newbie hailing from Eugene

[Rayontrees]

Hiya, I'm Emmet, a 20 year old newbie who plans to travel in, oh, 6 months (?) My only travel experience is a middle school orchestra trip to Cali so you might say I'm seasoned as fuck lol. I plan to explore the west coast for a while and then high tail it east to meet up with a couple of close friends who have been poking and prodding at me to travel for years now. I planned to start traveling the instant I hit 18 but agoraphobia had other plans and I ended up shacked up in a room for 2 years. whelp, that's life.

I'm transmasc nonbinary and currently working as a dishwasher in Eugene OR to pay for top surgery but as soon as that's over with I'm hitting the road. I would love to hear from other trans/queer people or really just anyone if you have advice, stories, cautions or whatever else relating to surviving on the road as a queer person. I appear pretty feminine so I have the usual bio-women worries and on top of that I worry about coming across transphobes. In particular, I have fears about hitchhiking alone and wonder if I should find a road dog first.

Anyways, uuuuh, about me. I'm pretty artsy and spend all my free time drawing and hand-painting patches or playing music. I can kick some serious ass on the double bass but I've heard hopping trains with a double bass is a bit of a hassle so I'm teaching myself guitar so I can make that ca$h money on the road. I moved up to Alaska for 10 years, and spent a few of those years in the Alaska punk scene doing the usual stuff a 16 year old punk does, ya know, bumming cigarettes, begging for rides, and making adorably bad jackets. Now that I'm older and finally kicked my agoraphobia's ass I just wanna travel and go to shows. simple as that.

 

[roughdraft]

sounds great, enjoy, you'll find many similar folk here

this is a great place to share your art as well

 

[themoonisabuoy]

Hiya, I'm Emmet, a 20 year old newbie who plans to travel in, oh, 6 months (?) My only travel experience is a middle school orchestra trip to Cali so you might say I'm seasoned as fuck lol. I plan to explore the west coast for a while and then high tail it east to meet up with a couple of close friends who have been poking and prodding at me to travel for years now. I planned to start traveling the instant I hit 18 but agoraphobia had other plans and I ended up shacked up in a room for 2 years. whelp, that's life.

I'm transmasc nonbinary and currently working as a dishwasher in Eugene OR to pay for top surgery but as soon as that's over with I'm hitting the road. I would love to hear from other trans/queer people or really just anyone if you have advice, stories, cautions or whatever else relating to surviving on the road as a queer person. I appear pretty feminine so I have the usual bio-women worries and on top of that I worry about coming across transphobes. In particular, I have fears about hitchhiking alone and wonder if I should find a road dog first.

Anyways, uuuuh, about me. I'm pretty artsy and spend all my free time drawing and hand-painting patches or playing music. I can kick some serious ass on the double bass but I've heard hopping trains with a double bass is a bit of a hassle so I'm teaching myself guitar so I can make that ca$h money on the road. I moved up to Alaska for 10 years, and spent a few of those years in the Alaska punk scene doing the usual stuff a 16 year old punk does, ya know, bumming cigarettes, begging for rides, and making adorably bad jackets. Now that I'm older and finally kicked my agoraphobia's ass I just wanna travel and go to shows. simple as that.

Hey Emmet,

if you dont have social anxiety i suggest busking since you can play an instrument,one of my roommates in brooklyn made a decent living off of it but def takes some tough skin to handle to dickfucks. If you plan to hit the road i do suggest since you are transmasc nonbinary that you find a bud to go with you bc unfortunately theres some hateful nuggets out there,if nit,dont be discouraged,just confide in someone and make sure you check in with them,who you are with,where youre going. Since youre artsy you should set up an etsy account to sell your goods and network on twitter with your target audience i have a dear friend who is also a trans male and he makes clay tweth bead jewelery and does very well financially doing so hes also a dishwasher too,ironic enough. Trust the process,dont speed through life 😊

 

[Rayontrees]

sounds great, enjoy, you'll find many similar folk here

this is a great place to share your art as well

thanks for the response, I look forward to meeting some cool people on here

 

[Rayontrees]

