# how many of you are out here by choice



## THE REAL SCAVENGER (Nov 27, 2016)

I am curious. Did you choose the life on the road or were you forced on the road? Feel free to delete this thread if this is a stupid thread


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## ped (Nov 28, 2016)

its only stupid if you're about to make some abstract moral distinction between the two

$.02


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## outlawloose (Nov 28, 2016)

I subscribe to a stupid abstract moral destinction between the two, so I'll keep my $0.02 to myself


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## Notmyname (Nov 28, 2016)

I be where I be only cause I wanna be. What to do you cant tell me!


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## spectacular (Nov 28, 2016)

I initially started living outside for the adventure but social and psychological issues (on my and others behalf) have kept me outside for last 3 years. It's my own understanding that most people would like to alternate between living outside and inside but due to the way property is divided and held in such high esteem (higher than that of human beings most of the time) many are forced to choose between full-time outside living or dedicating oneself to maintaining an indoor living quarters with very little in between.


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## roguetrader (Nov 28, 2016)

i started out travelling by choice but am now so far off the map socially / politically / economically that even if I wanted to re-enter mainstream society it would be very difficult..... and goddammit I CANNOT STAND FUCKING STRAIGHT PEOPLE AND ALL THEIR FUCKING BULLSHIT !


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## ped (Nov 28, 2016)

dude, having to work and pretend to remotely like them is going to give me stomach cancer. I mean the infinite banality and just pure fucking nonsense that consumes their soul. It might not be so bad if they weren't so goddamn arrogant about it.


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## roguetrader (Nov 28, 2016)

@ped what line of work are you in buddy ? certain trades just seem to attract arseholes - like construction in the UK


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## ped (Nov 28, 2016)

Whatever I can get. right now part time maintenance at a nursing home and part time security at a power plant.

Saving for spring


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## Georgeez (Nov 28, 2016)

I became Homeless after leaving Foster Care. Been out in the bushes ever since, but I love it.


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## Rob Nothing (Nov 28, 2016)

I remember walking up pine or pike or union or something away from the pier with my highschool love one day and a group of traveler/train kids passed us, headed the other direction. I could see that they were the real deal and not just dressed a certain way, and I wanted to stop them and talk to them but could not think of anything to say that would bridge the gap and show that I was family and they walked on and I stood looking on thinking "take me with you!!". I asked the girl I was with what she thought of them and of course she was of a different opinion, being brought up in the same house her entire life and never knowing what it's like to not have money. She thought nothing of them and didn't understand why anyone would want to live like that.

Frankly I've always gravitated toward the outdoors and the kinds of people that are more typically found on the way there. People of substance and moral character.


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## OakTreeHopper (Nov 28, 2016)

my choice

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## Bedheadred (Nov 28, 2016)

Choice, id rather live in a van and travel than be boring and normal living in a house


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## Art101 (Nov 28, 2016)

Started because I had to,now adays it more I want to.


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## Gypsy Ray (Nov 28, 2016)

After years of working it's by choice that I travel and explore the coast. This is just my .02 cents but most people that are forced to travel and live this life normally wanted to but never had to guts to until they took the leap. Just my .02 cents


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## Tford (Nov 28, 2016)

THE REAL SCAVENGER said:


> I am curious. Did you choose the life on the road or were you forced on the road? Feel free to delete this thread if this is a stupid thread


BY choice. i only squat 250k priced homes and up. learned the laws..


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## EphemeralStick (Nov 28, 2016)

I started because I needed to get away from some bad situations and didn't know what else to do. I coulda easily gone off the road but now it just doesn't seem right. I feel at peace when I out doing crazy adventures and the like.

So I guess it's always been choice for me


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## Grubblin (Nov 29, 2016)

There was a "choice", but I feel that the choice made me, I didn't make it. In many ways I've been traveling all of my adult life. I've only been living On The Road since about January and the only thing I regret is that I didn't do this sooner in life.

