Website Updates Squat the Planet will be shutting down at the end of 2023

[Matt Derrick]

UPDATE; OCT 23 2023: StP will NOT be shutting down at the end of the year! Please read this thread for more details:

Website Updates - StP will NOT be shutting down at the end of the year!

Hello everyone! My name's Iris and I work with a small anarchist collective called MycoSystems, and we have been collaborating with Matt to take over the infrastructure and maintenance of StP in an effort to revitalize the forum and keep this community alive for the future. As of yesterday, StP...

squattheplanet.com

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Hey everyone, I’m sorry to say I have bad news. After nearly 23 years, I will be closing the doors on the Squat the Planet website. I’ve been struggling for a long time now to find the motivation I used to have for coding/designing websites, and as of today I’ve finally decided I just don’t have the energy or passion to keep this going.

For those who’ve been around long enough, you’ve probably seen me bounce back and forth on this issue quite a bit over the past several years. Unfortunately, StP and it’s community just haven’t lived up to what I’d really hoped for, and no one has stepped up to take the reins (despite several pleas), so… it’s time to close up shop.

No one really takes the time to post anything interesting about their travels anymore, most folks can’t even figure out how to use a message board (posting threads in the incorrect category about 60% of the time), and StP can’t seem to escape the reputation for being a site about train hopping; something I haven’t done in quite some time, and a scene (not a community) I’m fairly disgusted with overall.

In my opinion, the travel sub-culture has really lost its way; sudo-hobos bicker and fight online just to inflate their own egos, there aren’t any events worth going to anymore (and haven’t been in a long time) and I just don’t feel any kind of unity in our community; I just feel like no one gives a damn about anyone besides themselves anymore.

Obviously, I have to throw in the caveat that I don’t feel this way about everyone. There’s been a lot of great people on here over the past two decades. Many of which I still talk to today, and even more that I consider good friends and I hope will always be part of my life going into the future. You know who you are. Even if you don’t know me personally, but you have made amazing contributions to the StP community in the past, thank you. Thank you so much for being one of the good ones. The ones that made me proud to have created this website.

But, it’s no longer my job to hold this community up by myself. I’m not sure what will come next. I have a few vague ideas for other projects, which may or may not become successors to StP. I'm very interested in the Fediverse and fighting for internet freedom, so it might be something in that direction, but who knows. I’m taking a break, and I’m not in a rush to jump into another project. What this means for various other StP-related projects (Anarchist's Guide to Travel, the StP discord, file library, etc.) I'm really not sure. I'd like to discuss that here in this thread.

I’ve set the date of December, 31st, 2023 as the final day of open posting. Hopefully, this should give folks time to archive anything they need to. While it is likely I will maintain an archive of the site for historical purposes, please don’t count on it. Make backups of anything here you don’t want to lose.

Please feel free to respond with your comments and questions in this thread, I’ll do my best to reply when time permits.

EDIT: I also have a side thread going about starting a possible successor to StP, please take a look and give your thoughts.

 

[Three Suns Echoed Songs]

shit, i know i haven't been here long, and i've more so hung out on the discord than posted here, but ill be sad to see it go

 

[Daisy]

Yeah you've been talking about it for quite some time, it seems like the best next move for ya. Sorry I never stepped up to do more just knowing myself I have trouble navigating these kind of things being perfectly honest. Definitely would love to keep the discord running it seems pretty easy to maintain. Either way alot of us absolutely appreciate all your hard work to keep this site together, especially in the last few years, and I can confirm that tangible ongoing community emerged from here. Anyways man I hope you enjoy your break from STP 💜💜💜

 

[Matt Derrick]

Definitely would love to keep the discord running it seems pretty easy to maintain. Either way alot of us absolutely appreciate all your hard work to keep this site together, especially in the last few years, and I can confirm that tangible ongoing community emerged from here. Anyways man I hope you enjoy your break from STP 💜💜💜

Thank you, I agree the discord is easy to maintain, though it would be great if someone took the reins on that.

 

[thealternativekitty]

Hey everyone, I’m sorry to say I have bad news. After nearly 23 years, I will be closing the doors on the Squat the Planet website. I’ve been struggling for a long time now to find the motivation I used to have for coding/designing websites, and as of today I’ve finally decided I just don’t have the energy or passion to keep this going.

For those who’ve been around long enough, you’ve probably seen me bounce back and forth on this issue quite a bit over the past several years. Unfortunately, StP and it’s community just haven’t lived up to what I’d really hoped for, and no one has stepped up to take the reins (despite several pleas), so… it’s time to close up shop.

No one really takes the time to post anything interesting about their travels anymore, most folks can’t even figure out how to use a message board (posting threads in the incorrect category about 60% of the time), and StP can’t seem to escape the reputation for being a site about train hopping; something I haven’t done in quite some time, and a scene (not a community) I’m fairly disgusted with overall.

