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Homeless by choice

TJ....Although i'm only 20, I can relate amazingly to your post.

I think it was about 3 years ago at college I started to realise I would never be able to comform to the mould.
I just didn't see much point in the subjects I was studying. I could see how it was all indoctrination, and a load of stuff I didn't want to learn and didn't care about. It wasn't that I couldn't do the work, it was simply I couldn't see the point...So I prety much failed all my subjects, the only reason I didn't drop out was because of expectations and pressure from everybody...In retrospect I should've been stronger and dropped out then.

Every since, my parents , especially my father want me to get a shirt and tie office job with a financial corporation, for security. 9-5 crunching numbers simply to make your boss (who you never even see) money.....That is there version of 'success' in life......
Unfortunately, they fail to see it from my point of view. I'd honestly rather be dead then live such a fake plastic meaningless lifestyle.......Unfortunately, this is the common consensus: being a corporate robot and earning lots of money will make you happy and fulfilled.....I just cannot accept that way of life. It isn't even up for debate. I view that as a meaningless existence, like being plugged into the matrix.
My plan is to travel until i'm old.....Of course, this will always be my real home, but i'm only going to really use this country to come back and save up again then go travel somewhere else...I'll keep doing this until I get bored, or find a place i'd like to settle down, or maybe i'll meet someone..fuck knows...... Anything can happen in the 'real' world.
Living this way, I wouldn't be too unhappy if I died at 30, aslong as i'd seen as much as possible, and not denied myself.
To me this is real ambition, not 'sucking corporate dick to try to get rich' ambition.
However, most people just cannot comprehend this, or a life or any other option outside of the 9-5, the indoctrinated lifestyle we are taught to follow.......I know this is very cliche, but it is hard being truly different and non-comforming, bcos you will upset a lot of ppl (even ppl close to you) and a lot of ppl will try to thwart you. You need so much self-confidence and resolve.
It's tough!!
 
next year i will begin my "working, saving .. and travelling" mode of existence .... I can defintiely relate to those who see the 9-5 corporate lifestyle as complete bullshit ...

obviously its a great way to live for many people ... but i can't see myself really experiecning "LIFE" through this way of living

I think i will go to india first ... south america, eastern europe ... go with the flow
 
I just read a good book this weekend dealing with this same topic...

Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0385486804

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.
 
^ You can read an excerpt here. It's an important read for anyone thinking about pursuing this kind of lifestyle.
 
Sure, there are people who choose to live the nomadic lifestyle (this does not include privileged white kids whose parents are a phone call away in case they need money/bail). The people I'm referring to are hobos. They even have a convention every year! See www.hobo.com.
Click to expand...

So are you saying fruitfly that ppl that live a nomadic lifestyle and have something to fall back on to arent true travelers, hobos are a whole different story...

Or am I misunderstanding you
 
I never said anything about "true travelers" or what a true traveler is supposed to be. When I mention privileged white kids, it's not to put them down or dismiss them as "inauthentic." I know many people and have had friends/lovers who have done the cross-country Phish, Rainbow Gathering, etc. circuit. It's not something that particularly appeals to me personally but it's something that's very meaningful and important to them.

Their activities differ from what I consider to be a nomadic lifestyle in that while my friends would travel anywhere from a few months to maybe 2 years tops, either earning money as they'd go along or relying on saved money/parental contributions, they settled back down eventually, maybe rejoining that circuit for a couple weeks in the summer but not planning to live that way forever.

People like hobos, on the other hand, are committed to traveling as a more or less permanent way of life, possibly into old age. They go from place to place to find work and make just enough to keep moving, while the post-graduation adventure seekers seem to go out on the road in pursuit of pleasurable activities (shows, making friends, visiting new places, etc.).

Also, I guess I tend to think of nomads as fairly solitary travelers, whereas the more privileged short-term wanderers I've known tend to travel in groups.

Anyway, I hope that kind of explains what I meant in my previous post. It wasn't at all intended to be a negative appraisal of anybody who wants a little freedom. :)
 
I somewhat agree with you on this but have you ever met any rainbow kids? They are somewhat different from your average tour kid.
 
^ Yeah actually, several. I don't know, most of the ones I know aren't much different from Phish heads .They go on tour and go to Rainbow usually. I'm thinking of going myself this year because it's in Northern California and it would mean a lot to someone I'm close to if I went. But yes, I agree that there are people who go to Rainbow who are die-hard committed to the road all year every year.

Anyway, I don't want to get too off the topic. Maybe you can PM me if you want to discuss it further? :)
 
nothings off topic I dont believe.