I don't hate normies, nor do I hate their fucking bullshit. Rather than hate them, I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for all the bullshit they have to worry about - rent, mortgage, electricity, cable, new car, etc. They think all of that bullshit matters and all that really matters is living your life to the fullest extent possible. They work to buy stuff, stuff that they know will make them happy if they can only work hard enough to get it, stuff that is useless to almost everyone but the people selling the stuff and the advertising agency lying to sell the stuff. They believe the lie of capitalism happiness in such a way that they will work hard enough to go to an early grave due to working their ass off to get their "happy". They have all these things that they want to do, all these places that they want to go, so they work to get there, to do that - and somewhere in the back of their minds they know that what they're working for will never happen but they do it anyway bc the lie is all they know. The lie is that if you just get a college degree, if you just work hard enough in the US, you can get ahead, that all that you've ever wanted will be yours. So they toil and they wait and they die, only realizing the lie for what it was near the end, when it's too late to do anything about it. I used to hate people, or I thought I did. I realized that I don't hate people but rather I hate the mass of humanity, society and government in general but I love individual people based solely on that person - their thoughts, their actions, their beliefs - you know, their dickhead factor.

They judge travelers harshly, but I think at least in part that has to do with jealousy. Jealous of the lack of responsibility, jealous of the freedom, jealous that travelers have the courage to be different and to not care who knows or what they think - I'm not speaking for those on here, only those I've met and for myself. Normals try extremely hard, all of their life to "fit in" - to the country club, the PTA, the Rotary - to any organization that they think will add value to their life. When they see someone who doesn't try to fit in anywhere then it makes their efforts to conform out to be the lie that they are, this makes them uncomfortable, enter the jealousy, enter the harsh judgement, enter the hate. 

I'll never in my life wake up and look up at a million dollar roof over my head but most nights in my life when I wake up I look up at a million stars, I know which one I prefer.

All of this is just my opinion, based on personal experiences, for whatever it happens to worth to anyone reading this.


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## marmar (Nov 29, 2016)

Idk what can force someone on the road, besides being a, or what they call it, figutive from justice? Lol. Running from jail, in other words. No one forced me on the road, although some things, and people did force me out of homes and into the streets. My choice was not to be a miserable home bum but a traveling and trying to be a happier one.


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## Mankini (Nov 29, 2016)

Passion!!! The smell of the sweet sage and the ocean and mountain laurel on a hazy, warm Fall day on Mt Tamalpais: the golden hills surrounding and white fluffy cotton seeds floating in the twilight. Rain in the air and wild orange blossoms and rose fragrance in the alleyways of Portland, San Fran, and Santa Barbara. The smell of POWER.

Now, consider the alternative: living in a shoddy 20 year old house in Colorado Springs or San Antonio: waking up at 630 AM to go to a 8 hour job that pays you 5 dollars above minimum wage. Starbucks, or the hotel or restaurant or retail place you work at will NOT allow OT and they wont offer bennies so they keep you at 25-35 hours a week, guaranteeing you will NEVER make more than 1300/month.
Your car smells like raw gasoline and dog vomit. Traffic stresses you out and cops have put you within 6 points of your maximum, so you're always 1 ticket away from losing your license. Your rent is 25% of your monthly income, gas 20%, food and bills 20%, and your cheap Rent To Own TV and furniture take another 25%. Which means you have roughly 150 in discretionary income each month. THAT is what you are working for: 150 a month in discretionary income.

Your neighbors have shitty taste in music and play Sublime and Nickelback on the local classic rock station at top volume.

Maybe in 5, or 10, or 20 years, you will have found a decent career, a better house in a better neighborhood, and a newer car, and will make 40,000 per year.

Hhahahahhahah You choose.


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## Grubblin (Nov 29, 2016)

In a sense you are right. It's all by choice but choice is very subjective and entirely dependent on the individual situation. I've already read a post on this site from several years ago about choosing to hop trains. It became very argumentative so I'm not going to go there bc it's just not that important to me to be right. I will say that when you have a choice between a truly horrible situation and living on the road to try something you've never done before it's not much of a choice. Horrible situations come in all shapes and sizes. Many, if not most, times that situation has nothing to do with the law or being a fugitive. Sometimes the person within the situation is at least partly, if not wholly, responsible for the situation, sometimes that person has nothing to do with the circumstances that they find themselves in.

