How many of you travel as a 'crew'?

[Hillbilly Castro]

I've traveled solo for the last three years, mostly hitchhiking, and mostly moving very fast. In the last year, I've started to feel this very dissociative, 'haunted' feeling when I'm on the move. I'll see families of normal people doing their thing and I'll feel this weird tinge of jealousy (even though I know they've got their problems and will probably divorce). I'll start looking at land and thinking about settling down. Then I'll stop moving for a month, maybe two, and immediately roll my eyes at myself and hit the road again. But then it'll happen again - seeing places and people roll past with immense speed makes me feel like I'm some ancient thousand year old wizard veteran and I feel a powerful desire to align myself with others. I paradoxically want stability and travel. I realize lately that what I want is a 'crew' or a band of nomads.

But when I go to hubs of travel culture, I don't find my people. When I hit the road, I had a lot of naive ideas about 'finding my people'. Prior to that, when I was a kid, I was a part of a group of country kids that called themselves 'The Brotherhood of the Mountain'. We built forts on the river, hunted, made bows, and cached food and blankets for our friends that had to run away from home or didn't have anything to eat. We were a family in that our loyalty was to each other before anything or anyone else. We all shared in each others struggles and made sure we made it through okay. We did a lot of revolutionary war reenactment with an old Vietnam vet from town and from that, we were able to intuit by age 10-12 that there was something very wrong with this world and that we'd have to be prepared. We would run miles, lift weights, swim up the river, do survival training, rifle practice, meditation, and would have intense discussions about what was to be done.

Well, fast forward to age 18 and drugs, work, prison, and the army work their way into the picture, and things fall apart. The brotherhood was no more. But having felt that strong bond for so much of my life in place of a functional family (my family sucked), I had gained sight of everything that life with other people could be, and could not induce myself to live the bland lives that other people my age were living. They didn't seem to give a shit about anyone but themselves, and even to themselves they're self-deprecating and cynical. So I hit the road, assuming that everyone else on the road had the same intense tribal intuitions that I had. I found that many had, but many hadn't. And that among a lot of the folks who had those desires, another type of cynicism had found its way in.

Now enough time in total solitude has passed for me that I am starting to wonder - do any travelers wind up finding a gang of totally solid folks and sticking by them like family? I'm definitely something of an anarcho-primitivist and figure that after 200,000 some odd years of nomadic tribal life, most of us are probably genetically hard-wired toward that way of being. It wouldn't surprise me if many of y'all were living that way. But I can't say I've seen a great deal of it. I've seen a lot of drunk punks moving around in relative isolation - and don't get me wrong, I love whiskey and Amebix and my solitude - but they don't feel like adequate lifelong replacements for the families and jobs and armies that once might have given us some feeling of unity, however fucked up, nor for the ancient tribal societies we once might have been a part of.

I'll say as well that I tend toward thinking that from 'the masses' emerges an aristocratic minority of innovators who manage to seize the most from their individual existences. Nietzsche's ideas, as well as Stirner's. So maybe my standards are waytoofuckin high. I envision these ubermensch banding together and forging a timeless familial bond. I know that too much solitude drives most people crazy (there are born hermits and I'm not one of 'em), but I know as well that the most readily available antidote to solitude - selling out - presents the most mediocre of existential possibilities. So I'm a bit stuck, and am wondering: have any of you navigated these questions and found answers in other people? Did you wind up accepting solitude, or endlessly boozing it up, or selling out? Are there other options I'm not seeing?

Much love to y'all, I love this forum

 

[roguetrader]

the scene i'm on in England / Europe consists of people 'rubber tramping' on a large scale (big vehicles and trailers) - we trawl round trying to find new bits of land to squat and start our very own anarchist utopia's.... when it's a good group of people it can be bliss, knowing that your new found family is there for you through thick and thin and you will never be left behind unless YOU fuck up ! but when it's shit it's really shit - living with groups of idiots who profess to the same ideology but make the same dumb moves you've seen 100 times before.... from what i've read about train hopping / travelling in the US we share a lot of the same issues in our alternative community- violence / addiction / theft / nihlism / a general 'fuck it let's get fucked up' attitude..... so what can you do ? well pockets of inspiring people exist all over the world so myself i try and linger with sound people and build a community and when i sense a nest of vipers then i get the fuck out ASAP ! a beautiful day with great people may pass quickly but is always worth it ! gotta go Library closing but i got more to say later... Brotherhood Of The Mountain sounds idylic.....