Hey Emmet,

if you dont have social anxiety i suggest busking since you can play an instrument,one of my roommates in brooklyn made a decent living off of it but def takes some tough skin to handle to dickfucks. If you plan to hit the road i do suggest since you are transmasc nonbinary that you find a bud to go with you bc unfortunately theres some hateful nuggets out there,if nit,dont be discouraged,just confide in someone and make sure you check in with them,who you are with,where youre going. Since youre artsy you should set up an etsy account to sell your goods and network on twitter with your target audience i have a dear friend who is also a trans male and he makes clay tweth bead jewelery and does very well financially doing so hes also a dishwasher too,ironic enough. Trust the process,dont speed through life 😊

Hey I do have some social anxiety but I think I can jump that hurdle in order to make money, as far as I'm concerned if people don't like my music they can kindly suck it lol. A lot of people hop through Eugene so hopefully I'll find someone willing to teach me the ropes. If not I assume finding rides online is a little safer because you can chat people up, if you have any experience with that I'd love to know if that's right or not. Etsy's a great idea! I think I'll try to make some money that way before I travel. Lol nice, dishwashers unite! If he was a webpage I'd love to see his jewelry. Thanks for the kind reply

 

[Matt Derrick]

traveling will definitely help you overcome some of that. welcome to the site, let us know if you need anything

 

[Deleted member 25986]

I've been to Eugene, Oregon quite a small handful of times. Was homeless the first time I was there... Yay. Otherwise, I was able to live there for less than a month by renting a room from a woman that I met. So there's that... Don't really know if I have advice for you though. Might be the wrong person for that.

 

[Rayontrees]

traveling will definitely help you overcome some of that. welcome to the site, let us know if you need anything

That's the hope, wanna get over a lot of my issues and I think being a nomad will force me to do that, thank you, I will ask of anything comes up

 

[Rayontrees]

I've been to Eugene, Oregon quite a small handful of times. Was homeless the first time I was there... Yay. Otherwise, I was able to live there for less than a month by renting a room from a woman that I met. So there's that... Don't really know if I have advice for you though. Might be the wrong person for that.

Advice or not I still appreciate the story, I know a guy who came through Eugene recently and is just setting up a tent in someone's backyard, with permission of course! Lol. I heard being homeless in Eugene can be rough now just because the city is trying to remedy the homeless "problem" by banning travelling kiddos from bringing their dogs downtown and other shitty rules. A shame.

 

[Deleted member 25986]

Advice or not I still appreciate the story, I know a guy who came through Eugene recently and is just setting up a tent in someone's backyard, with permission of course! Lol. I heard being homeless in Eugene can be rough now just because the city is trying to remedy the homeless "problem" by banning travelling kiddos from bringing their dogs downtown and other shitty rules. A shame.

The first couple of times when I was in Eugene I was homeless... It was back in August of 2015. The only good thing to came out of it was unintentionally visiting the cougar hot springs and that was it. Every other time that I was in Eugene was in early 2017 and that didn't give me much comfort either... The year 2017 was one of the worst years of my life really... And I LOATHE how people treat homeless people in general. It pisses me the fuck off to hell and back.

The reasons why I don't really have advice is because I feel that my experiences are much different compared to what you might go through. I don't recommend traveling alone though... Never did. Doing things and sharing experiences in life and happiness is way better than doing things on your own... Which I've been force to do one to many times for my fucking liking. I seriously crave relationships with other people because no one understands the burden of my loneliness and isolation at all.

 

[themoonisabuoy]

Hey I do have some social anxiety but I think I can jump that hurdle in order to make money, as far as I'm concerned if people don't like my music they can kindly suck it lol. A lot of people hop through Eugene so hopefully I'll find someone willing to teach me the ropes. If not I assume finding rides online is a little safer because you can chat people up, if you have any experience with that I'd love to know if that's right or not. Etsy's a great idea! I think I'll try to make some money that way before I travel. Lol nice, dishwashers unite! If he was a webpage I'd love to see his jewelry. Thanks for the kind reply

Glamboyancy by Glamboyancy - https://www.etsy.com/shop/glamboyancy heres his site =)

 

[Rayontrees]

The first couple of times when I was in Eugene I was homeless... It was back in August of 2015. The only good thing to came out of it was unintentionally visiting the cougar hot springs and that was it. Every other time that I was in Eugene was in early 2017 and that didn't give me much comfort either... The year 2017 was one of the worst years of my life really... And I LOATHE how people treat homeless people in general. It pisses me the fuck off to hell and back.