I won't go into my own situation mainly because people want to hear it even less than I want to share it. I will say that I began to think about what I would do if I had all the money I ever wanted or needed for the rest of my life. I came up with a few things. I would read and write, even more extensively than did back then. I would travel, almost constantly. I would hike and experience all of the wild that I possibly could. While I was reevaluating life and what I wanted out of it I began to see that I really didn't need all the money that I ever wanted or needed to do these things. I could do all of these things as a low dough operation. As an added bonus I could help the people that I met along the way when I could, however I could. It's much more difficult to travel this way but it's worth every ounce of effort so far - to me at least.

So you're right, it was a choice but it wasn't much of a choice which is why I said the choice chose me. I've learned some amazing things and changed in some amazing ways since I've started and I can't wait to see what's next. I don't know what's next but I know what's not next. What's not next is some 9 to 5 (for more than a few weeks or months at a time) that I hate to make money to buy things that I really don't need in order to live the type of life that makes me happy, that's not next. I'm already happier than I've ever been and I'll continue to be out there, somewhere, until it no longer makes me happy - then I'll do something else. 

Just my thoughts.


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## roguetrader (Nov 29, 2016)

well @Grubblin it's great that adopting a travelling lifestyle has opened the world up to you, fulfilling your dreams so to speak - for a lot of people 'travelling' becomes just as much of a trap as the straight world ; instead of putting 8 hours a day in working to pay for cars / houses / debts a lot of so called travellers put 8 hours a day in begging to pay for their multiple addictions ! I've also noticed both ends of the scale claim they are there by choice.... I agree totally that the best things in life are free or cheap.....

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## Grubblin (Nov 29, 2016)

roguetrader said:


> well @Grubblin it's great that adopting a travelling lifestyle has opened the world up to you, fulfilling your dreams so to speak - for a lot of people 'travelling' becomes just as much of a trap as the straight world ; instead of putting 8 hours a day in working to pay for cars / houses / debts a lot of so called travellers put 8 hours a day in begging to pay for their multiple addictions ! I've also noticed both ends of the scale claim they are there by choice.... I agree totally that the best things in life are free or cheap.....
> 
> Sent from my XT1039 using the Squat the Planet mobile app!



I agree completely. I've seen the same thing and I always feel badly that their life has gone down that road for reasons that I'm careful not to judge - society does enough of that so I won't participate in judging. I've always stayed away from those addictions and been grateful that my life has never led there, while being vigilant that it doesn't. I believe that most everyone has at least a little good in them and that most people are decent when given a chance.


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## Grubblin (Nov 29, 2016)

Just to be clear @roguetrader. I'm not trying to say that you're judging those people for flying signs to feed multiple addictions. It's just my philosophy that I never know what what type of horrible shit has happened to people in their life to make them do what they feel they need to do in order to get through the day. Due to that fact, I try not to judge anyone for anything, even addiction, until they "show" me who they really are. That goes for all people, normals, travelers, etc. That being said, as soon as I know they're on heavy drugs I choose not to be around them. That's just something that I've always done and I view it more as a self preservation factor and a way to keep my ass clean and out of trouble than a judgement. Whatever they want to do is fine with me as long as it doesn't affect me. 

My last post could have been worded more clearly which is the reason for this one.