 

[Odin]

But then it'll happen again - seeing places and people roll past with immense speed makes me feel like I'm some ancient thousand year old wizard veteran and I feel a powerful desire to align myself with others.

I think isolation or limited interaction from others, regardless if your traveling or not speeds things up. Time takes on a less substantial quality.. I'm speaking to more of a hermit/homebumin perspective instead of constant travel. Though,I recognize the time distorting effects. It's a common saying for humans is it not? As they age it's said... "Time flys." ::

Maybe it's just part of getting old...:ldman::

Anyway only other thing I got to say is you have been traveling for a bit now... but there must be plenty of places you can go that you have not. Maybe just reach for that distant horizon again? SOmewhere you never would have thought you would go?...

Good luckk.

I also think that Brotherhood of the Mountain sounds cool. Fishing, smoking, hunting drinking... always good times.

 

[hrobyn13]

Holy fuck, you never told me the Brotherhood of the Mountain story!! That is incredible, splains a lot. I was just thinking earlier on how much of my childhood consisted of making bows and trying to read the Earth, etc. It was taken as 'cute' but never encouraged because of my 'gender'. Even finding the courage to be my wild self was such a push with my upbringing, and something I've done a lot with in my recent years. What you are saying sounds magic, and unimaginable to a suburban fuck like myself. I want to create that whether it exists or not.

oh wait jk I kinda remember you telling me this

 

[Rob Nothing]

Yessir.

..um, not sure where to start, shit.

RE alternating back and forth, naive hopes about the travel community, tribal instincts, training for a BS world, hunting and fishing.. ram the knife in one more set of burpees, do it! now climb that Fing mountain!

I am now following you because meeting up at some point in the next few years would be delightful.

Nietzsche was my only friend on that terrifying catwalk between adolescence and our 20's. Without at least one good mind to light the way in a dark period before you have your own, you're screwed. But I always felt like there were too few ubermen to ever band together in any tangible way. Sprinkled over the world manipulating the gene pool one good word at a time, how I looked at it. But now, now I am seeing more and more of them and it gives me some faith in our generation. Maybe we can beat the curve. Maybe we can do it, maybe leave off from that old fucked up wasteland we were brought into, leave it together.

In the last few years I've noticed a gradual shift in my perspective. I am no longer 100% about walking across the mexican US border and down through south america and through muggings, beatings, imprisonment, to my death or to see gondwana land and the antarctic or perhaps, nothing. I find getting older I am able to see much more merit and goodness in normal everyday human activities and in the family dynamic. The changes that go on in our brains are incredible, as time drifts on. And the last five years have changed everything in me but my face. For the better, I think.

It is an honor to be who and what I am, and to share some of that with others like you.

Kill that son of a bitch! Climb that mountain! 10000 needles, do it!

 

[WanderLost Radical]

Even though I've only been travelling for 5 months, I spent those 5 months alone. And I know what you mean.

Even though I consider myself a lone wolf, I do get lonely sometimes, but so far, I managed to deal with that by only hanging out for people for a few days before leaving alone again. Even though I don't relate with those people, and only have a shallow relationship with them, I guess it fills the need.

The hardest is obviously when you're going through a hard time, and have no one close to talk to. But for me, it sucks for a few days only, and then I pull myself back together and I'm fine again.

Obviously that's a very personal experience, and everyone is different, with different needs, but I guessed I'd share my vision of solo travelling

 

[Slingshot Collective]

Thanks for posting about this. I'm a member of the Slingshot and Long Haul Infoshop Collectives, and East Bay Homes Not Jails which is also a collective, but I almost always Travel alone. When I started in May of 2000, I had plans to Travel with a girlfriend, but she dumped me so I left on my own. Sometimes I Travel with others, and I've been in crews and other Collectives, but none have revolved around Traveling. I know what you mean though, I squatted with the Nomads when I first joined the Slingshot Collective, and sort of wanted to be a part of their crew as much as my own Collective!