Also I used to have friends that would on the off season (snowboarding) would hit the road and usually end up in the NE and work as migratory apple pickers or another temp job thats big on the east coast is OceanSpray dealing with cranberries.

Committing to years on the road is a whole different barrel of apples, and you tend to get into some shady characters...

Have you been in a train yard in a major city, there is some fuct up shit that occurs, I dont think I can be a train rider.
 
This is kinda off topic, but hey!


It seems to me that a lot of people seem think that this is the only alternative to the 9-5 type life.

There are loads of different options though that don't involve sucking the "corporate cock"! They are just harder to find. If you look hard enough, and work hard enough Im sure you can find something that you really really enjoy doing, which you can make your living from.
 
i did a lot of trainhopping a couple years ago, one of the best experiences of my life. alternative travel (hithcing, trainhopping, etc.) can really introduce you to some interesting people/sights/feelings.

ffeel free to PM me if anyone has any questions.

i definitely get the wanderlust from time to time.
 
^ I'd like to hear what routes you took, and what places you hid out in, hippy communes in the middle of the dessert in fall or big city grity shit, or nature as far away from the plastic ppl as can be...?
 
It seems to me that a lot of people seem think that this is the only alternative to the 9-5 type life......There are loads of different options though that don't involve sucking the "corporate cock"! They are just harder to find. If you look hard enough, and work hard enough Im sure you can find something that you really really enjoy doing, which you can make your living from.
Click to expand...

Yes, and I still have absolutely no idea what I want to do or what other options are available to me.....This is why I need to go travel for a while. Hopefully it'll make me more confident, more open minded, and most of all I hope I find myself on the way.
I'm sure when I get back I will have loads of ideas of what I could do, and will be able to see more options and be brave enough to go against the grain.
Until then, this is something I absolutely must do due to my current circumstances and position. It's also something i've always wanted to do since I was very very little......I mean, didn't everybody used to study world atlas' and look at globes when you were little, and just dream about all the places you were seeing on the map, trying to imagine what they were like, telling yourself that when you are older you'll be able to go to all these places??? I certainly did, and I intend to fulfill those dreams.
 
I like this topic. One of the most intresting and captivating people I ever met was a man named Seamus. I met him a couple years ago when I went on my first trip to California.

A friend and I were shopping in a store while my sister waited outside. When we came out we asked who the hell this guy was she was talking to. He was a "travelling poet" as he liked to call himself. He was homeless by choice. He too did not enjoy the whole 9-5 corporate tool idea. He was 34 and had been travelling for a long time. He was from California and said he would show us around Venice.

At first we were skeptical about him. (We were 3,000 miles from home and some homeless man wants to "show us around".) Also we didn't want to cramp his style. He told us that he just went around asking people if they wanted to hear a poem and if they said yes then fine, if they said no, then fine. People who listened could give him money or not. Either way it didn't matter because he just really loved his poetry. He had hundreds that he wrote himself and he said he would try not to recite the same one twice in one day.

It was awesome. We watched him do his craft while we took pictures and enjoyed the scenery. We walked for hours and it was the best time I ever had. He then asked us what our plans were for the night and we told him nothing. He said in exchange for a ride to Santa Barbara, he would be our tour guide up the coast. We went along with it. He showed us some of the most amazing things ever. Nothing a map or brochure could ever show you.

Along the way he told us more about himself. He once lived in Santa Barbara in a fairly well off family and bumped rubbed elbows with the well-to-do, but that was not what he was about. He had a girlfriend who was well off and her parents disapproved of his "bum" lifestyle. About the time things were falling apart with that relationship, he found out she was pregnant. She and her family cut all ties with him and wouldn't let him have anything to do with her. Aside from some day seeing his child and having a relationship with her, the only thing that made him happy was travelling and poetry.

He told us stories of his travels and how he got food and whatnot. Everything he talked about was not in dollars and cents, it was in poems. He told us how he was in Chicago (or some other large city) and how he got into the U2 concert with 6 poems. Or how in Florida he got a ride and dinner with 3 poems. He also said how on several occasions he has met people more than once and they remember him. The funny thing was while we were walking on Venice Beach a guy came up to him and said he had remembered meeting him in Texas.

Anyway, I am sorry for the long rant, but I just love to talk about him. I could keep going but I will spare you. He is like a legend to me. I hope to one day meet him again. I'd say if this is something you really want, then go for it. Be careful, stay safe, and be prepared for anything or anyone. If you play your cards right, it could be the best experience of your life. And if it's not for you, then at least you made the effort and you can say you tried. I'm sure it will be an eye opening experience.