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## ped (Nov 29, 2016)

Mankini said:


> Passion!!! The smell of the sweet sage and the ocean and mountain laurel on a hazy, warm Fall day on Mt Tamalpais: the golden hills surrounding and white fluffy cotton seeds floating in the twilight. Rain in the air and wild orange blossoms and rose fragrance in the alleyways of Portland, San Fran, and Santa Barbara. The smell of POWER.
> 
> Now, consider the alternative: living in a shoddy 20 year old house in Colorado Springs or San Antonio: waking up at 630 AM to go to a 8 hour job that pays you 5 dollars above minimum wage. Starbucks, or the hotel or restaurant or retail place you work at will NOT allow OT and they wont offer bennies so they keep you at 25-35 hours a week, guaranteeing you will NEVER make more than 1300/month.
> Your car smells like raw gasoline and dog vomit. Traffic stresses you out and cops have put you within 6 points of your maximum, so you're always 1 ticket away from losing your license. Your rent is 25% of your monthly income, gas 20%, food and bills 20%, and your cheap Rent To Own TV and furniture take another 25%. Which means you have roughly 150 in discretionary income each month. THAT is what you are working for: 150 a month in discretionary income.
> ...



great post!

That's a whole other thing. Rent is so high and wages so low and only getting worse. getting real hard to do it even if you want to.


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## Deleted member 2626 (Nov 29, 2016)

As a post I just made I'm fence riding. Looks like it'll be less choice but yet still a little control. I still have living family and friends I can stay and short term live with need be. but, I really can't as others say bring myself to become a full time slave or chess pawn and never will. I'd rather be homeless squatting in the woods and cold and hungry than a miserable prick chasing a dollar and wanting to impress people who don't give a shit about me.


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## roguetrader (Nov 29, 2016)

@Grubblin - I think your reasoning is pretty clear and well thought out - my post was made to simply highlight the irony of rejecting conventional work for an alternative form of slavery revolving around getting money for drugs.... and I definitely not judgemental coz I got issues with drugs and alcohol myself, which is why I feel qualified to make these observations ! direct experience.....

with regard to the original thread I've definitely rejected conventional living due to my anarchist / punk ideology rather than being forced out - I'm middle class, educated etc - could of had the mainstream life no problem but i'm what the authorities here refer to as 'intentionally homeless' - living in vehicles, precariously broke, but proud to be living by my rules with as little kiss-ass / compromise as possible - the thought of living life as a straight truly gives me the horrors - the way life is mapped out from birth to death, to wear what everyone else wears, to think what everyone else thinks with not one original thought EVER troubling that poor under-used brain...... 

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## The Albino Buffalo (Nov 29, 2016)

outlawloose said:


> I subscribe to a stupid abstract moral destinction between the two, so I'll keep my $0.02 to myself


I'll spange you for those 2 cents and use it for beer.


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## Mankini (Nov 30, 2016)

ped said:


> great post!
> 
> That's a whole other thing. Rent is so high and wages so low and only getting worse. getting real hard to do it even if you want to.



The rentier class of developers, speculators, financiers, surveyors, and realtors have created an artificial scenario: a so-called ''Sellers' Market''. This means that simply being housed has been commodified. Break it, Smash it, Punish them, take your basic human right-which is to be safe, comfortable, and healthy.

Society does not have a choice whether people shall be housed or not. That is not their choice to make. Only we have that prerogative.

Yes, as #Roguetrader said. I, and many of us, could, or could have, snatch(ed) at Rat Race goals like suburban 10,000 sq.ft. ranch style homes; platinum credit cards; MBA's at pretentious universities; pretentious poetry readings and even more pretentious cocktail parties; exorbitantly priced minivans with doodads for the kids to play with; dry-clean only suits that cost more than their creators in Bangladesh or San Salvador will make in their entire lives; etc etc


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## Fred R (Dec 2, 2016)

I could live in my moms house tomorrow. I could prop my feet up on the couch and stair at the tv in the basement with a steady temperature regulated at 76'. Or I could be looking at flights to Berlin with no plan for what to do when I leave the airport. I can't keep a job for more than a month and I'd probably end up in jail. It's a real choice for me.