I did try to start a Left Wing Crew in 2012 with two other Travelers, called the Crust Lords in Flagstaff. But I promptly left for Tucson to work with No More Deaths, one of my comrades left for Black Mesa to herd sheep, and the other to Cali to trim to fund a trip to Peru... so that was that! Even my first trip to southern Arizona to work with No More Deaths was supposed to be with the third Anarchist People of Color group in Chicago, which I was a core member of. In the spring of 2011, I went alone and connected with people, starting nearly four years of political involvement in Arizona. But nearly all of my comings and goings were by myself. Sometimes it's the only way it'll work. I figure I make up for it when I connect with people in towns like I am connected in the Bay Area now, and have been in Arizona and Illinois in the past. Good luck with stuff! Please keep us updated!

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

Maybe just reach for that distant horizon again?

Word, that's real. I stayed up all night the other day because the couch I've been staying on has a map of North America and I saw maritime canada - Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador - and realized that these places were quite 'off the map'. The thought of going definitely puts me in a headspace that defies my too-many-miles mindstate. The question is - does it just keep going? The world is certainly big enough...

I want to create that whether it exists or not.

Word, that's my attitude. I have the seeds of it all over the US... folks like you who are capital R "real" and are the type to hold it down. The folks who've seen some shit and walk the walk. Trouble is, they're all spread out. I'd love to gather y'all up in one spot, regroup, process the last five years together in the woods, and then decide where the tribe goes next or something like that. Biker gang? Crossing Asia on mopeds? Treehouse village in the Adirondacks? Militant squat in Queens? Buying land with student loan money and starting a massive tribal family that farms and hunts? When you get a handful of folks who are so far beyond the usual bland humans, to the point where for each individual the prospect of the group appears more promising than their solo course, that's when the magic happens. We can make it.

But I always felt like there were too few ubermen to ever band together in any tangible way. Sprinkled over the world manipulating the gene pool one good word at a time, how I looked at it. But now, now I am seeing more and more of them and it gives me some faith in our generation. Maybe we can beat the curve. Maybe we can do it, maybe leave off from that old fucked up wasteland we were brought into, leave it together.

Relevant essay I wrote last year. "My comrades, sleek rogues of absolute refusal, it is with you I ride into chemical-smog sunsets, away from the somber highway of yesterday! It is with you I will die, in freedom and in doom! Until then, to Life! Life in the Cracks!"
I bet my life we can do it. There is a deficit of enthusiasm and vigor in the industrial west - we as nomads are creators of that vigor whether we like it or not. Those times when a normal working person sees you on the street or picks you up and talks to you, you're offering them the gift of seeing that life can be lived fully and without compromise. You're giving out hope like candy and you see it in their eyes, there's a sense of wonder. This is beautiful by itself, but if we give that hope to each other, forming webs of human love that push each of us further into the vigorous life, into enthusiasm for every passing moment, could we accelerate our fulfillment beyond what would be possible alone? I think it will happen because I have the force and valor to make it happen. It is only a matter of time until that spark is felt by someone who passes close by to me and we stick together - already I have friends all over who are on the cusp.
Consider those ill fuckers who bastardized Nietzsche's work - the fascists. They knew how to wield enthusiasm and intensity, and they used it for heinous violence and vile oppression. Why do so few anarchist revolutionaries today have the same knack for generating bold enthusiasm? They are obsessed with the Christian ethic of care for the masses. Blessed are the poor in spirit - and in so doing, they become spiritually poor. They drain themselves by overextension of their will and power out into the crowds and into the future, turning themselves into Gods that fizzle out. Meanwhile, fascists cared about themselves in the present, using the sick mythology of the nation to create cultural and material power at breakneck speeds no liberal democracy ever saw. What is my point? My point is that we can do the same thing but without the slave-moral bullshit, and without the collectivism. To create a tribe of ubermen that positions themselves in the historical unfolding of aristocratic rogues - pirates, rebel slaves, nomad insurrectionists, mountain men, gangs of whores and thieves - this history and myth can create a single body that transcends us all and pushes us each to new heights. The fash thought this would happen - and that this minority was fit to rule society absolutely. Perhaps we would be, but we don't - because society doesn't concern us and we have no erotic fixation on power, unlike the fash. We are of a timeless ilk. Once we position ourselves as such, we no longer feel the disjointed feeling of a societal aberration, we become hardened by a long tradition of howling rebellion and unbreakable familial love. As I said above to hrobyn - these glowing lights of human spirit are all over the map. We simply must assemble ourselves. Many of us took to the roads and rails for lack of a better option, because it was the only reasonable path in a world of unreason, in many respects it was a reaction, and it is laced with a certain desperation - a desperation we must expel through a celebration of who we are in the great unfolding of history and culture!