The reasons why I don't really have advice is because I feel that my experiences are much different compared to what you might go through. I don't recommend traveling alone though... Never did. Doing things and sharing experiences in life and happiness is way better than doing things on your own... Which I've been force to do one to many times for my fucking liking. I seriously crave relationships with other people because no one understands the burden of my loneliness and isolation at all.

The hot springs are one of the only things I like about this area, honestly. I'm sorry you've had such a rough go of it, hopefully, things are looking up for you and you have some companions to travel with . Either way, I wish you happiness, cause everyone deserves that at the very least. I agree that people, in general, treat the homeless like shit, I've heard too many (mostly well-to-do white middle classers) complain that homeless people are even in their presence. As if not having a roof over your head means you don't deserve the same respect as everyone else.Like the right to just, ya know, be in public.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna find my tribe before I attempt anything alone, god knows I've spent way too much some being alone and the last thing I wanna do is continue my lonesome streak but on the streets. I'm lucky to have to friends who are experienced at this shit but they're on the East Coast so I'm likely gonna have to ask around and get help traveling across the US before I can even meet up.

 

[Rayontrees]

Glamboyancy by Glamboyancy - https://www.etsy.com/shop/glamboyancy heres his site =)

WOAH his stuff is seriously cool, looks like I know where my next paycheck is going lol

 

[Deleted member 25986]

The hot springs are one of the only things I like about this area, honestly. I'm sorry you've had such a rough go of it, hopefully, things are looking up for you and you have some companions to travel with . Either way, I wish you happiness, cause everyone deserves that at the very least. I agree that people, in general, treat the homeless like shit, I've heard too many (mostly well-to-do white middle classers) complain that homeless people are even in their presence. As if not having a roof over your head means you don't deserve the same respect as everyone else.Like the right to just, ya know, be in public.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna find my tribe before I attempt anything alone, god knows I've spent way too much some being alone and the last thing I wanna do is continue my lonesome streak but on the streets. I'm lucky to have to friends who are experienced at this shit but they're on the East Coast so I'm likely gonna have to ask around and get help traveling across the US before I can even meet up.

Yeah. The hot springs were decent... Things are not really looking up for me though. Not really... I still don't have anyone to travel with or anything. But thanks... I've been homeless here and there and I've been treated like shit but to be fair I'm treated like shit in general no matter what it seems like... Real fucking shame. You should look up a guy on YouTube. He does videos on the homeless. His channel is called "Invisible People". They're quite good.

Seems like you and I are in the same boat though. I don't really want to attempt to do anything on my own again for obvious reasons. I've been alone for far too long and I'm just sick of it. At least you have friends on the East Coast. That's good. It's more than me. I guess we'll see what happens...

 

[Rayontrees]

Yeah. The hot springs were decent... Things are not really looking up for me though. Not really... I still don't have anyone to travel with or anything. But thanks... I've been homeless here and there and I've been treated like shit but to be fair I'm treated like shit in general no matter what it seems like... Real fucking shame. You should look up a guy on YouTube. He does videos on the homeless. His channel is called "Invisible People". They're quite good.

Seems like you and I are in the same boat though. I don't really want to attempt to do anything on my own again for obvious reasons. I've been alone for far too long and I'm just sick of it. At least you have friends on the East Coast. That's good. It's more than me. I guess we'll see what happens...

I wish you luck in finding somebody, or even just a good doggo to keep you company. I'll check that channel out sounds interesting . Yeah we are on the same boat it seems, might as well suffer together, aye? Makes it a little less horrible. If you ever end up in the area again I can't for sure promise you a place to stay but I can promise you company

 

[Deleted member 25986]

I wish you luck in finding somebody, or even just a good doggo to keep you company. I'll check that channel out sounds interesting . Yeah we are on the same boat it seems, might as well suffer together, aye? Makes it a little less horrible. If you ever end up in the area again I can't for sure promise you a place to stay but I can promise you company

Yeah... I'm so sick of looking for someone or anyone... And okay... I don't know though if I will be in your area anytime soon again... I don't really want to go anywhere again until I find some people... Even though I do have the means of leaving here I'm NOT going to do what I did when I traveled the states for over two years. It stop working out for a reason and I want a better way of traveling and not by myself anymore.