler has.

One solution?  Slow down!

Spend more time in one location and less time in actual transit.   Stay in places long enough to get a feel for them, and immerse yourself in the communities you visit.

If you are keeping a relaxed enough pace, you will actually log a lot fewer miles than a typical suburb-to-city commuter will over the course of a year. And since you are not repeating the same route day after day, you will see SO much more of the world too!

Also consider greener ways you can get to where you want to be.  For example – what about taking a slower route via rail or sailing ship, instead of flying? Or you can do like some nomads have and use human power to bike, walk or run.

Make the journey part of your destination and you’ll add value to your travel experience and decrease your impact while doing so.

For those, like us, who’s form of travel is physically moving their mobile house (RV or sailboat), find ways to green them as much as possible.

For instance, we’ve converted our electrical system to be run primarily off of solar power and our tow vehicle can run biodiesel. We even converted our small generator to run off propane to be a bit cleaner. Others, such as Vagabond Sean, have converted their rigs to run directly off of veggie oil and also utilize solar panels.   Sean has even turned his adventuring into a crusade to remind folks he encounters that little changes go a long way.

There are resources such as Go Green Travel Green & Sustainable Travel which keep an eye on green travel options, and they’re great resources to check out for ideas. And for those that want to leave the driving to someone else. the Green Tortoise offers socially conscious travel adventures.

Reduce your Destination Impact

Once you’ve arrived to a place you’re planning to stay for a bit, find ways to reduce your impact and respect the local cultures while learning about them.  Be there long enough to contribute to the community – either financially to the local economy and/or through volunteerism – to offset the impact to the earth of getting there. A full time traveler has a unique opportunity to have their visits to places be contributive overall.

Find ways to support local businesses, and eat foods grown and made locally.  Eating locally reduces the impact to the earth for foods to catch up to you – and it helps you really experience the local environment.  Seek out greener options for your lodging. Use public transit, walk or bike instead of driving around town whenever possible.  Even though we have our tow vehicle (a Jeep Liberty Diesel), when we’re in areas with public transit we’ll make extra efforts to include mass transit in our local transit plans.

Be aware of your Impact

Sometimes, just being aware of your impact helps you reduce it. Prior to traveling full time, both Chris and I had a much higher impact in our  more traditional dwellings. Just as some examples:

Fuel Consumption

Chris had an apartment in San Francisco and commuted 45 miles each way, daily.  Even driving a Prius, he was consuming 40 gallons of gasoline a month just for his commute – he could easily use another 30 gallons a month for personal travel.  Cherie worked from home and didn’t have a commute, but most of her miles on her Prius were on weekends to go visit friends – often involving about 30 gallons a month.  Combined, that was a total of 100 gallons per month.  Now that we’re traveling full time, we average about 40 gallons a month of fuel. And that’s even factoring in converting from driving a 45 mpg Prius to a 20 mpg Jeep!

With no work commute, and being able to choose how much travel we do – we can easily contain our fuel consumption costs and impact.

Water useage

Living off grid as much as possible and having to handle filling a fresh water tank and dumping grey water, makes you very aware of your water usage.  When you can just turn on a water faucet in a traditional home without worrying about running out or having to find a way to dispose of the dirty water, it’s very easy to lose touch with how much water you’re using. Even if you look at your water bill monthly and see how much is used in a month, it’s really hard to quantify just what that means because you’re not handling it all at once.

I think before I hit the road my average water bill was for about 3000 gallons a month for my household of 3 adults (we used well water for our lawn, so that’s not even including that). That’s a 1000 gallons a month per person – which seems incredibly wasteful to me now.

Our trailer has a 32.5 gallon fresh water tank. It is not unusual at all for Chris, Kiki and I to go a week or two without needing to refill.  We estimate that we now live well on less than 100 gallons a month .. combined. You can read more of our full report on how we conserve water.

Power Useage

Living off of solar for any extended period of time makes your VERY aware of your power consumption. We have just 110 amp hours of power available to us to use from our batteries (we try not to drop our 220 amp hour battery bank below 50%), plus whatever energy we create during daylight hours from our 200 watts of panels. Before hitting the road, I really had no concept of how how much energy that was or what I was actually using.  But now, when I flip on a LED light, or power on my laptop, thanks to our battery monitoring system, I know exactly how much energy I’m depleting from our battery bank.   If we’ve been really good about conserving power during the day, we’ll treat ourselves to watching a movie on our 24″ LCD panel – knowing that in doing so we’re using 16.7 amp hours in total.

If we were ever to move back into a more traditional dwelling situation (something that seems highly unlikely anytime soon), I know we’d live much differently after the lessons we’ve learned.   So for us, traveling has actually increased our awareness of our impact, helped us consciously reduce it and taught us new lifelong habits.

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This series has been greatly expanded - and is now available as a convenient 'pay as you wish' eBook!