Wow I'm very caffeinated. Hope that makes sense. Cheers either way

 

[SEMICHRIST]

you just told my story man. i almost choked up reading it. thanks for putting yourself out there, if only to remind me i'm not the only stranger in a strange land. let's stay in touch. i'll PM you my facebook name. if you pass thru southern oregon, hit me up.

 

[RovingGale]

I hold out hope that I'll have people who want to travel with me, but until then, I've left friends and lovers scattered through all the places I've been. Even though they're all people who are content with staying in one place for years on end, so far, it means that no matter where I go I've either got someone close by or will have someone by the time I move on. Facebook, for all the annoyances of that site, has kept me in touch with so many of the people I love, and I keep hoping that one day some of them will want to leave behind the lives of apartments and "steady" jobs and all that nonsense. Until then, I'll continue to rubbertramp on my own and I'm ok with that - it's worth bouts of loneliness and having to keep connections going because of words on a screen instead of time in person, way more worth it than any lease or "real" job ever was.

 

[Rob Nothing]

Ok. Had to take a moment and look over more of your words and thinking because I was a little taken aback at first with this response. Because I wasn't expecting a capital S for serious as I was one if you know what I mean.


Done with Life in the Cracks.. At first glance seems like a shitload of pseudo intellectual spouting.. profane, overdrawn, jumping the gun. But further reading indicates a genuine passion underneath wanting to give way to outright raving, yet does not and stays just clear of the line severing 'praxis' from theoretical fanaticism. Which is always where they go, finally. But not you. It seems these things are coming from a head that is clear and level with reality, if only too wholly engaged with these things to be at first believable. I have a tendency to laugh, because laughing is easier for one thing, but I can't laugh at you.

..Because I like this very much. You are very well read and I haven't even heard of most of these names you site, if any.

I am going to have to read Desert. Because I am immediately reminded of two of the greatest books in my early life Seven Red Sundays on syndicalist spain and Tropic of Capricorn on hating the world around you with every atom and cell of your blood and birth.

Chungmaymays signature reminds me of something else I was borrowing a little from in my previous post:

❝ Death or pleasure, flood or vomit,
autumn like the fall of the days,
volcano or sex,
puff of wind, summer that sets fire to the harvests,
stars or teeth,
petrified hair of fear,
red foam of desire, slaughter on the high seas,
blue rocks of delirium,
forms, images, bubbles, the hunger to be,
momentary eternities,
excesses: your measure of man.
Dare to do it:
be the bow and the arrow, the string and the “ay!”
Dream is explosive. Explode. Be a sun again. ❞

Octavio Paz

 

[Vulture]

I hitched a ride from a guy named Woods once and his mate. He told me of his old crew. They apparently were rambling. So it lasted a while. I think, besides incompatibility the leading cause of transience in traveling buddies/ crews is individual interests. How can you keep a crew if everyone wants to go somewhere else or get a job??
I figure get someone who doesn't need a job nor has anywhere they needto be.

 

[Rob Nothing]

@Buffalo Do you have any plans drawn out for the next 9-10 months? Where do you plan on being this year, roughly?

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

@severin I'm sticking in the northeast, working on a community factory space in western MA, learning some sailing and boat stuff, studying, and taking trips often throughout VT, ME, NH, NY, as well as nova Scotia and Newfoundland, maybe even Labrador. After that I'm not super sure - will depend on whether in that time I work up enough for a boat.

 

[Deleted member 2626]

Plan to either tramp around in my 500 dollar GMC pickup or on foot in ny and vt etc. will get to my cabin again north PA, after a few weeks of work roofing and car detailing, i always head west when on the road or tramp around south or in pa but now I really wanna some north country and moose again. i haven't been north of nyc in a couple years.
Me i travel alone and spend 85 percent of my days alone with my dog. I feel disconnected sometimes but I judge people by a strict truth. Lying doesn't really play a part in my thinking, as in relationships, so i end up people less. I'd rather be by myself than around someone I can't trust or rely on, lonely or not.