In my opinion, the travel sub-culture has really lost its way; sudo-hobos bicker and fight online just to inflate their own egos, there aren’t any events worth going to anymore (and haven’t been in a long time) and I just don’t feel any kind of unity in our community; I just feel like no one gives a damn about anyone besides themselves anymore.

Obviously, I have to throw in the caveat that I don’t feel this way about everyone. There’s been a lot of great people on here over the past two decades. Many of which I still talk to today, and even more that I consider good friends and I hope will always be part of my life going into the future. You know who you are. Even if you don’t know me personally, but you have made amazing contributions to the StP community in the past, thank you. Thank you so much for being one of the good ones. The ones that made me proud to have created this website.

But, it’s no longer my job to hold this community up by myself. I’m not sure what will come next. I have a few vague ideas for other projects, which may or may not become successors to StP. I'm very interested in the Fediverse and fighting for internet freedom, so it might be something in that direction, but who knows. I’m taking a break, and I’m not in a rush to jump into another project. What this means for various other StP-related projects (Anarchist's Guide to Travel, the StP discord, file library, etc.) I'm really not sure. I'd like to discuss that here in this thread.

I’ve set the date of December, 31st, 2023 as the final day of open posting. Hopefully, this should give folks time to archive anything they need to. While it is likely I will maintain an archive of the site for historical purposes, please don’t count on it. Make backups of anything here you don’t want to lose.

Please feel free to respond with your comments and questions in this thread, I’ll do my best to reply when time permits.

I'm proud of you for doing what you need to do to take care of yourself. It'd be awesome to keep discord up. (Even if I'm not on often, working 24/7.) But I understand if that's just not something you're up to. Best of luck on your future endeavors!

 

[EphemeralStick]

Oh wow! An end of an era.
You've been telling me for years how you wanted to move away from this site, I always knew this was gonna happen eventually. Still, I know this was a tremendous decision that wasn't by any means easy to make. I know I'll be forever grateful for the hard work and love you put into building both this site and this community. This isn't just the end of StP though, it's the beginning of something new! And I can't wait to see what awesome projects you create in the future.

As a wise author once wrote, "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

 

[Scat]

Sorry to see it go, but I totally get where you're coming from. I'd love to see the Discord community stay up for as long as people are participating, and I am willing to lead on that if you need.

 

[Missus]

For what it's worth, thank you so much for this site. You guys, coupled with my husband's tenacity, may have literally saved our lives. If not for the knowledge on squatting and first-hand accounts, I don't know if we would have found the resources we needed to get to where we are.

I don't have the means to archive right now, but I'm hoping if nobody has started throwing things in the wayback machine, they will soon. I'm hoping to be able to help before you shut the doors.

Regardless, for the short time I've been here, this place has been a God-send, and INCREDIBLY educational and interesting.

I'm going to be VERY sad to see it go, but I genuinely understand there are certain things that will not last forever. I'm just glad I got to discover it before it stopped completely. ♡

 

[roguetrader]

r u still hoping to relocate to Europe @Matt Derrick ?

 

[Matt Derrick]

Thank you everyone for the wonderful words of appreciation, it honestly means a lot to hear.

I just wanted to say that regarding the Anarchist's Guide to Travel, I've already finished about 70% of the updates for the 2nd edition, and I still plan on publishing that before the end of this year.

The Etsy store will continue until everything is out of stock. I'll probably add a discount on the bandanas. I also will be tabling at the Anarchist Book Fair in Seattle August 26th-27th.

So, I'm not abandoning everything right away, but I'm definitely gearing things down towards an eventual closure.

r u still hoping to relocate to Europe @Matt Derrick ?

Yes! One of my #1 goals in life is to move to somewhere in Europe within the next 2–3 years. I'm hoping it will be through employment with a game company doing 3D environment design, but we'll see, I'll take whatever opportunities that will get me there

Also, next week's voice chat will likely center around planning around this shutdown and whatever might come next; so feel free to stop by the discord next week on Thursday at 6pm for our group voice chat.

 

[Coywolf]

Well, fuck. I know I haven't been around posting in the past few years. And I've also seen a decline of activity recently. I totally get your reasons @Matt Derrick you gotta fulfill your aspirations just like the rest of us.

I do wanna thank you for everything StP related. This website basically was my jumping off point for riding and traveling in general. Fucking brilliant resource, and (used to be) a pretty vibrant community. I will be sad AF to see it go.

I also agree about the riding community. It seems to be a bunch of real assholes participating in a pissing contest, and people like that Dancer asshole competing for subscribers on the YT channels, who might ride like once a year. Its gross, and that's one of the reasons I don't look for 'friends' when im out riding. Appearently I'm not enough of a dirty kid to hang out in the dirty kid club 😂. There are some great people, but they are few and far in between, it seems like.

