Touring - No assets and living on the road

Hi fellow riders, as i sat by the side of the road i wondered is there any one else out there who is living on the road, with there whole worldly assets beside them. A sobering thought as I see my 47th year coming up. (yea i know i am still young compared to some of you old fellas).
Would be nice to know i am not alone in this life style, i feel my biggest asset is my health the bike sure keeps you fit, we come into this life with nothing and leave the same way, so if your in the same boat and dont mind sharing please let me know it would help knowing there are other travellers out there cheers

Have you been to the Living Car Free forum? There are several threads in there about simple living and home-free living. :)

http://www.bikeforums.net/forumdisplay.php?f=226

I am currently in the process of a mega-downsize (see my Getting Rid of Your Stuff thread in the Living Car Free forum) and will be living extremely simply in Australia in about a month's time (see the How Simply Do You Live thread/sticky).

Hi fellow riders, as i sat by the side of the road i wondered is there any one else out there who is living on the road, with there whole worldly assets beside them. A sobering thought as I see my 47th year coming up. (yea i know i am still young compared to some of you old fellas).
Would be nice to know i am not alone in this life style, i feel my biggest asset is my health the bike sure keeps you fit, we come into this life with nothing and leave the same way, so if your in the same boat and dont mind sharing please let me know it would help knowing there are other travellers out there cheers

I am very interested in this lifestyle and how you go about it.

the things you own own you. you are more free than all the people who are fearful and find security in belonging to their possessions and wanting and acquiring more material junk.

the things you own own you....
Sad but true; I am a slave to my possessions.

I recently spoke with a guy, also in his 40's, who is riding around the country on his bicycle, camping most of the time, apparently carrying everything he owns. He camped in my back yard for two nights recently; I didn't meet him, being away at the time. I don't know his whole story, but I suspect he is very much like you, Soulfullspirit.

How do you support yourself? It would be hard to hold down a conventional "job" with this lifestyle, but there are respectable ways of earning money on an as-needed basis. Writing? Singing? Painting?

Minimalism is such an appealing concept. There is great truth to the idea that control of one's life can be lost to possessions. Paying for them, insuring them, protecting them, maintaining them. Precious time and energy is spent on our stuff

Somehow we have come to believe that we are what we own. Who we are as people has gotten so mixed up with homes, cars, clothing, CDs... and yes, camping gear, bikes, cycling clothing, that we find it difficult to measure our own value without thinking about what we own.

Upon returning from our last bike tour the totality of our possessions were stored within our VW van. A month after renting an apartment we were still (happily) sleeping on our Thermarest mattresses on the floor. Friends and family members though we were kooky so we bought a bed.... and a couch, and a dining table, and a nice chair, and paintings, desks, and..... you get it. My shed began to fill with bikes. The CD collection grew. The book shelf got full and spilled over into piles on an end table. Suddenly, within a year, we are once again drowning in stuff.

It is time to begin decluttering. Why must we go through this binge and purge every few years?

" i feel my biggest asset is my health" I love that quote! So many work so hard to sacrifice and save for the security of retirement only to find that they failed in the most important measure... physical and mental wellbeing.

At times living on the road may seem lonely. Remember, there many of us who are with you in spirit.

Sounds like you have a lifestyle that suits you well, good luck to you (original poster).

However, can I just put in a good word about possessions.


the things you own own you. you are more free than all the people who are fearful and find security in belonging to their possessions and wanting and acquiring more material junk.

The thing about this is that I don't see the OP being more free than me. Sure, he's living out on the road, which is evidently something that goes well for him (and is admirable and cool). However, I like my life how it is- I enjoy my studies, I enjoy where I live, I enjoy my stuff. If I wanted to, I guess I could live on the road but I don't really- I like to cycle as a hobby, nothing more. Similarly, if the OP wanted to have my life I'm sure he could. He's made his choice and I've made mine. The advantage of where I live is that I'm free to make that choice for myself, as is he, but the important thing is that we're as free as each other to make our decisions.

Also, there's nothing wrong with stuff. Take my TV as an example: I own it because I like watching it. If it breaks I'll put time and effort into fixing it because I like watching it. I have home insurance so that if someone steals it, I can get a new one, because I like watching it. I'm not a slave to my TV, I just enjoy it enough that I'm willing to put effort into keeping and maintaining it. (Similarly to how I, and probably everyone else on this forum especially the OP, is willing to put effort into maintaining our bicycles).

I not trying to have an argument, I'm just saying that possessions don't have to be bad, and I feel perfectly free in my choices :)

I met more than a few folks living as the OP does. Intelligent people. People who enjoyed their lifestyle—living under the radar. I got quite a few tips from them as well, from eating and caching to staying undetected and the better places to be at particular times of the year. Very, very interesting stuff. It is something that, I'm sure I could do. I just don't want to live that way full-time.

Stuff. Possessions. Do they really own us? I don't think so. Perhaps it is a desire to live in or outside of conventional society that does the owning or not. "Stuff" is inanimate, without consciousness. We make decisions—stuff doesn't.