Much luck and much love
~Danielle

p.s. let us know what you decide to do.
 
I think I do best when I'm fending for myself without anyone else to fall back on. It'd freak my family and friends out when I'd do my little disappearing acts, but different strokes for different folks, yeah?

(I used to really like leaving the country for months at a time and not tell anyone. Not the most considerate thing to do, but expected responsibilities and I don't get on very well.)

I never worried about missing friends or particular people because I'd always make new friends who'd become quite like family. Now that I'm back to a "set" way of life, things are withering a good bit. As much as I love my boyfriend, familiar haunts and family members, adventure and the unknown make me grow much more than familiarity and routine do.

Also, wanderlust does amazing things for your confidence! I can't recall ever feeling so confident as winging my way through different cultures, faces and lodgings. I made things happen for myself; not due to favours owed, so-called obligations or anything of the sort.

My responsibilities were chiefly to myself. I liked that the most - answering to myself and allowing my selfish tendencies to run wild. I liked and enjoyed life much more when I didn't have a permanant address.

Cheers to all of you in this thread, especially!
 
I once met a bloke on my travels on a plane from london to prague. This guy was to fucking interesting, I was slightly jeolous, which is very rare.

Here's the story.

The plane was delayed, and this hobo looking guy came up to the screen holding a toolbox kinda thing. He started saying, "ahh fuck, late plane thats just what I need", I prayed he wasn't on my flight.
My luck had it (although I'm glad I met him) he was sittting IN MY SEAT! I saw him and said thats my seat, he said, "If you knew what I'de been through you would give it me", I was feeling pretty fearless and said mate thats my seat, move. He kinda swore under his breath, but moved. By the way this guy was in incredible phsical shape.
We got chatting and he had hitchhiked around the world, working everywhere, oil-rigs, all countries and he said do you know how I got there, and he raised his thumb.
He used to be a clown so he told me and made alot of money, he assured me that the best work in the world is making people smile.
I could talk about this guy for ages, he didn't let me sleep the whole flight, so I heard alot of his stories. I just write some points and a conclusion. [feel like i'm doing a fucking assesment! =)]

*He couldn't read, however he spoke very well
*He had a bloody nose, and it looked like it was broken on the flight, he told me he had to kill a guy that tried to rob him. He was deadly serious, yet not scary at all. He had morals.
*He said the the good looking girl next to him, "keep your hands to yourself", I thought it was so funny. She was moved within 2 minutes.
*I asked for a beer on the flight and so did he, he was a hobo looking guy but said he hadn't had a drink in months, wow a hobo who didn't drink!
*He wore leather, reminded me of brad pitt in fight club, wearing clother that last forever. He took off his jacket and was wearing a wife beater and this guy had the hugest most defined arms i've almost ever seen. He assured me he had never been to the gym, its from hard work, and everything he eats he burns off.
*I left about a quarter of a muffen from the shitty plane food and he asked if i could have it, I said sure and he then stood up infront of a full plane and said "If anyone has any spare food, don't throw it away, I'll eat it!". He was totally confident and serious, he then took unfinished food from a posh looking lady opposite. She was less than impressed but I was laughing.
*He was an artist.
Damn I could go on for ages.

I am going to do this at some stage in my life for sure, I want learn how to survive in the wild first, maybe join the SAS, then see what happens.
I think you could almost feel safe traveling when you have nothing to lose.

Excellent post.
 
yeah an old teacher of mine used to tell us about how when he was in his 20's he lived in germany, and working in the black forest, doing tourist stuff


he wasnt homeless, but I could easily see how a homeless person could live out there, he showed us pictures of the landscape.....BEAUTIFUL

its nothing but huge trees and water, if any of you guys are in Europe, and like hiking, I'd suggest you check it out.

maybe one day, I'll have some cool stories to tell.
 
Only problem I have with living the aboved mention lifestyle (fuck the 9-5, go out travel, etc.) is the alienation i feel from the other 90% of people out there who i have great difficulty relating to. For me, living with these ideologies can be quite a lonely place, but also at times, very rewarding.
 
I decided to become homeless for a year. i didnt feel my home situation was stable and i wnated to find out who i was as a person. something i didnt think i could do living with my parents. i moved out when i was 13 for a whole year. it was astounding. I learned alot about the felonious arts. i also learned alot about myself.

i wrote a poema bout it...i think its archived here: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22606&highlight=liquidphil1
 
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