What am I gonna do now? Sell my soul to r/vagabond?!?!? 😭😭😭😭

If for some reason I don't get in touch with people before the site goes down, and you wanna keep in touch, hit me up on Instagram: @somekindacoywolf

Fuckin' A. Sad days.

 

[roguetrader]

cool ! maybe meet you in the flesh one day... I'm looking to get mobile again now my daughters a grown woman...

 

[Matt Derrick]

cool ! maybe meet you in the flesh one day... I'm looking to get mobile again now my daughters a grown woman...

I'd really like that, so if you don't mind, I'll reach out and see if I can get some alternative contact info for you, so I can stay in touch

 

[Matt Derrick]

One thing that occurs to me is that the file library and the train hopping section will be cut off from everyone when the site gets shuttered. This is due to those areas requiring an account to access. When the site closes, logins will be disabled, and those sections will no longer be able to be accessed.

I don't want to open them up to the public (even as a read-only archive) due to legal reasons and protecting certain kinds of train hopping information that might have been discussed in that area of the forums.

so, if you want to archive things on StP, you might want to start there first.

 

[Beegod Santana]

Sorry to see it go, but I totally understand why you'd be ready to throw in the towel. Perhaps it'll be for the best. It seems like the internet has so much potential for so much, but at the end of the day lots of things suffer from being on it. The DIY / traveler scenes have been fucking wrecked by it as far as I can tell.

 

[Raggamuffin]

@Matt Derrick What a site to be proud of, I’ve really learnt so much and met some super good guys here, among the madness - the space for resources you have created still is and has been incredibly powerful. Lover of forums! But alas they’re not the thing anymore as far as I can see. The world is different. And so are the people - the collective ego has spiraled out of control and continues to trickle and poison so many people.

So please keep your energy directed on the healthy path forward and always in expansion! Like most of us, I fully and still firmly believe collectives are the way of the world, with right mind, right action, right focus and right direction. All this is leading to transmutation to a physical place I’m sure!

From everything I’ve seen, thanks for your consistent and dedicated hard work to allow this space to live. Absolute best of luck on the next venture after a truly earned rest from all this. I’ll try and check in on the discord a bit, and got my fingers crossed for ya to make it to Europe for some new magic!

 

[Billy Cougar White]

Damn, breaks my heart to lose this community. Although I do agree it has gone downhill. I want to thank everyone in this group that shared stories and tips. Long before I lived as a full time traveller I was on this page gathering info and reading stories. I know if if this site didn’t exist, my early travel days would have been a lot harder. I’ll share a couple more stories before we all shut it down, until then I love each one of you.

 

[Koala]

Awww Matt I'm really glad you're doing what's best for you, I know you've been putting tons of work in over the years and I'm stoked for whatever you move up and on to.

I just wanna say thanks to you and everyone though, I've met my best friends through this site and have been able to read so many useful and interesting things. I'm on a bike tour in Europe right now that I only heard about thru a post on STP. I was texting Croc last night and Jerrell this morning and to say I can't imagine my life without the friends I've made here is an understatement. I have no idea where I'd be or what I'd be doing. I'm sure it would be fine and all but the community I've met at the Jambos and have networked with and kept in touch with on Discord has been absolutely life changing for me. I love you all so much! Keep in touch! My insta is @renderingbarrel, also hmu for my email or phone # if you don't have it

 

[ali]

This is a real bummer. I just got back from a short journey almost entirely done on public bikes here in Taiwan and was hoping to make a post about it here on StP. It's really the only place on the internet i would want to share this kind of stuff. Big tech social media is trash and that includes all the "alternative" blogging and newsletter platforms that still only exist to make a bunch of assholes rich. Dedicated forums run by volunteers are the last, best place to reach people online who care about sharing for its own sake, instead of for money or karma or clout or whatever. The fediverse is great, but most of the platforms are too broad, it's not the same thing.

Still, i know keeping this site up has been a labor of love, and if your heart's not in it any longer, that's just the way things go. I hope you can keep an archive going, at least long enough for The Wayback Machine to archive the more interesting threads.

I know i haven't met many of you on here, but if you are interested to keep in touch, drop me a private message and i can share my email address. I don't really maintain any public social media.

 

[pikespeaked]

It's a shame. I found this site and culture in the past year. I didn't realize how long this had been established and wish I could of known earlier. You're right though, there's not much a sense of community. Just unanswered posts, questions, and vanity uploads. At the time of finding and signing up I was immediately thrown off by people posting and not responding or tons of posts with no traction. It's like a big dead subreddit. I hope whatever you choose to do going forward provides you with the community you tried to build. I wish you the best and all of you getting out there.