It's not so much freedom from things as it is freedom from obligations to people. By the time we reach 25 or 30, we have either a job that requires constant attendance or a family or both.

When I was 20, I took my bike to Europe and wandered as long as my money lasted. I was a bit surprised that both of my parents endorsed the idea, and they supplemented my savings to lengthen my trip. My father said something I'll never forget:

"Go until your money runs out. I'll put you up when you get back. Never again in your life will you have both the time and the money to do this."

I didn't believe his last sentence, because I couldn't picture what a life with responsibilities is like. I might prove him wrong when I'm in my 70's, but only if I'm still healthy and strong. And of course by then, he'll be dead.

While wandering, I met people who were wandering for longer periods. Some would travel and work and travel and work. The two common job types were car mechanic and nurse, both portable trades.

Steven Roberts made a career out of it for many years. Not sure what he's up to nowadays.

http://www.bikexprt.com/

I am very interested in this lifestyle and how you go about it.


How do you support yourself? It would be hard to hold down a conventional "job" with this lifestyle, but there are respectable ways of earning money on an as-needed basis. Writing? Singing? Painting?

Who wants a conventional "job"?? I did that for a while, and then realized that spending my life working a traditional 8:00 - 5:00, 5 days a week etc. etc. for extended periods of time is just not for me.


As for making it work ...

In early 2004 a friend of mine suggested that we go on a 5-year tour of the world. I laughed and said something along the lines of "Yeah, right!" ... and then I started thinking about it, and wondering what it would take to do that ... and I came up with a 5-year plan.


First, I thought I would need to have skills so that I could get a job in various countries and the first thing that leapt to mind was teaching. I've always wanted to teach, so I started checking out those 1-week, Teach English Overseas courses ... and discovered that they were expensive, and not all that good. I discovered that if I were to go with one of those types of courses I should choose something that is at least a month long and preferably associated with a University. So then I started considering just going back to school and getting my teaching degree so that I could teach in just about any country including my own. And that's what I ended up doing. :)

As a part of that plan, I had to move and so I got rid of about half my things, packed up the rest and put most of it in storage. I've been living in a very small place while I've been getting my degree, with very few possessions. And I've discovered that I really don't need much to be happy.

I also had to give up my nice, stable job where I could have likely worked for the rest of my life (but that was going nowhere), and take my chances on whatever jobs came along. That's where temp work came in, and it has been great. I can work with a company for the length of my contract, and when I'm done I can go with no hard feelings. I've even been invited back to the same place several times. It benefits the company because they can get someone in to help them through a situation where they need temporary help, and it benefits me because I don't have to commit to long-term employment. I've got no regrets at all about going the temp work route over the past 5 years, and I can see me picking up temp work in the years to come. There are lots of temp agencies all over the world.

One of the things that made leaving the nice stable job easier was observing one of my coworkers. He had started working for the company when he was about 25 years old, and had stayed with the company all those years ... doing exactly the same thing for 35 years. He was saving up for his retirement when he was going to go out and do all sorts of exciting things ... but as he approached the age of 60, he started showing very distinct signs of Alzheimers, and ended up taking early retirement because he could no longer do his job. I realized that you never know what's going to happen as you get older, so if there were things I wanted to do, there was no time like the present.

And I decided to take my friend up on a part of his offer and head off on a 3-month tour to see if I even liked life on the road. There were a lot of problems and difficulties ... but I like life on the road. :D


My 5-year plan is now finished, and I'm off to Australia. :D

Right now I'm in the process of getting rid of most of my remaining things, which is proving to be a very freeing (although long) process. Rowan and I will be living very simply once I get there in an almost pioneer-like setting. I'm really looking forward to it ... it'll be an adventure! Now I don't imagine it will be easy all the time or anything like that, but I'm game for it.

The last 14 photos in this set are of the cabin we'll be moving into:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14302884@N04/sets/72157611337191865/

As for work, now that I am a qualified teacher, subbing is a possibility. Subbing is like temp work ... I can pick the days I want to work, and the age groups I want to work with.


We're also putting together ideas of living a transient or semi-transient lifestyle where we travel and work in various places around Australia, around Canada, and around other parts of the world. I've now got skills I can use in other countries, and so does Rowan. We'll figure it out when I get there.

If you really want to make it work ... you can. :)

I am in the process of selling everything but what I'm taking with me on my bike. Although truthfully I don't plan on staying like that forever, it's just a way for me to sever all connections with my current living situation and move on. I'm traveling to LA then going to NZ and I'll see what happens from there, wish me luck.

I've done my dreaming about being "homeless and unemployed". However, unlike the thread heading of "no assets", I'd like to do it with $ in the bank and ability to cover things like health issues (either via insurance or payment).

I also resonate with the minimalist approach of fewer possessions. So far I've taken two long cycle touring vacations of a year in 2001 and ten months in 2007. I'm already dreaming of another long trip (~6 months to ~2.5 years) in 2013. For each of my previous long trips, I decluttered both prior to the trip and also afterwards. Spending a year on the road gave me a new perspective on all those possessions I owned but hadn't used in the preceding 12 months.