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## LeoRenegade (Dec 3, 2016)

I have to say choice. My trade is electrician but I have no desire to be told what to do and how and when to do it. I'd rather be broke and home free. I've never been able to hold a job more than a couple months because eventually I wake up and say "fuck this, not going in today" then I wake up tomorrow with the same thought, then finally ill realize I'm not going back... And I've never regretted it. I've honestly tried to be the 9-5 working stiff that can go home and buy whatever I want. But I realize those wants get me nothing except more wants, that adds up quick. Then all the sudden I can't buy whatever I want because my money is always tied up before I get it. FUCK that vicious circle. On another note, those people, the rat racers, need to exist so that we can. The balance of the universe is the only truth a can adhere to. With one side comes the other, without one the other isn't... Love

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## ped (Dec 3, 2016)

The inability to be a job has come up several times now. I wonder how common it is? It makes me feel really good to know a bunch of people are like me. Lol


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## LeoRenegade (Dec 3, 2016)

Has to be pretty common... I've known quite a bit of people that can't hold a job from a lack of fucks to give.

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## Fred R (Dec 3, 2016)

LeoRenegade said:


> Has to be pretty common... I've known quite a bit of people that can't hold a job from a lack of fucks to give.


Lack of fucks is just as true as I'm simply crazy. And a burgeoning alcoholic.


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## LeoRenegade (Dec 3, 2016)

Well.. Simply being crazy can lead to losing all of the fucks one once had to give... If one ever had any.

YarrrShibby


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## Fred R (Dec 3, 2016)

The insane doesn't want to be sane. This alone drives him insane. Isn't that insane?


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## Deleted member 2626 (Dec 4, 2016)

yeah even a shitty job can be decently easy to get with no criminal background a hs graduate and a mannered interview. I show up on time for a month? then once funds rise I'm usually like alrite gonna call off tonight then that's the downward spiral to no show. I have put in my two weeks on a few because I respected the people and the job wasn't horrible.


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## WanderLost Radical (Dec 4, 2016)

I don't know if you can call that being forced, or by choice, but i willingly hit the road to run away from dépression and addiction. (Nothing like being too broke to be addicted to quit, right?)

Been on the road for 14months since. I. Just about to re-integrate society and "normal life" and it terrifies me to not know how I'll react. 

The only thing that drives me is to save up and go on with the epic worldwide adventure i'm planning!


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## Vanholio (Dec 4, 2016)

roguetrader said:


> i started out travelling by choice but am now so far off the map socially / politically / economically that even if I wanted to re-enter mainstream society it would be very difficult..... and goddammit I CANNOT STAND FUCKING STRAIGHT PEOPLE AND ALL THEIR FUCKING BULLSHIT !



I chose this life and have been at it 1.5 years or so. But already I can feel the slide into what roquetrader said. To even take on vanlife, I was already a bit outside. But now straight society is looking stupider and stupider. Current politics don't help.


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## Renegade (Dec 17, 2016)

It was a choice even tho at the time i had other things i could have done.. now years on a lot of the doors to those old opportunities have slammed shut..?and i am now estranged from my family because of my lifestyle.. my mom is gone.. my childhood home is now destroyed..and my dad is disappointed in me as well as the rest of my family..plus i have no home to go back to..

Still even with all that being said i would not change a thing.. i love this lifestyle and i am down for life.. I have a street family now..and we take care of each other. Rougetrader is right.. as the months turn in to years the separation grows between normal people and me... i feel like a space alien around norms and i cant stand being in doors .. its too confining... people look at me like an oddity..i dont care tho..you cant take to the road with out sacrificing some things.... i was always very disillusioned with the system as a young kid.. because it fucked me .. and my distain grew from that point..i dont want a fake 9 to 5 life surrounded by fake people..

All that i have is wrapped up in today... my freedom, my life.. and my friends thats what's important to me.. all that i want is secured In this moment. I have no need to work my life away securing a nonexistent future..while at the same time setting aside whats reallty important.


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## creature (Dec 17, 2016)

Arguably not choice, but a consequence of choice.

God knows I would do it differently, or remain closer to one place, but as all here note, 'civillized' existence is too complicated for some of us. It isn't that we *wouldn't* be a little more centralized on terms of where we homebum from, it's that as a consequence of not being able to centralize *enough* that we are *forced* into the choice of a more consistent transience..


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## AnOldHope (Jan 9, 2017)

Vanholio said:


> I chose this life and have been at it 1.5 years or so. But already I can feel the slide into what roquetrader said. To even take on vanlife, I was already a bit outside. But now straight society is looking stupider and stupider. Current politics don't help.



I have to admit, "normative" society is building up some fairly inescapable credibility problems.

Obey the Law! ("Um, most of our elite class appear involved in astronomically profitable fraud, corruption, and insider dealing. The lawyers aren't obeying the law, they're selling it to the highest bidder.")

Work hard! ("Well, you've stagnated wages so severely and ramped up consumer appetite so much, the hard workers are drowning in debt and falling further behind, you mismanaged their pensions, you collapsed their housing market and hustled their savings away. They worked really hard, you left them with nothing.")

Be civil and polite! ("Our national political discourse has devolved into dishonesties that compete purely by magnitude of absurdity, and you've pumped so much fear into the system that its collapsing.")

Respect the system! ("That would violate both what respect and a system is.")

I hope I live at least another 20 years, I'm interested in seeing what the young people do. Emerging technology is giving them far more power, and as the rate of acceleration and associated technoshock increases, the old (like me) will be at an exponentially widening disadvantage against the young. 

I wonder what they'll make...


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## Vagabonds Photography (Jan 13, 2017)

Choice. Me and the wife got sick of the same bullshit. Sick of the 9-5. Loaded up the car, donated the rest, and hit the road. Been at it since April. 46 States, 2 Countries, 40k miles and so much more to do.


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## rooster831 (Jan 15, 2017)

i was thrown out to the streets, but when i realized how much i love and need traveling i chose to keep it up


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## ChezaRose (Feb 9, 2017)

Both. The first time I was freeing abuse, the second time I was fleeing depression and the last time I had no other place to live more than a couple months. But that only lasted a couple weeks so... 

Honestly I just follow my heart and experiences I haven't had and to see what I learn from there, be it in a house, in a car or in a sleeping bag. 

But at that point I could argue it is neither a choice nor an obligation but a nature.


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## zipty6425 (Mar 15, 2017)

I dont want to say I was forced to live on the streets. After all, nobodys got a gun to my head. I


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## zipty6425 (Mar 15, 2017)

I made alot of bad choices when I was younger, which lead to some pretty serious social problems. As a result, its nearly impossible to keep a job and grasp my sanity at the same time. Not to mention, my family still hasnt forgiven me, and possibly never will gor the stuff that yook place 8~12 years ago. To sum it all up, all of that, forces me to live the way I do. If I could maintain a steady job and live in a house, I would absolutely love to... It's far more complicated than just being too lazy to work. Most people wouldnt understand.


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## AnOldHope (Mar 15, 2017)

zipty6425 said:


> I made alot of bad choices when I was younger, which lead to some pretty serious social problems. As a result, its nearly impossible to keep a job and grasp my sanity at the same time. Not to mention, my family still hasnt forgiven me, and possibly never will gor the stuff that yook place 8~12 years ago. To sum it all up, all of that, forces me to live the way I do. If I could maintain a steady job and live in a house, I would absolutely love to... It's far more complicated than just being too lazy to work. Most people wouldnt understand.



Hey man, its not my place to say, I don't know you, but I respect the way you phrase your situation with your family. Most people say "my family are dicks they fucked me over", but you seem to be pretty honest about it being you, and I respect that. 

I saw a post by you a while back, saying you needed to park your truck somewhere. If you still need a place to be for a bit, I've got some land in Arizona. PM me if you're interested, there are some rules on my ground (no violence, no hard drugs, you peacefully go if asked, etc). 

If you need money for your vehicle insurance, I probably have enough work around the land that you could make a couple hundred dollars. I've got internet connection and stored water. If you can do vegetarian survival freeze dry, I've got food. 

If not your thing, no problem. Don't give up.


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## stormrider66 (Mar 15, 2017)

For me, it was either hit the road or stay in a slave job driving for a small expedite company out of the Atlanta area....after 5 years of crap, I had enough. Right now I'm trying to get someplace where I can see about getting some photography work. I have an online store, but it has only been operational for a few weeks.


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